#studies #adventure #sketch
My first plein air excursion in gouache

"...bring out my gouache box, brushes, and paints."
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

BY ANTHONY ROSS

Yesterday I sat on a cold bench at the beach.  It was a cement step, and I opened up my bag of goodies to bring out my gouache box, brushes, and paints.

It was my first outing with gouache paints and with this little box.  It worked pretty well, tight around my waist, with the little easel holding a small illustration board of 2.5 " X 3.5 ".

The sunset was beautiful, and changing all the time, but I was interested in the house complexes near by the water.  This wasn't as vivid as the sunset, but had some appeal.  I lost my smallest brush, so painted with a bit of a thicker brush than I would have liked on this small canvas.

And my finished painting after an hour and a half of sitting.

#context #adventure
Questions That Answer

"My questions lead me to all kinds of discoveries about my own pursuits in art."
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

BY ANTHONY ROSS

This morning I went on James Gurney's blog, 'Gurney Journey.' I watched a video of him painting a tire store in the super moon.  It was inspiring in many ways.  His playful energy and dedication to his craft of painting on such a consistent basis are awesome.  It's nice to have people who exemplify certain qualities through whatever it is they do.  The art, and the blog he posts on on a daily basis is the version of his life that we get to see.  It's a pleasure to have these bits of expression in all kinds of ways through out the internet.  They allow us as curators of content to jump back from the computer into other realms of play and then return to it and share it.  Obviously there's stuff to create on the computer itself, but you get the point.

I thought about what questions I might ask James, since I have the ability to do so.  He answers questions on his blog, and so with the amazing technology, I can connect with James Gurney through virtual space.  I'm able to ask this fantastic artist anything I want and he will likely respond with some kind of answer.  It's tough, when the options are open.  My questions lead me to all kinds of discoveries about my own pursuits in art.  The questions gave me answers before asking, and more questions to answer in the contemplation of them.  I got a lot out of thinking about what I would ask this inspiring artist.

In the end, I did ask a question.  A simple one regarding how long it takes him to do a study.  I had wanted to ask about his beginnings as a painter, but the question isn't formulated yet.  It made me contemplate mine and learn from that, and that was enough for today.  The fact is that there are too many things to say.  This naturally brought me to reflecting on my art training at the Watts Atelier.  A teacher like Jeff Watts or the others there would be able to cover much more of what it is to learn to be a representational artist of a high level, like James Gurney.  Over the internet I can just get a short answer, or even a long short answer.  It's just not the same as a direct connecting and correlating with someone in person.  It's not the same to ask the questions online, so the questions have to be different.  The best part is that it's an option, and that there are amazing people sharing amazing things relating to every topic there is.  It's the wonder of the world that Gurney inspires me to honour in myself.  It's these relationships that you can use to reflect upon for yourself.  It's to ask the question of, "What question would I ask?"  There's your answer.

James Gurney in his studio.

#travel #study
Watts Atelier Boot Camp 2016 - Part 3

"You're a serious dude."
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

BY ANTHONY ROSS

I'm not sure that I've gathered up all that I can say about what it was like to be at the Watts Atelier Boot camp, but I'm ready to write this anyhow. It was definitely a boot camp, with long hours of drawing and painting each day.  The schedule went like this:

So at least six hours of the day was spent on drawing or painting, if you intended the uninstructed model time from 7 pm - 10 pm each night, which I did.  Some days, it was 9 hours of executing artwork, but most days we had a three hour demo where the teacher would paint for us and we could watch, ask questions and take photos of their process.  Here's a process and final image of one of the demos.

I found it most valuable when a teacher would draw on my pad or paint on my canvas directly.  Whether over my previous drawing or not, it was great to watch them articulate their visual language so fluently.  Jeff Watts talks the most out of the teachers and he is fun to listen to because of it.  Though, after simply watching the other instructors draw or paint without verbal speech, I came to realize that when I go back to watching Jeff drawing or painting on the online school, I will be muting it on and off to see it without the verbal.  After all, this is a visual language, and I picked up on so much that isn't able to be said.  I think the talking distracts from my observation of what is happening on the page and all that I can learn from just watching that, which is lots.  Verbalizing it can both give it clarity and confusion.  Good to have both, but nice to be able to have either/or when you like, as the online school gives the option to.

After half the course was over, I could feel the beautiful sensation of excited learning.  It was really great to have these eight days structured with waking up, meditating, doing yoga and sometimes getting some groceries in the morning.  Later, sleeping in.  Then, going to class for 9:30 am or 10:00 am and working til 1:00 pm. Having a good lunch break and talking with others, about art, mostly.  Working from 2:30 pm to 5:30 pm and then having a dinner and break to go back to my hotel, which was a short walk, and coming back to class for drawing at 7:00 pm.  The break time was short and often lead to me doing little errands between them in a stream line manner, like cleaning my hotel room, getting ready for the next class, or eating, checking emails.

The teachers were incredibly kind with their time and energy.  Jeff showed us his personal studio one afternoon and a new book he's working on.  Each teacher took a look through my portfolio, offering all kinds of different advice and things they saw that were good and bad with my work.  It was also really great to be able to walk around to see what the more skilled artists around me were doing on their pictures, and take that understanding back to my work a moment later.  Basically I finished the course with a notepad of notes and all kinds of pointers on what not to do.  For the amount there is to learn, there are certain ways of doing things that will greater benefit me than others.  These are things that I picked up on that I will now be applying to how I train in the arts.

Jeff and I talked about some things like Alan Watts and working on big projects.  He said I have a lot of the right things in place, and it's time to bring them all together into a working combination.  There was a lot of things that I felt I could have asked him that I didn't, before and after the boot camp.  It's an interesting situation when you are with someone for only a short amount of time and they have only so much energy to spread around to the students of the entire workshop, plus all the other things they have going on outside of class.  One of the last things Jeff said to me before I left the Atelier was about how he knew there was a lot more behind everything that we briefly discussed, from meditation to the projects I'm working on.  It's just not possible to cover it all in eight days.  I don't think there's any regret here, or things left unsaid.  It's just the fact that sometimes the questioning is the answer, or the listening.

There would have been no way to go as deep into discussing the important parts of my life, which I take (often too seriously), in such a short amount of time.  Philosophies and ways about things I knew resonated with Jeff from listening to him online and from our short conversations that I would have loved to discuss with him more.  Often I just didn't have the words to ask, or to know how to begin talking about one of these philosophies that are close to my way of life. We related together as determined individuals, trying to find a sense of humor with it all, being too serious about doing good.  Near the end, I mentioned to him how I felt generally pretty serious through out the course and he added to that, mentioning our odd open-ended interactions in and between classes when we would make small talk.  He said, "You're a serious dude."  I laughed.  It was a good enough conclusion to our meeting.  I don't know that I could have gotten anything more from the work shop than I did.  It was a wonderful adventure of art and being around artists.

When I returned home, I continued to do a self-boot camp.  My jobs allow the same kind of schedule of drawing and painting from 10:00 - 1:00 pm and 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm most days.  Even on the extra day before coming home from San Diego, after the workshop ended, I still drew for six hours in my hotel.  I've slowed down for a moment and need to pick up the pace again, I feel.  Though, the intensive work I've done since April is probably something that I need to digest a bit so I can start up the momentum again with a smarter direction.

Now that I'm back I have been studying in ink for #Inktober2016.  It's been fun, but I am not spending time on the key exercises from the Watts program.  I'm looking to organize my time to go through that program, Schoolism classes, and Premium Proko exercises, as well as having the goings on and happenings of life.  Sincere art training is a part of my life that I started in April.  I've felt the grounded strength and thrill it gives me to work diligently on this craft.  I will be continuing and sharing my work in various ways, but I've also witnessed the burn-out of working too hard and not having enough balance with the rest of all that is.  There is also the egotistical building of an image on social networking and such that has distracted me more than helped my training, at times.  This is just another thing to bring into perspective.  To be an artist of life, to have that balance and equanimity with all things, is an art in and of itself.  It's sometimes worth it to put the pencil down, knowing why you're doing so.  Then you pick it up again and the admiration for it is present again.

#travel #study
Watts Atelier Boot Camp 2016 - Part 2

"Enter the dragon ride..."
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

BY ANTHONY ROSS

I arrived in San Diego two days early before starting the Boot Camp at 10:00 am on Monday.  They have one of the most dangerous airports in the world, I was told on the plane ride there. It has a very short run way that's difficult to land and take off from. The planes come in to land in the center of downtown, being as high as a two story building near the end of their descent.  As I shuttled to my hotel, I saw just how close they were.  Nearly as low as a lamp post.  The whole city is built around this airport.

It was really nice arriving this early, because it gave me enough time to see some of San Diego and get settled before the course began.  As you'll see, the Boot Camp aspect of the course was prevalent, and it was a lot of drawing and painting every day, without room for much else. Of course, that's not a complaint.  By the end of these two days before the course started, I was very inspired to start working with my newsprint paper.  More on that later.

On arrival, I did the ordinary things such as get groceries for the week and find the school.  When I walked over to the school, a 5-10 minute walk away, they were starting a class, waiting for the teachers to show up.  At this time, I saw Erik and Meadow teaching drawing and painting, both on each side of the Watts Atelier, which is divided like this.

Easels on one side of the room in a semi circle facing the stage.
Drawing benches on the other side in the same fashion.  Each divided by a short wall that you can walk around to get from one side to the other.  The school was smaller than I imagined, but didn't need to be any bigger than it was.  They used to have another room that you'd access by going out the back of the building, but it was never in much use when they had it anyway.

On the walls were many framed images, which they would circulate out every few months for new ones.  Most of the pictures were pieces done by artists who got to a really high level of proficiency at the school.  Others were by masters of the craft that Jeff had often met personally.  I took pictures of all of these for study reference in the first couple days before the Boot camp.  Here are a few.  Many more of the same caliber can be seen on the Watts Atelier Tumblr site.

I met some of the artists doing the Summer term and some who have been studying there for even longer.  It was nice to connect with them and a change to be around people studying in the same fashion as I had been with the online course.  We went to a movie, restaurant, to get ice cream and walked around the town of Encinitas, talking mostly about art.  Some of them took the Boot Camp with me, but most didn't.

The next day I rented a bike and used it well, going to a local Farmers' Market.  Later, I would find out that I biked passed Jeff's personal studio on the way there.  I also biked to the next town over and visited the gardens of the Self Realization Fellowship, seen below.

The following day I returned the bike and took a bus to Lego Land.  Not having checked out the prices before arriving, I was a little surprised, but payed the $95.00 to visit one of two attractions like this in the world.  Ultimately, I think Lego Land could do a lot better. Lego is an interactive toy, and there was very little interactivity.  Some recommendations would be to incorporate what the rides offer into the walk around areas.  Enter the dragon ride, and you'll see dark caves with goblins and moving dragon Lego heads.  Why not have that same design in an area where you can get more out of seeing it and not pass by it in a few seconds?  The sections with large cities and replicas of real life buildings are well done, but lack the charm that kids would bring if they could play with it.  It reminds me the Lego Movie and how Will Ferrell had DO NOT TOUCH signs everywhere.  The art itself was cool in certain respects, but also could use a touch of diversity in the way it's put together and how it's presented.

Ultimately, there is more to be said here, but I was disappointed. There wasn't even a professional Lego builder building something for people to watch.  It was a large money grab, and mainly for parents to bring their kids, though not made for the kids real interactive soul-enriching play.  After leaving Lego Land, I had a clear understanding of what my trip was for and why I had come all the way here to the Watts Atelier.  The mastery of representational art, as Watts teaches, is not a quick fix.  It is not some high stimulus novelty.  Learning this craft of drawing and painting is work of character, building patience and perseverance as well as earned and substantial rewards, instead of fleeting and less developed ones. Lego Land was a pointer back to the fun stuff that reaches the depths of what life is all about, back to my newsprint paper and charcoal pencils.

#photo #travel

"Which is... Which is... The reason... Why people do things."
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

BY ANTHONY ROSS

Earlier this month, we went down to Vancouver and took these photos along the way.  My camera is a Canon Rebel t3i and I shot these using the monochrome setting.  They depict the mountainous mountains that are experienced through the drive.