There’s nothing like a regular job to clear your head and make you remember what it’s all for. After four days of burning my candle at both ends, I knew that I wasn’t going to be satisfied with a life that was just about cubicles and commuting, where my evening hours were spent sitting in front of yet another computer.

Then inspiration struck me. Go back to meaning, Alex. Find what is meaningful, go back to the source.

Back at the CRPA conference, Lew Ableidinger got a chance to give a presentation on his photography. Make no bones about it, I admire Lew’s work very much — you can see more on his Flickr page, where I swear I’ve favorited every fourth photograph he’s posted — but since Lew is of my generation, I had to give him a hard time during the Q&A. And although we aren’t close friend per se, I knew Lew well enough to know he had just picked up a new acquisition: a large format camera. For those uninitiated in the obscurities of pre-Digital SLR photography, the large format camera is that cartoon camera, the one with gigantic bellows up front and that requires a hefty tripod to hold. They can take a long time to set up, the film for them is expensive due to its size, and all in all they are a slowwwwwwww choice in cameras. So I stood up and I asked Lew if, because of this acquisition, he had gone crazy.

The truth of the matter, though, is that I understood Lew’s choice all too well. (Apparently I wasn’t alone; my crazy comment drew more than one attendee to inform me that they, too, owned and used a large format camera.) You see, for me, there’s just not much satisfaction in pixels. After a weekend of making random snapshots to promote the conference on the Center’s Facebook page, I was pretty sick of my beloved Canon G9. It was easy, sure. It was almost instantaneous. But it had none of the things that brought me to photography. It had no craft.

The source of photography, for me, was painting. For years, cameras were no more than mechanical sketchbooks that helped me produce works in watercolor. It was on the stippled, slightly acrid smelling surface of cotton-based paper that I learned the rules of composition, the way that colors compliment or clash, and the idea of visual storytelling.

And, perhaps, it is the tactile elements of painting that lead me to so strongly hold onto film photography. The act of printing under an enlarger, the sheer daredevil analog imprecision of the print, the multiple intangibles and unknowns that I must dance around for each image: these are the aspects of black-and-white photography I fell in love with. These are the reasons that I long for the day I have a darkroom of my own.

But, back to this week. Feeling a bit run down, a bit worn thin, and a bit lost, I realized that there was one place I could find myself in again. And so last night, all that was on my desk was removed, and then tonight, after I got home, out came the stipple-surfaced French paper, out came the finely sharpened Stadtler 2B, out came the kneaded gum eraser and the sharpener and the T-square and the ruler. Even without starting, even just seeing the paper laying there on the surface of my desk, awaiting the touch of my fingertips, I could feel the mood change in me. Painting is, perhaps, a kind of meditation all of its own. And then the pencil was out, and the lead laid down on the paper, and the smell of fresh wood shavings and graphite filled the room.

And it all began again.

Well that took a bit longer than expected.

Liquidated is the second in my 99W Series of paintings. This is a planned sequence of images using the thread of old Pacific Highway West through Western Oregon as a common theme. The road forms a cross section of the western portion of the state, stretching from urban Portland through to the rural prairies of the Willamette Valley. This latest painting follows the earlier Morning Rush, Portland….

…Earlier by two years.

It is really amusing because Morning Rush, Portland I completed in January 2007, and immediately afterwards began Liquidated. My academic activities, however, quickly took over my time and attention. For the longest time, the painting sat clipped to an oversized Masonite clipboard, 2/3rds done. Every time I looked at it, I felt guilt, as if it were an abandoned child. There was never enough time. There was never enough motivation. Always my calendar had something else to do, some other thing that needed my attention. If the painting had been a garden it would have been growing dandelions.

Now that the 2008-2009 academic year has wound down, I’ve been playing catch up. There’s been lots of cleaning, straightening, book sorting — scarily enough there are over forty books I have collected over the year that have yet to be read — and all manner of other reprioritization that is now possible with the additional time on my hands. One of the activities that immediately rose to the top of the to-do list: complete Liquidated.

Monday saw me heading downtown on WES to supplement my disintegrating brush collection. Tuesday morning saw me cleaning out the paintbox, the old dried up palettes, the caked and dead tubes of paint. Tuesday night saw me marathoning until 1:30 in the morning, the smell of wet cotton paper in the air and my fingers stained with viridian green and Prussian blue.

Creating — be it writing, photography, or watercolors — is a vital part of me, but somewhere along the way of the last four years, I lost that. I came, somehow, to the conclusion that I had to set that part of me aside to get more important things done. The reality is, however, that that act of creating was what was important all along. The ground is familiar now, and it feels good.

Morning Rush, Portland, 2007; watercolor on paper, approxamately 16 x 25 inches.

Here is the jumping off point. Me being me, I didn’t quite paint it in weekly, zen-like meditative days as I had planned. Noooo. Of course not. Every electronic device was still up and running, there were papers tossed everywhere, and I couldn’t even resist putzing around with a few work projects. And on a day off! If I had stuck to it the first day, it would have been down less than 12 hours later. Did the painting improve or suffer due to the pause? I am not sure, tho the clipboard did make little marks on the paper edges. So be it; they’ll be safely matted out of view if (when) it is ever framed.

This is, of course, the jumping off point in a series for me. The first thought was to paint things that are “relevant” the my world — whatever that is — without being pandering, overly self-conscious, or overtly political. Good luck. Yet this desire has kicked me into thinking about works that I would not have once considered. Still, some guiding force must be in place, lest I begin to randomly paint all over the place, with no rhyme or reason. So I’ve decided to combine some passions, and make this a series on — might you guess it? Route 99 West. Now you say, this is a painting of a MAX train crossing the Steel Bridge in downtown Portland. What bearing does that have on 99W? But do not forget, the highway once went down Harbor Drive, where the Tom McCall Waterfront Park is now. Then it dashed up over the Steel Bridge, up Interstate Avenue, and joined 99E — the Grand Avenue / Union Avenue (later MLK Blvd) couplet — at the foot of the present I-5 interstate bridge. So, indeed, the industrial cathedral that is the Steel Bridge was once part of the vital link that was 99W.

Speaking of, my brushes are quite a mess. Frayed, some of them. Some of them got mangled from non-watercolor uses. Some of them are simply getting old. How I’d love to have one of those big, pure Kolinsky sables! But wow. Those cost as much as a motel room or an Amtrak ticket. I could justify it, eventually. If I had the cashflow. But I don’t. So I make due.

Making due is a serious constraint on my work, I’ve noticed. For example, in one painting I have just begun, the sketching portion suffered severely from my inability to keep a piece of paper taped to a door while I projected a slide onto it. Frustrating, as I held up the paper with my left hand and hurriedly sketched with my right. But then these little imperfections are part of the very character of the painting, part of what separates the painting from the photo it began with. Which brings up another serious issue, that a poor photograph can make a great painting. And perhaps, vice-versa?

I’m coming to like working larger. Big 22×30 sheets are unlikely to see scissors of mine in the future. The scale allows finer detail, a finer perception of precision, and less percentage of the image hidden by a theoretical matting. But it really need bigger brushes! And for large areas like skies, it needs far more skill and rapidity in washes!

My paper, speaking of, is running short, though I’m still finding working on an oversized clipboard to be ideal. I can move it anywhere I wish, though if I ever do plein-air work it may have to be with the benefit of the car.

Now that I am back with the brush again, I have to say there is a slight satisfaction from feeling it all come together again subconsciously. Watercolor for me is almost like an old, irreplaceable friend, one whom you can not talk to in ages and then pick up with exactly where you left off. And that is the best kind of friendship at all.

However, when I posted a few scans of my work at an online forum, I shortly afterwards found myself working on a commission, and one from — you guessed it — someone else’s photo, in this case, an image taken by Wyoming photographer Paul Birkholz.

PHOTO: Paul Birkholz

Before I even had the print of his photo in my hands, I thought that Paul might enjoy a blow-by-blow of how his photograph turned into my watercolor. The below account is based on a sort of journal I kept along the process. I hope you enjoy following along with me from paper to finished painting.

Received the photo in mail at about 4 pm. Opened and examined it for about fifteen minutes, studying the various problems I would probably encounter, planning different alterations to the image to improve upon it. Dug out my table of proportions and planned how the image will be cropped. It’s either too tall or not wide enough, so I will either have to add some scenery to one edge, (either by extrapolating what should be there, or by “lengthening” a segment of scenery between the center and the edge,) or I will have to crop slightly down from the top and bottom. Suspect latter route as that calls for eliminating about 1/4 inch along top and bottom edges, versus adding one inch to the edge.

Then again if I make the painting larger than the photograph this could all change. Must think about it for a while first.

A few quick notes might make the above paragraphs more relevant.

First, although I try to make my work follow “reality”, I don’t feel bound by that reality so far that I need to include, say, roadside litter, or an unfortunately located street sign, etc…. So as I looked at the photo I was making notes to myself of what elements detracted from the composition, or could be left out without harming it.

Second, on proportion. I like to keep the dimensions of my work within the proportions of the golden section, (aka phi, aka 1:1.618,) a ratio used in art & architecture since ancient times, and found in all natural objects. To determine the dimensions, I once made up a little table, with even numbers down one side, and their “correct” proportion for the alternate legs going across. It saves me looking for a calculator.

Decided to keep painting same scale as image, as that simplifies any transfer measurements. I cut some paper and laid out the “frame” for the image area in pencil. Will begin laying out the drawing tomorrow.

I’ve laid out the drawing on the paper. Normally I’d cheat and use a slide, projecting it onto the paper and making the drawing that way. However, since this is a print, I can’t do that. So I’ve made a few transfers based on measurements, and then freehanded the rest in. For example, I measured the railhead and put that in with a ruler, as well as the perspective guide lines which 700 sits in. But the detail on 700 is freehand, as are most of the people.

The price I pay? The people are a little closer to the front of 700 than in the photo. I had to ask myself, is this a critical, negative thing? After studying it for a while, I couldn’t see any reason why the composition had been set back. So rather than go back, erase, and re-lay the people, (or adjust 700 to the right,) I left it be as it is.

After making the drawing, I used a gum eraser to lighten it, so the pencil lines don’t show too much in the final picture.

I was going to leave it at that for a while, but, as usual, my impatience got the better of me. So I went and clipped the paper to the giant clipboard I use as a work surface, and then laid in the sky, using Cerulean blue, my favorite for sky tones. Skies always go in first. Why? First, they are behind everything in real life, so they are the furthest back layer in the painting. Second, they are the easiest thing to screw up, so if they go in wrong, toss the painting and start with a new one, with no other work lost. And third, the sky is usually the lightest tone in the finished painting, the ground against which all colors must be compared.

Since the biggest wait in watercolors is for drying, I went ahead and put an underpainting of pale yellow to the foreground. The photo’s foreground is more or less a pastel green, which isn’t quite “right”, so I’m warming it up.

Below is a scan of the the drawing, with the sky in and the yellow underpainting done. Note that the edges on each side are cut off.

Due mostly to my own impatience, The Watchers begins….

Have begun with the darks. First step was to get 700 in, as that is, after the sky, the next make-or-break, and because she is a major dark in the image. Started first moves at about 8 then stopped to let it dry, started again at midnight and just finished. 95% done with the 700 now, only a few details left which I can leave to the last. Disappointments? The numerals are not readable. Nor the herald. But that is simply it for me, they are too small, even for a number one brush and tinted white ink, which I don’t think could do the job. (White paint usually looks false.)

I also have made a first attempt at the large tank at extreme left, which will have to be done over because the color doesn’t look right.

Also laid in the railhead, and then started the darkest darks on the people. First photog’s camera & flap of coat; second photog’s body, bent over in the grass; shadows of photog 3′s jeans; ditto on photog 4, along with shadows on his jacket. They get successively bluer with distance, a happy coincidence with the photo.

Next step? Background buildings & distant hills, and then the smoke, and then the medium-darks on the people. But now? Bed.

Laid in most of the darks. Finished the basics of the smoke, did some of the background hills & structures, along with the small trestle the locomotive is crossing. Laid in more blue tones. The painting is now at the 1/2 way done stage, and I expect that it will be finished before mid-week.

The darks go in first, always, immer, always.

It’s controlled chaos really, a bit like going into battle with the paint. It’s watercolor, it has a mind of it’s own. Or, at least, physics does, and it often ends up taking the paint in places you don’t want, and then you throw up your arms in frustration expecting to chuck it all as a failure.

And then you go for a walk and come back and realize that nothing at all is wrong. It’s a painting, not a photo, and that chaotic element is what makes it different.

(I hate the tank at left, and have been fiddling with it obsessively.)

Any ways. Now most of the darks are finished and the skin tones are in. I’ve put in shadows on the guy in the center, finished the distant photog, and pretty much wound up most of the details now. Still have to add some doo-dads to the smokebox on 700, and I have to go back and redo the shadows on the foreground photog’s face. I knew they’d be difficult, but that’s why I picked this image, the challenge was enticing.

Controlled Chaos rules me.

I estimate the painting will be complete Tuesday evening.

Well it looks like it won’t be finished tonight after all, since I got stuck with some other business today. However, some progress has occurred. I have laid in some of the greens, and then started to “scratch out” the grass seed heads with the side of a pair of scissors. It may be complete tomorrow afternoon. Just goes to show you my level of patience has increased with age, as most of my earlier paintings were done within an hour or two, with inadequate drying periods between.

The scratchwork begins to take shape.

Damn. It’s a strange thing now that I really think about it, fighting with the water, and then coaxing it, and then fighting it again. I just laid in most of the background ground textures, some more detail, finished the hat of the foreground photog and darkened the shadows there too. Played with the blue hat and the never-quite-right green shirt. (It’s too pastel in reality.) I went back and laid in more darks in the creek, and in the reeds there, and overall finished most of the details. Now all that’s left is to finish the blue hat. Did some re-work in the first photog’s hair, to make it better stand out against the background, played with the shadows near the tank, and then put in the final seed heads.

Most of that should take no more than a few hours tomorrow. And then it is complete!

Almost there, in the home stretch now!

There’s a point at which you begin fussing. Obsessing. Should I have put that detail in? Oh, that is all wrong. How could I have forgotten such and such? Oh, that needs to be darker. Like I said, obsessing. And that is the clear sign that the finish is at hand. In truth it will never be perfect, and it’s when you reach a point of accepting that inherent imperfection that the brush goes down one last time. Oh, and by-the-way, that is usually after it’s been titled and signed.

Anyway. It’s done. And the scanner does not do justice to the sienna tones at all.

The Watchers, 2003; watercolor on paper, approxamately 11 x 15 inches.