Watercolor lessons, quotations for life

Frank Francese's brilliant watercolors, photo taken at OKC workshop

I'm convinced lessons on art apply to life, and Frank Francese's watercolor workshop was more proof in four days at IAO, part of my "art month." Here are some vibrant paintings and colors I saw, and vibrant thoughts I heard, from a great painter and teacher. Frank's website

Here's some of what he said:

"Use any color you want."

"If you draw every day, it'll improve your painting"

"If you don't draw a value sketch, you don't know how to finish a painting."

"Keep it simple and direct."

"Don't finish every area. A painting is like a symphony with highs and lows."

"Think in shapes, not lines"

"You can't have light if you don't have darks."

"Use big brushes."

"The first application of color is the best."
"A lot has to go right to make a good painting."

"If you over plan, you plan to fail. If you don't plan, you will fail."

"A line locks you into the shape." 

"The only way to get rich color is put the color on wet and wait on the paper."

"If someone says you can't do it, try it."

Workshop photo of one of Frank's brilliant paintings

"Do what you want to do. It's not life or death. Have fun."

"Leave the edges vague to draw the viewers' eye into the painting."

"You really never know what's going to happen in watercolor. You can predict some, not not all."

"Saying less lets you say more."

"Cows are like cars and people. They come in all shapes. and sizes."

"People are just shapes. They're carrots." "Paint the gesture of the body. Put the head on last."

"Have fun with people."

"When in doubt, leave it alone."

Drop some color in just to see what it will do.

"What happens in the foreground dictates what happens in the middle ground."

"Paintings don't have to make sense. They just have to look good."

"Let the brush do the work for you."

"If you have an idea you want to try, try it."

"Don't get too painterly. Get in and go."

"It's a difficult workshop. "

"You don't learn, unless it's difficult."

Mirror image of Frank finishing a workshop masterpiece as we watched in admiration

Finding the drama--taking a trip workshop--III

Here is a version of the finding the drama workshop page for my workshop session for the Oklahoma City Writers group at Full Circle Bookstore.

GOING FOR THE DRAMA

(Grabbing the Reader)

Your job—find the drama, organize it. Most written drama uses action words, short words, short paragraphs, to make the reader wonder what’s next, to think “Huh?”

How do I find drama? 

• Sense of mystery
• Mystery pronouns and nouns
• Conflict
• Raises questions
• Contrasts
• Twists
• Missing facts
• Specific details
• Unexplained responses
• Ominous detail

Organizing for drama--Storyboarding

Write this sentence before you write anything else:

“This is a story about ___________________________________________________

and it’s interesting because___________________________________________”

• What makes it interesting? Is that not the drama?
• Select the main scenes of your story (think of a TV commercial or movie)
• Hinge your scenes on events (things that happen—verbs)
• Scenes usually have action, characters and setting
• List scenes in sequence
• Choose most dramatic as first scene
• What is last scene?
• Always second guess

Tell me a story

• Remember a trip you’ve taken
• List, briefly, WWWWWH
• Draw a map, where you started, where you ended
• List three things that happened at separate places
• Label them A,B,C and place on the map
• What’s the most interesting scene?
• Why? (This is a story about and it’s interesting because__________)
• Describe the scene in one sentence.
• What are key verbs?
• Write one first sentence to grab my attention—20 words maximum

The writer’s first commandment

“Tell me a story; make it interesting.”

A watercolor artist's vibrant lessons

One of Frank Francese's vibrant watercolors.

Earlier this month, I enjoyed  a four-day watercolor workshop with Frank Francese  http://www.ffrancese.com/ (Click on his website. You'll be astounded.) at the IAO gallery on Sheridan here, courtesy the Oklahoma Art Guild. http://iaogallery.org/wordpress/ 

Frank at work 

Frank, who lives in Grand Junction, Colorado,  is internationally known for his vibrant painting style. I wanted to attend one of his workshops a year ago, but it was out of state and the travel would have been expensive. This one cost a little over $300 and there were only 11 of us enrolled, so it was informal and fun. I'm fascinated by how people create, and am always interested in how writers write, and how painters paint. There's so much to be learned.
He has a unique style. He draws sketches of all kinds of land-, sea- and city-scapes. Then he uses black and gray pens to turn them into value studies.  When he paints, he makes no  pencil marks on the paper, but paints from the value sketches, choosing the colors he wants to use.

The mirror image of Frank painting Paseo

Every way he did two demos, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. He painted beneath a mirror, so we could see what he was doing. I sat on the end of the aisle near the front, so I could stand up and take photos from all angles. Then we painted from copies of the same value sketches, and except on two complicated ones, we didn't draw on the appear. He was using full sheets and we used quartersheets. What a challenge. Then we had critiques.

What I appreciate most about his painting is the ample use of the white paper (remember, no white paint in transparent watercolor--if you don't plan for the white, you won't have it). his vivid colors, and uses of shadow and contrast. What I appreciate about his teaching, is that no matter how poor my painting was, he found something good to say about it first, and then made suggestions. 

Alas, the only finished painting shot I got was the mirror image. But Wow!

I get more than just watercolor lessons from such a workshop. I'm always paying attention to how someone teaches. I'm having fun. And I've found over and over again, that lessons from watercolor can also be life lessons.

If you're interested in watching Frank paint, here's a 30 second video of him working on that painting. 

Going for the drama, brevity in writing-I

"Lose the drama" says a little plaque in my daughter's house, directed at the kids.
Good advice in relationships, but not in writing.
So tomorrow, I'll go for drama, when I speak to the Oklahoma City Writers group at Full Circle Bookstore, conducting a workshop on "Going for the Drama."
My experience as a journalist, and in teaching various writing class at UCO and for OPA has focused my attention on the need for drama in all writing.
I think the writer's first commandment is to be interesting, and to do that you have to grab your readers' attentions. It's even more important now than before because in the digital age, all our attention spans are melting faster than ice on a hot Oklahoma August day.
So what's on tap for tomorrow?

I'll recommend a book, but it's not a text book. It's Several Short Sentences about Writing by Verlyn Klinkenborg, a former columnist "The Rural Life" for the New York Times. I required it of my students this year, and they loved it. How could you know, when he tells you to "forget everything you've learned about writing."
The book is full of short sentences and advice about improving your writing. He'll jog you. How about: "How long is a good idea?"  It's ironic in these days of melting attention spans that wordiness in all media, in government, in higher education, is growing faster than fungus on spoiled fruit on a hot Oklahoma day.
That's why I'll recommend the book because brevity is essential to drama, and good writing.
And since Shakespeare had it right, "Brevity is the soul of wit," that tells you something about the witless wonders in cable TV, in sports broadcasters, in government and higher ed administrators who wouldn't know a simple sentence if they saw one. The only exception I know is the Spurs' coach Gregg Popovich.
There's more to say about my workshop, but in the interest of keeping this short, that's all for this post.

Going for the drama, in writing-- II

"Get to the point," I often irritate friends who get a little long-winded in telling a story.
What I'm really saying is, "Go for the drama."
Here is a version of the first  page of handouts for my workshop session for the Oklahoma City Writers group at Full Circle Bookstore.

Consider these first lines of novels:

• It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.
• Call me Ishmael.
• It was a bright cold day, and the clocks were striking thirteen.
• All children, except one, grow up.
• Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins.
• It was inevitable; the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love.
• Elmer Gantry was drunk.
• A green hunting camp squeezed on top of a fleshy balloon of a head.
• The last camel collapsed at noon. 

       They all grab your attention, and make you want to keep reading. Quiz--Do you know the authors? Answers at bottom.

In the beginning

“En el Principio, era el Verbo, y el Verbo era con Dios, y el Verbo era Dios.” San Juan 1:1

      “In the beginning was The Verb, and the Verb was with God and The Verb was God”

 “…le mot, c’est le Verb, et le Verb c’est Dios.” Victor Hugo

     “The word is the verb, and the verb is God.”

“No verb, no story, no drama.” Terry Clark

• My students know I am a verb nut. Much of modern writing is guilty of "verbicide." If you want drama, you have to be a verbaholic.  
• The most important words in a sentence are the verbs. Without verbs, nouns and adverbs and adjectives sit like empty boxcars on a siding, going nowhere, without a locomotive. Without them, nothing happens. They are action keys to getting to the point quickly, to grabbing and keeping readers’ attention.
• Theology on John 1:1. The Word (English translation), is really Verb. The Verb is the incarnate Christ, but in the beginning was the force and the power of creation. In sentences and storytelling, the verb is the power and force of creation.

First sentences

The most important sentences you will write in a story?

The first ones.

Why?

What is the purpose of writing? To be read.

If you don’t catch your readers’ attention, you’re wasting your time.

Best test for effective first sentences: “Will I keep reading?”

It’s called, “Going for the drama.”

Examples

from my former students' stories and one I did for Oklahoma Today magazine on weekly newspapers:

• “The sergeant fumbles with one hand to unbutton his fly.”
• “Every Tuesday at one p.m., a silver-haired woman in her eighties centers the Sayre Record and plunks down seventy-five pennies for the latest news.”
• “’I want to study people with the flesh on,’ she says.”
• “The long, thin fingers of a frustrated pianist work the control board switches as her melodic voice interrupts the airwaves.
• “The sergeant fumbles with one hand to unbutton his fly.”

In keeping with brevity, this is the end of this post. The second workshop handout follows.

• Answers to authors--Charles Dickens-A Tale of Two Cities, Herman Melville-Moby Dick, George Orwell-1984, J.M. Barrie-Peter Pan,  VladmirNobokov-Lolita, Gabriel Garcia Marquez--Love in the Time of Cholera, Sinclair Lewis-Elmer Gantry, John Kennedy Toole--A Confederacy of Dunces, Ken Follett--The Key to Rebecca.

Colors, "Renaissance"

"The Colors of Renaissance," 10" x 14" watercolor, 140 lb. d'Arches cold press paper

"Renaissance." Much is made of that word in OKC these recent years, as the city has emerged from the doldrums of mediocrity. It is perhaps overused, a little snobby, and blind to the poverty and social diseases infecting the rest of Oklahoma.
But there has been a rebirth of energy and spirit, to where OKC has almost become a city state.
One symbol looms over everything, including the skyline--the Devon tower. It is a constant subject of paintings and photographs.
I guess I had to join the crowd, but was stymied by the need to be somewhat original. It's finally come together in this painting, my first in over a month, as is this post on my blog.
During that time I've been digesting a creative-bending watercolor workshop, trying to meld what I learned with my painting abilities. 
The painting grew in stages. First, I noticed there were not northerly views of the skyline, something I see silhouetted when I drive south of Broadway Extension. Then I had to experiment with photography and composition. Then with color, and failed attempts. Eventually, the skyline and colors came together, but it sat for more days till I fit the sky to the feeling of the rest of the subject.
So this is also a renaissance of watercolor for me, though there is much more to learn and try and fail and succeed.
Thus, "The Colors of Renaissance," which is not architecturally accurate,  not constrained by chamber of commerce sugar sweet PR demands, and hints at the darkness we all know is still there.

Freedom, failure--turning pages in January

Freedom--two books this month, about different kinds of freedom.


Hillerman country...if you're from New Mexico, or Oklahoma, I suspect you've read a lot of Tony Hillerman, his mystery novels of the Navajo Nation. I've got lots of first editions and a few signed ones. 
But  I found two I hadn't read, that are broader in interest in case you don't have the passion for New Mexico I have. I've finished them both since ordering them very late late last year.
I've already commented, about his memoirs Seldom Disappointed.


Just finished Finding Moon, set at the very violent end of the Vietnam war about a "mediocre editor at a mediocre newspaper" in Colorado, who goes searching for his death brother's child in SE Asia and finds freedom from self and the past and for others. Hillerman mentioned this novel in Seldom Disappointed. (Lots of terminology and narrative about the rigors of putting out a newspaper to spice it up for you journalists).

 Great line from the master storyteller and descriptor from the book: 
"Beyond her in the clearing skies beyond the skeletons of the murdered trees along the riverbank, the moon was rising."

 BTW, you can find these books on abe.com--an "aggregator" of used book stores and offerings you don't want to miss.


The second book is by Mel Stabin, renowned watercolor artist--Watercolor--Simple, Fast and Focused--about a different kind of freedom, the freedom to create and not control. http://www.melstabin.com/

My watercolors are stuck. I'm not growing as an artist. Most of that is my fault for not painting enough, but I need help--since I didn't go to art school, I've had to improvise my own, and there's not been much lately.


So I started looking at summer workshops to attend. I need to get outside of my comfort zone, so an art trip to New Mexico probably isn't the answer. I started searching, first at Cheap Joe's cheapjoes.com  in North Carolina. Joe is my kind of guy. Quit pharmacy in mid-life and now runs a huge supply store for art, and he's a terrific watercolor artist. But none of the workshops I'm interested in fit my schedule (late July, very early August).


I kept looking and found some up on the coast of Maine, and one in upstate New York, one taught by Stabin. He's also my kind of guy--mixing a career as an advertising art director in NYC with his painting. So I bought his book--also from abe.com, and already have ideas.

I particularly liked one sentence of his book--"If my watercolors are more successful than yours, it is because I have failed more often than you have."


Not quite true, since there are so many degrees of talent--but the lesson I even preach to my writing students. But if there's anything I as  "seasoned" type-AAA Capricorn needs, it's direction into what I love about watercolor...the freedom and lack of control that keeps me humble and allows me to paint great skies.  I've already taken his advice on big brushes trying to paint the picture at the top of this blog of moonset--and failed twice. I will keep trying.


And I'm trying to figure out how to afford the week-long workshop of Stabin's this summer.
The pages keep turning.

Painting to learn, not to hang

"Sunset at Ranchos," 8 x 10 oil

Maybe it'll look better in a frame.
After weeks of 'learning" a lot about oil painting, I think this small piece, which is large in learning, is "finished."
Whew. It's taken me a few steps at a time, filled with  lots of paint mixing, lots of "piddling," lots of patience, on the back porch. 
First steps were the easiest, getting the basic shapes and shadows, but then came the ordeals of trying to make it look like the image in my head.
Virtually every artist who has come to New Mexico has painted, typically  horizontally,  the iconic church at Ranchos de Taos, usually from the graceful, sensuous adobe buttresses at the rear.  Georgia O'Keefe did, My Dad did. I have, mostly watercolor, and can probably do so from memory.
But this as an 8 x 10 on canvas panel was not exactly an ordeal, but certainly at lot of work, thinking, and revising. That means I'm learning, I hope,  but it may also mean I've learned that oils was just not for me.
"Paint to learn, not to hang," said G. Russell Case, the terrific Western landscape painter who conducted the oil workshop at the Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum June.  
Maybe it'll look better in a frame. But I still see flaws, beginner's flaws. We'll see. I'll hang in in the room where I paint as a lesson in how much I don't know.

"What do you teach?"--An itinerary of years and courses--III

1990--Journalism--the late Woody Gaddis, Lu Hollander, Nancy Brown, Ginny Dodson, Susan Gonders, Dennie Hall.

 Front--Mark Hanebutt, me, the late Charles Simmons. 

Journalism Department, Central State University--August, 1990.

Editing, press theory, feature writing. Rooms 212, 210, 214, communications building. From 10 to 15 students each, I think. Those were my first classes.
My office as new chair had a divider for an adjunct, which I tore out with a hammer. I was one of five full-time faculty--one with release time to advise The Vista, with two adjuncts, and two secretaries, one for The Vista and another splitting duties with the yearbook, The Bronze  Book. We had three classrooms and a dingy, moldy darkroom in the basement, plus The Vista offices in 107, and the Bronze Book behind that.  There was one computer in the department.
The rest of the building included the Communication , department (broadcast, speech and debate) which had the same enrollment as ours but more faculty members and more classrooms, the university public relations offices (where our darkroom is now), the university photographer, KCSC, and  the technology/visual offices where offices are now.

Journalism--late 1990s.

I considered my job as chair to teach, and to grow a department so that our students had equal treatment. I'm fortunate to have helped that come to pass over the years.
Other duties which reduced my actual in-class teaching load from three to then two a semester, plus summers, included 19 years as chair of the Journalism Department and then the merged Mass Communication departments--a fight that took me five years; internship director for several years; yearbook director, interim Vista adviser one summer; and directing the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame, now my 20th year.
In the early years, I'm relying on memory, but since 2002 the record is on university computers, so I'm guessing there are about 42-45 different courses at what is now UCO. 
My early mainstays were editing(pre-computer)  and feature writing (last taught in 2o14). Since 2010 blogging for journalists is every semester, and since spring 2013 I've taught 10 intersession twitter for media classes.
More important to me in the roughly 80 semesters I've been a professor, are I'm guessing about 4,000-4,500 students I've been privileged to have in class, many of whom have become good friends and professional colleagues.

#clarkclass, most recent twitter class,  me at left,

After 27 years, it's much different, and as I started counting semesters and different courses taught, I realized there are no photographs of me actually teaching. But there are a  few group shots, mug shots reflecting my aging, and photos with award-winning and favorite students or many at graduation--which is more appropriate. I have several of those, but there are too many to single out one or two here.
The different classes, noting that many have been conducted (I like that better than "taught") repeatedly:

• Fall, 1990-- Editing, press theory, feature writing. 
• 1991-1999--Basic photography, reporting, editorial writing, advanced editing, introduction to advertising, community journalism, journalism of Will Rogers, photo essay, journalism of Larry McMurtry (trip to Archer City bookstore), victims and the media, journalism ethics, newspaper journalism, advanced feature writing, internships, Bronze Book director.
• 2000--Oklahoma centennial journalism, New Mexico study tours, cowboy journalism (Fort Worth train trip), senior workshop, media writing, the press in film,  (Co-taught with Dr. James Baker of history--Vietnam and the press, war generations-WWII and 'Nam,  America's 21st Century wars), 21st Century media leadership, photo essay documentary, Vista adviser, blogging and the media, international media, twitter for. media, history of journalism.

 

Mass Communication, 2016-2017

All mixed up--Learning the hard way with oil

When you paint, you mix colors. I learned that in watercolor long ago--a few colors give you a varied spectrum.
But undertaking--or trying to undertake--oils has been learning the hard way all over again. At the recent oil painting workshop at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, landscape artist G. Russell Case told us he'd prefer to have us spend most of our time just mixing paint.
After today, trying to take the next steps in an 8 x 10 painting of the church of St. Francis in Ranchos de Taos, N. M.,  I wish he had done it.
Last week I managed to sketch in the outline of the building. Piece of cake--red oxide faintly applied. 

Today, I undertook the next phases. Color triad for harmony in mixing and results: Red-Orange, Blue Green, Red.
1. Start with the darkest. Done. Junipers.
2. Move to the next darkest.
I was pleased with one part of the process today--painting the low wall in the foreground. The shadow by the door was too dark.
3. Since then, darker to lighter and scrumbling a rough in the sky to get rid of the whites, I ended up a little pleased, but seeing all kinds of problems for later corrections.

4. The further I went, missing colors, trying to get the light right, the more eventual adjustments I saw. Translated--I was making too many brush strokes, and the near wall is way too dark.
5. Now the paint is wet, so it must dry as I nurse my frustration, and think about it.
6. All mixed up indeed. Learned--new respect for my artist Dad, Terrence Miller Clark, and his talent in oil painting.
7. More paint to mix--later this week.

The Colors of Western Skies

"Western Skies, " 8 x 10 acrylic on canvas panel, palette knives, brushes

"I love mixing paint," I told a friend recently.

Long ago in my first watercolor class, one of the first lessons was that you don't need many colors, that you can mix the ones you need.

Then an artist in an oil painting workshop I attended said he could have entire lessons on mixing colors.

When I started trying to teach myself acrylics, mixing colors became essential, but there was a difference--palette knives.

I've always admired palette knife paintings, but picking one up and mixing colors became a new tactile experience. You can get lost in trying to get the colors you want, and feel for a painting, even before touching the canvas..

Just as when you're painting, the rest of the world goes away. These are problems to be solved, to my satisfaction.

Those a some of the stories behind this painting, trying to capture the mood of the skies in my beloved Southwest. And then, something else happened  that I didn't intend, but came from mixing colors because you never know exactly what you'll get. . As with previous paintings, I ended up using complementary colors, emphasizing opposites--yellows and purples, blues and oranges.

This has resulted in brighter colors and contrasts, and will also influence my future watercolors as well. No wonder I love mixing colors.  

22 or so favorite blog postings of 2013

Roads traveled in 2013 on Coffee with Clark--this one in New Mexico

Roads traveled in 2013--Looking back, here are my 22 favorite blog postings from this year and their links, if you'd care to look by clicking on them.

• December--Probably the best writing I've done this year, was this week, "Mortality on my mind." Probably the most fun, were all the little Christmas cards I did leading up 12 days before Christmas, culminating with Silent Night
• November--Four stand out. Story of son Travis' birth, Friday night 44 years ago ; story of daughter Dallas' birth, Third time's a charm ; My heritage of veterans ; Thoughts on JFK assassination, When the world was young
• October--You can't trust science
• September--Several posts of my Back roads journal in New Mexico, a solo journey into myself (Which is where the photo at the top of this blog came from, and I haven't changed it since); (Missing--I know I wrote about youngest son Derrick's birth, but can't find it); Geezer meeting the Google Glass
• August--Oklahoma's western art museums, where you can Breathe the West ; Twittering about journalism
• July--First born son Vance's birth ; Story about a pioneer graveyard and infant graves; Several posts from early July about the 150 year anniversary of Gettysburg
• June--Watercolor workshop in OKC, lessons and life,
• May--Coffee with Clark's fifth birthday;  Memorial day and the veteran I knew best; We adopted cats, so here are lessons  and a rap from the cat box 
• April--Painting a castle with my granddaughter Katherine, on  my  March trip to Germany. 
• March--Easter and I wonder if Jesus would go to church 
• February--Ghosts and learning about my Dad in the Depression from new emails
• January--Pixels and thoughts about newspapers.

A better bucket--vivid watercolor lessons

A better bucket

One of the lessons that is finally soaking into my painting life, and I hope my life this year--is to be more vivid.
I should have learned that from Frank Francese's watercolor workshop here last June, and indeed it helped some.
But when I was posting paintings of December Christmas cards, and most recently, the bucket for the bucket list article yesterday, I've found myself computer-enhancing the paintings, which makes them more vivid. I tried it on the bucket, and then decided to just use the original.
But then I painted a better bucket...much more vivid. This one is not computer-enhanced. 
Watercolor tends to "dry down" and lose some color,  and my landscapes tend to be earthen colored, because of growing up in New Mexico. I try to achieve impact with contrast, but it's time to change.
Here's to a vivid year.

Ghost Ranch and the Faraway Nearby

I had this article in today's Oklahoma Gazette. Can't wait to meet his photographer. Many of my stuents are coming too.

“It’s a seductive and powerful landscape, with a beguiling charm that didn’t want to let me go,” said the Santa Fe photographer of the legendary Ghost Ranch landscapes in New Mexico.

Oklahomans can share that experience when Craig Varjabedian’s exhibition of 69 large black and white images of the dramatic Georgia O’Keefe country opens Friday, Sept. 23 at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.

Varjabedian is widely acclaimed for his images capturing the American West, taken over a photographic career of more than 35 years. The show features photos found in his Wrangler Award-winning companion book to the exhibition, Ghost Ranch and the Faraway Nearby.

Why black and white when the landscape is renowned for its vibrant colors? “The place is much more subtle than just the colors,” he said. “I’m looking for things that are authentic.”

 “The world as I look at it is black and white,” Varjabedian said of capturing the mystique and beauty there. He had been visiting Ghost Ranch for about 10 years before he could take more than “just pretty pictures.”

“It took me a long time to figure out how to photograph that place. I became aware of the light—and that’s why black and white is so critical to what I wanted to do—it’s the light,” he said.

Varjabedian printed most of the 24-inch wide silver pints in his own darkroom, but had negatives scanned and digitally reproduced for about a dozen 30” by 40” “anchor” photos for the exhibition, he said.

“I work really hard in the darkroom to get the feeling I had at the moment I clicked the shutter, he said. “I hope the show allows people to join me in my experience, and also, that they might open doors to their own experiences.”

The exhibit, free and open to the public, will open at 4:30 p.m. with a reception followed by a book signing at 6:30. The show will be on display through Jan. 8, 2012.

Varjabedian will return Oct. 14-16 for a three-day photographic workshop that will include shooting at the Museum, the Clydesdale horses at Express Ranches, and historic Fort Reno.

“This is another way to reach out and get people to make their own images,” he said.

Steps to a foggy morning

"Foggy morning," watercolor, 7" x 10"

The view from my window where I paint...

... at least in my imagination today. There's a single pine tree I can see the edge of in the neighbor's yard and bare branches everywhere. Fog just demands photography or painting or poetry, perchance? The grays, the mysteries, the moods, the silence, the romance, the softening of details all provoke the imagination and memories. Friend and photographer Zach Nash caught the magic of fog in downtown Oklahoma City on his fantastic blog earlier this week:

http://zachnash.com/blog/

Now that I think about it, I'm reminded of Carl Sandburg's poem, "Fog":

The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

Today's fog has moved on, and the sun is casting shadows of the bare branches, and adding color to the world.

But if it weren't for the fog, I wouldn't have painted this morning. This is the first painting I'm really pleased about since my birthday. It incorporates much of what I've learned from Cletus Smith and experience over the past few years. I just realized that included is my iconic--yes, perhaps trademark--cabin and retreat in the silent wilderness of forest and mountains (yes, you can barely see the mountains in the background because of the fog).

Steps to a foggy morning:

Step one--outline sketch of main elements, including closest trees... a few lines only of diagonals, thinking where to put cabin and main trees. Then use soft eraser to almost erase the marks so they don't show up through the paint--which is transparent. Step two--Using a wide brush with lots of water apply soft gray wash over entire sheet. Let dry. Stronger gray wash from top of mountains down to where water and corner triangle are. Let dry. Step three--use slightly dam brush to lift out lighter areas for the cabin and trunks so they will show up against deeper gray.

Step four--use a darker gray, with bare hint of Umber to paint in distant trees behind house and across the paper. Note: throughout the painting, if anything is too intense, I used a wad of toilet paper (unused ;-0 ) to blot and soften the lines to keep the fog effect. Step five--I use a narrow brush, called a rigger, to add distant, vague trees, just a few lines, including a couple in front of where cabin will be. Step six--start working on closer trees with a slightly larger brush and just a little darker gray--including the trees whose trunks I'd lifted out against the gray earlier. Shifting back to the rigger, continue the bare branches in random movements into the sky, getting smaller and fainter.

Step seven--start work on the two closest trees, making them darker where needed for contrast against background , using a little more burnt umber to make them warmer and appear closer. Leave blank spots where the pine needles can overlap. Let dry. Step eight--While that's drying, use a few brush strokes of burnt umber and burnt sienna with a touch of sap green to paint the ground in the foreground, making it warmer so it appears to be closer, and leaving some light areas to indicate uneven forest floor. I added a few strokes to indicte a few blades of grass, including two protruding into the lake, which were just taking the end of the brush handle to scrape the wet paint, moving upward quickly.Step nine--work on the shore line, especially the dark area behind the two main trees, making it darker to push the trees forward. Then add some slight strokes of faint paint on the rest of the ground to indicate slope. Step ten--wet a brush with Raw umber, and splatter small dots of the paint onto the front triangle to add texture to the ground, and blurred with my fingers. Step eleven--mix Sap green, Ultramarine blue and a littleIndigo to start painting the pine needles and branches. I put them in faintly at first because I was afraid I'd ruin the painting. If it didn't work, I could blot them out and just make it a bare-branched tree. Then I added color and contrast a little at a time to the needles. Step twelve--Using Raw sienna I painted the walls of the cabin, and using a little Alarizin crimson mixed with other stuff on the palette to gray it down, I added the roof...blotting several times to soften it. Using a rigger I added dots for the door and windows. The roof is supposed to be a rusted tin roof, and by having a hint of red, it grabs your eye to offset the strong pine tree. Red has the longest wave length of color light, so that's why we see it first, and it serves as a center of focus.

Step thirteen--I wet the lake area with clear water, and added some gray-blue the area closest to the bottom to give depth (no pun intended) to the foreground, with a couple of stokes closer to land to indicate still water. Then with a rigger and gray paint, I added the reflections of the two trees, making sure to soften the edges.

Step fourteen--Final stages: I took some indigo and darkened the pine tree trunk and branches under the leaves, and then a little stronger brown gray to strengthen the brush and trees behind the cabin and other closer trunks to make them come forward. I darkened a few of the closer branches. The process includes several trips to the mirror to judge its progress. Then I signed it.

My palette--15" x 10" plastic John Pike. The paint comes in tubes like oils, and then mixed in the large middle area.. Colors used in this painting--Raw umber, Burnt umber, Burnt sienna,Raw sienna, Alarizin crimson, sap green, Indigo and Ultramarine blue. I probalby use more Ultramarine than any other color. All gray is a mix of the blue and umbers. It's all an illusion of 3-D on a flat piece of paper. And it's fun when it goes right. The key is composition, contrast, and being willing to mess with reality.

Other colors include Gamboge hue (a yellow), Cadmium orange, Lemon yellow, Thalo green, Cadmium red, Thalo red, sometimes Cobalt blue, Payne's gray. I have other colors in tubes--Scarlet Lake, Turquoise, Cerulean blue--and others but rarely use them.

I learned all this from Cletus, a talented artist whose watercolors take my breath away. He's a good friend with a great sense of humor, and an excellent teacher. Most watercolor artists use very few colors because they can mix almost anything with those few. And as the famous watercolor artist Ron Ranson told me at a workshop in New Mexico two years ago--he only uses about seven colors--"These are my friends. I know what they'll do."

I've never gone through this progress before...interesting what an old dog can learn, isn't it?
I hope you've enjoyed this. I've learned from writing it.