Ars Longa Vita Brevis

Adventures in Art Instruction -- Watercolor Live

In late January I attended for the first time an online event for watercolor artists called Watercolor Live. This was four days of watching well-known watercolorists do their thing - live videos from eight am to six pm each day with few breaks. I watched, took notes, and drank from the firehose. But I was not alone -- there were some 2,000 attendees from every state in the union and around the world. I guess some brilliant souls painted along, but I found it impossible to do that and also absorb the demo. We had a week to watch replays, so I worked through several exercises that way. 

One particularly valuable exercise was a riverscape demo by Yong Hong Zhong - What I liked about this was seeing how he painted rocks under water, something one often has occasion to do in Maine. Very useful. 

Another was a seascape of South Bend, Washington. The artist was Iain Stewart.  At first I wasn't crazy about the purplish rocks/mudflats in foreground but looking later at the yellow-green and dull red-violet palette, as well as the general composition, I found it a pleasing effect. The possibilities of purple.  Stewart said several times that relative values were far more important than individual colors. 

Adventures in Application - the Palette knife

Stewart also shared a technique using his palette knife for some of the verticals near the boat in the South Bend picture. I didn't have one when I did the exerciseis, so I improvised and then ordered one online. It arrived just last week, so I put it to work in a little sketchbook exercise (photo at top of this blogpost). The idea here was to practice painting subtly gradated washes and then use the palette knife for the island and foreground rocks. The subject came from a walk along the cliffs of San Clemente, with lots of gulls wheeling in grayish, misty light and Catalina Island visible in the distance. The sketch also reminded me of a favorite poem, "To an Isle in the Water", by William Butler Yeats

Shy one, shy one,

Shy one of my heart,

She moves in the firelight

Pensively apart.

She carries in the dishes,

And lays them in a row.

To an isle in the water

With her would I go.

She carries in the candles,

And lights the curtained room,

Shy in the doorway

And shy in the gloom;

And shy as a rabbit,

Helpful and shy.

To an isle in the water

With her would I fly.

Adventures in Video

One of my resolutions for 2023 is to learn more about making art videos.  I thought I would start out with something relatively simple, like a cloudy sky.  That would have been wise but, not being wise, I attempted a video of me doing an entire painting.  It took ages to cut, splice, speed up, and add subtitles, transitions, and music.  I finally got it done, though, and have posted it to my website.  So if you have six minutes to spare, you can watch me paint "Behind the Red Barn” at https://www.daviddpearce.com/video 

Meanwhile In San Clemente

If you're in southern California, I have two paintings on display at the San Clemente Art Gallery (SCAA) from February 19 to March 31. One is "All in", my rendition of an elderly couple leaning on each other as they approach the old Casino in San Clemente . The other SCAA painting is "Mission San Fernando Rey de Espana", a lovely, peaceful site in Mission Hills, California, just north of Los Angeles on California's Mission Trail. They are both in the California collection on my website here.

And in Freeport

And if you're in Maine, I have five paintings at the Thos. Moser gallery and showroom in Freeport. One is my second rendition of the town landing in Falmouth. Another is a small painting of a sumac bush near the bridge between Cousins and Littlejohn islands in Yarmouth. A third is a fairly large painting of one of my favorite places - Half-Mile Beach at Reid State Park, where the endangered Piping Plovers nest. A fourth is a piece called called Shorecaster, which is less about the man fishing in the foreground than my interest in painting the Wyman Power Station on Cousins Island, the most conspicuous, if least lovely, landmark in Casco Bay. Finally, there is "Red Camp", a colorful autumn foliage scene that I did to capture some remarkably beautiful reflections I happened upon during a solo boat ride on Long Lake. All five can all be viewed in the Maine collection on my website here

Prints

An economical way to get into art collecting is through prints. I have two fine art prints sites: www.geogalleries.com/ddpearcefineart

and https://www.etsy.com/shop/DDPearceFineArt

At the Geo Galleries site, there is a fairly broad selection, including options for framed pieces, but shipping is extra. Etsy is a newer site with fewer prints on offer at the moment, but the shipping is free. If you do visit Etsy, whether or not you end up buying a print, please "favorite" the shop.