It's been too long

I've been wanting to write, but too busy. I'm still integrating this into my life. I met with Jane, Friday. She's the young Asian woman I've ben mentioning. It was so great to have someone to talk art with. Talk colors, philosophies plans, ideas.

I still haven't painted (on paper). I'm OK with it because I'm still working on it/them in my head. Maybe after I go to tomorrow's market I'll be able to fill in the missing pieces. Something is missing from my composition, I'm not sure what, or I would fix it. I'm hoping I'll see it at the Market and be able to move on.

Planning painting

As I plan my painting for this week. I am again reminded that the think time, paint time ratio is askew for me. I've been thinking about these paintings for over a week, yet I haven't put a brush to paper. And that's OK with me because I haven't yet fully figured out my paintings. I know what I want to paint, I have some of the composition worked out and some of the colors worked out but not the approach. By that I mean what I am going to paint first, whether it will be wet in wet, or whether I will mix the colors on the paper. I'm looking forward to painting,but I'm just not perpared yet.

Finally, a suuny market

This week was the perfect market. Good weather, good crowd, lots of sales all made it happen right. I had lots of products and my tomato sign retuned to announce me and the customers found me. I made new connections. A woman from Watsonville is interested in using my images as signage for her store. Jane, the young Asian woman I've been blogging about came to my booth again and we talked about watercolors and we are meeting this week to look at paintings and talk about them. Andy came by and we talked about the wedding invitations I'm doing for him that uses my cala lily painting as it's focus.

Beets and their greens

The beets were so lovely, and I don't think I did them justice, but this was about the greens. I wanted to use what I had learned in Michael Wilcox's book. I mixed this painting with Cadmium Red, Cadmium Yellow, Manganese Blue, Quin Violet, Hansa Yellow and French Ultramarine Blue. I mixed these colors on the palette this time, not the paper. I was pleased with how clear the greens were. Cerulean blue was the recommended blue, but I didn't have any, so I used the manganese with good results. The cerulean is opaque and the manganese is transparent, so I would think it would make a difference in how the light was abosorbed/reflected and would make a different color. I'm going to pick up tube of the cerulean and see how it works. I was pleased enough with the results to experiment more in the mixing of greens.

Summer in the City

Well, the Fog has arrived! And yesterday it didn't leave until after one. I was glad I had my leg warmers. The Market has been slow these last weeks, but it's not about the money. This week I had a customer I hadn't seen in a couple of years. She had been looking for me at the Farmers market, and was glad to see I was well and still selling. I don't know then name of most of my customers, unless they signed up for my email list, so I had no way of letting them know where I went, and just hoped they would stumble upon me across the street on their way to the Market.
I also got to visit with my farmer friends at the Ferry Building. It was too crowded to take pictures, but I'm going to go to the Market on Tuesday and take some pictures for painting references. This is the time of the year when everything looks wonderful...and tastes wonderful.
When I got home, I had an email from the young Asian woman I met a week ago at the market. She sent me to her site, where she had some beautiful work. I hope it works out that we can paint together.

Representation

I'm excited about putting these ten pieces in When Modern Was, the new San Francisco Store, offering Asian, Vintage and Antique furniture, Accessories and Garden Décor (on Church Street next to Eric's Restaurant). They represent some of the Bay Areas finest artists. Their address is 1504 Church (27th) and the Hours are 11 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Wednesday to Saturday, until 6 p.m. Sunday.
Their website is http://www.whenmodernwas.com

The beets have spoken

The golden beets I got at the market Saturday are so beautiful I have to paint them. I don't think I can do them justice, but I'm willing to try. I think I have to paint some purple ones with them for contrast, and their leaves are so beautiful. I've been thinking about them and looking at them since Saturday. Thinking about their earthiness, but stunned by their color.
I read Michael Wilcox's book "Blue and Yellow don't make Green" yesterday, and am eager to try out what I've learned. His book, "The Wilcox Guide to the Best Watercolor Paints" made a big impact on me. The guy is certainly thorough. His section in the scientific aspects of color and color mixing was of great interest to me. Because I often mix my paint in a puddle of clear water on my paper, I found the section on surface mixing the scientific explanation for what I have been doing intuitively. This book may be too abstract or too physics based for many artists, but it's worth the struggle if you have an interest in color and color theory. I've read a number of books on color theory and this one has a unique approach.

Foggy day at the Market

It was a cold, foggy day at the Market today. I had some visits from regular customers, but the tourists were cold and rushing to warmth elsewhere. The apricot card was a hit and I was able to trade it for many wonderful fruits and vegetables at the Farmers Market at the Ferry Building. The golden beets from StoneFree Farms were just beautiful! They may be my next painting, if I don't eat them tonight.
It's days like this that make you wonder why you are a street artist. It's cold, it's wet, it's still dark. You are lifting heavy things, setting up your booth, wondering what the day will bring, wondering when the fog will clear..(it never did). It's usually 10am before the market traffic picks up. Locals are on their way back from the Ferry Building and tourists are starting to rally. It was a slow, slow market day. While not being financially lucrative, it had some very rich points. I had the time to talk at length with a young Asian woman who told me of her love/hate relationship with watercolor. She's local, I hope I get to paint with her. One of my students came by with her mother to return some books I loaned her. I was also visited by a patron of mine who brought visiting out of towners and as she was going through my card rack kept bringing out cards and showing them to her friends saying "I own this". She looked at others, pulled them out and said this friend had this, and that friend had that, etc. I had kind of lost track of how many of my paintings she had purchased, and was rather amazed not only at how many SHE had bought, but also by the realization of how many paintings I have sold in my short career as a painter. Being a street vendor is a marketing tool. I can't stress that enough. It's not about the money you will make there, it is about the direct connection you can have with your customers. I get feedback every week that benefits me. People tell me what they like about things, what they would like to see that I don't have, or a different approach to a subject. I always learn something. I always meet someone meaningful. I always get inspired. That's why I continue to stand on the street in the cold and sell my little watercolors.

View my work at heidiwyckoff.com

Apricots draining in a stainless steel colander

The essence of this subject (to me) was the reflective nature of the stainless steel, the holes in it and the color of the just blanched apricots.

This painting was more complex than last week's nude, but has some similarities in the blending of the flesh of the apricots. I'd never painted apricots before, but have painted peaches, so I knew what to do there. I had never painted stainless steel before and that was a challenge, as I had expected. I started with the colander. I don't usually use a masking fluid, I try to save the whites by not painting there, but these holes were too small to paint around, so I used masking fluid. I usually use a bamboo skewer for this small stuff, but couldn't find one, so I sharpened my pencil and used the tip of it.

I used MaimeriBlu™ Ultramarine light and Daniel Smith™ Quinacridone Burnt Gold to mix the steel, once the fluid was dry enough. I used Daniel Smith™ Quinacridone Gold and Rhodonite Genuine and MaimeriBlu™ Orange Lake for the apricots and their reflections. I mixed the apricots on the paper buy making a puddle and dropping in the colors the tilting the paper until the colors blended. This was pretty much a wet mess by now. Time to back away from the painting. This is where I usually start another painting, but this time I went for a walk. This gave me time to think about what I wanted to do next. I was liking the colors of the apricots and the colander had a sense of roundness and reflectiveness, but wasn't there yet. I wasn't really sure what to do at that point, so I just jumped in with some darks and started defining the apricot layers and the reflections. That was when I decided I needed to paint in the area around the colander. I used MaimeriBlu™ Permanent Green Deep with the Burnt Gold and some of the Blue. It warmed it up and made the steel look colder. I then used that warm color to add contrast to my painting. When I removed the masking fluid, it came together. The holes defined what was reflected and what wasn't.
View my work at heidiwyckoff.com

No watermelon, but lots of apricots

My Americana outing to Alameda was just what I wanted. Lots of red, white and blue decorated floats, fire trucks, people, dogs, you name it.
No watermelon, but a tree full of apricots.
Before the parade, I made an apricot coffee cake from the mountain of picked apricots, and that's where I found this week's painting. A stainless steel colander with blanched apricots...can't wait to paint it tomorrow. I'm liking the reflection in the colander and the color apricots get when they are blanched. I'm thinking about how I plan to mix those colors on the paper, and how I'm going to approach the stainless steel. I've painted copper, but not so much steel. I would think the approach would be similar, but the colors different. That will certainly be a challenge for me.

What can you call "Painting Time"?

It's currently cold and foggy here in San Francisco, but I know it's going to be HOT HOT HOT in Alameda for the 4th. I'm already looking forward to the cold watermelon.

As I continue to think about the painting I plan to do this week (based on the July 4th celebration in Alameda) I am reminded of the many painters I meet at the market who talk about NOT painting. While it's true some of them no longer have time, most are not giving credit to the time they spend thinking about painting in general, and a painting, in specific.

Most of my painting process takes place in my head, and very little of it is actual "brush time". The analytical part of the painting is 90%, for me. I sometimes spend weeks thinking about composition, light and dark, color, who knows what, and never even go into my painting studio, but when I sit down to paint, I have a good idea of what I plan to do, and how I plan to approach it. Not having to make those kind of decisions on the fly allows me to let the essence of the subject flow through me and "speak to me" for lack of a better description. It makes it not a thinking thing, but rather a feeling thing.

I call any time that I am thinking about painting "painting time".

View more of my work at heidiwyckoff.com

Americana

I've decided on an Americana theme for my painting this week. I'm going to be selling my cards at the Alameda Parade and what could be more American than their 4th of July Parade!

One of my friends has recently purchased a home on the Parade route, and I'm spending the day there, selling my cards and being an American...having a barbecue. I plan to take my camera for some reference photos, then paint them for the market on Saturday. I'm looking forward to the change in venue. Alameda is a sweet town with lots of interesting things to paint. I know my friend has roses growing and they are fun to paint. Let's see what comes forth to be painted.

View more of my work at heidiwyckoff.com

At the Market this week

I’m licensed by the Art Commission of the City and County of San Francisco to sell Art in Public Places. I sell at the Saturday market at Justin Herman Plaza because I used to sell at the CUESA Farmer’s Market across the street at the Ferry Building and people know me from there. I just have a card rack and a small display for my bookmarks and luggage tags. I keep it small because I take the bus to the market.

Much of my subject matter comes from the Farmer’s market. That market is about freshness and having a personal relationship with the farmer. I know most of the farmers from when I sold over there, and each week I paint their beautiful produce. This is prime time painting season for me. EVERYTHING IS RIPE! I can hardly decide what to paint next! I had a peach fling in the last week or so. The peas are so sweet right now. The Bings and Raniers are wonderful. And the tomatoes have finally arrived in a big way. What to paint? What to paint?

It was beautiful at the market this week. Early fog, but it cleared before 10. And the tourists are starting to arrive. Tourist trade is the main deal at that market. I have a small fan base of regulars who stop each week on their way to or from the Farmer’s market, but primarily it’s tourist trade. My products are small, easy to carry and affordable, so I have a great impulse item for them.

I enjoy talking to my customers. They give me valuable feedback by their choices and requests. I like hearing why tourists are here, where they are from, where they visited, what they have done. I meet very interesting folks while selling on the street, not to mention getting store orders, commissions and students. It’s all about exposure and feedback to me. I work my day job from home, so the market is a social event for me. It has a carnival-like feeling to me. And it’s a great opportunity to sit outside in a beautiful city and call it work.

View my work at heidiwyckoff.com