Day One: Kualoa from Waiahole

 

Pencil drawing, Kualoa from Waiahole

I have a new project-- I will be creating a pencil drawing a day. 

Let's start with a drive to the small community of Waiahole, located on Oahu's windward coast. Green Waiahole Valley is rich in Hawaiian history, with fertile land, watered by the heavens, and where taro, the staple food, flourished and nourished. 

From Waiahole, I sketched this view of beautiful Kualoa ("longback"),  which is kissed by the area's rich Ka'a'awa Valley, sacred burial caves, cattle ranch, and soaring Koʻolau Mountain Range. 

With such breathtaking vistas to soak in, it is no wonder that dozens of Hollywood films have been filmed here. I explored the area extensively during my boy scout days, and remember the rich Hawaiian folklore and maybe even heard the drumbeats of the night marchers on full moon nights. 

"Drawing is not what you see but what you must make others see."

 Edgar Degas

Study of Olomana 03/27/15

Olomana - 03/27/15, 9"x 12", Ink on paper.

I have been wanting to do a few studies of Mt. Olomana for a while, perhaps to do a few more large scale paintings of it. It has been an idea I have been ruminating on.

One of my students had a seizure. I had to hold him on his side till the ambulance came and took his vital signs. We then kept a vigil on him during the postictal phase, where he was unconscious like in a deep sleep. It was during this awkward waiting time I sketched this.

Olomana is a really pretty mountain. There is not much to it but it is a great landmark on the windward side of Oahu. 

Dealing with the emergency situation of students seizure was a jarring and this sketch seems like a strange artifact of that experience.

Asheville Trip - Blue Ridge Parkway

Blue Ridge Parkway, Watercolor, 8' x 11"

This is the second painting I did for my Aunt Dana to raise money for the Mustard Seed Mustard Seed Charity. 

This was a great and beautiful day. A truly glorious day in North Carolina. The sky was clear and the sun was beaming. The original plan was to do yard work that day, but Steven, my step dad, looked at me and said, "We have to go hiking."

We drove up the Blue Ridge Parkway. We went up with Kolo and she was in heaven. It was a little crowded on the trail and everyone had their dog.

I sat down for an hour and painted this landscape. The ridges of the mountains were impressive, very different from Hawaiian mountains.

I like how this painting came out. The different depths of the ridges were inspiring and difficult to capture. 

"I never saw an ugly thing in my life: 
for let the form of an object be what it may - light, shade, 
and perspective will always make it beautiful." 

~ John Constable

Watercolors left for my mom

Asheville Trip - Bent Creek

Bent Creek -Asheville, Watercolor, 11"x14"

My mom's good friend, Aunty Dana, wanted a painting for a charity auction for the Mustard Seed that does a whole bunch of really cool charity work around the world.

So in an effort to help her out I did a few paintings to give to her for her cause.

This one was a Sunday afternoon trip to Bent Creek in Asheville. That place was a hub of activity with continuous kayaks and canoes launching into the French Broad River. We even saw a white truck hit and run another car.

It took awhile to paint this watercolor, but we had a great seat under the tall trees. The river is really beautiful. I had a lot of fun setting up this drawing and it came out pretty great. 

"Art is as important to the access of knowledge as any text ever written." 

~ Laura Kruger

Quiet Bent Creek Moment

Ko`olau from Kailua

 Ko`olau from Kailua, Acrylic mural, 110" x 40"

This trip to Asheville has been many things: a vacation, an opportunity to see and spend time with my sister and mom, but I also got to work on some long overdue projects. My mom has always wanted me to do a mural for her at her home in Asheville.  I took this trip as the opportunity to do it.

This mural is of the Ko`olau Mountains in front of my grandparents' home; the view is coming from Kailua on  H3. I make this drive every day from work. When we were planning the mural, mom said that she always remembers catching her breath when she sees the Ko`olau Mountains from this vantage point. She said, "To me it whispers, 'almost home.'"

Because it wraps around two walls, I used an effect to merge the two sides for these two blog entry photos. But you get the idea. I really am happy with the way this came out.

"The painting has a life of its own."

~ Jackson Pollock

Ko`olau from Kailua, Acrylic Mural, 40" x 110"

Photographing both panels for blog...

Asheville Trip - Mural for My Mother - Preliminary sketch

Koolau Mural - Preliminary sketch, Colored pencils on paper, 4"x 11"

So one of my major projects to do here while visiting Asheville is a mural in my mother's house. She loves the Ko'olau Mountains so I decided to paint them for her.

I spent a few hours planning and beginning to block out the space.

I want to try and play with abstracting the shapes of the mountains and having fun with the colors and shapes. I think it will look great on the wall.

This final mural is going to be on two walls and measure 40"x 110" or 3'4" x 9'2". I am really happy with the space and this is going to be a lot of fun to do. 

I am really excited to see what I can get done.

"Love is an endless mystery, 

because there is no reasonable cause that could explain it." 

~ Rabindranath Tagore

Working Mural with Mom

Ko'olau Mountains from Kaʻaʻawa

Ko'olau Mountains from Ka'a'awa, Ink on Paper, 11" x 14"

So at the request of a friend, I found myself in Kaʻaʻawa  He was photographing a wedding and needed some help. The weather was not agreeing with us, I had some down time, so I drew the Ko'olau Mountains.

On the windward side of Oahu, you can always draw the Ko'olau Mountains.

I used my fountain pens and am really happy with how the above drawing came out. The ridges of the Ko'olau Mountains are really a lot of fun to draw. It was also a challenge to try and render them with just the two colors in ink.

I really like how I rendered the palm trees and the one "fake" palm tree, otherwise known as a civil defense warning siren.

I even got a quick sketch of the wedding party...

Wedding Party, Ink on Paper, 11" x `14"

“Patience, grasshopper," said Maia. "Good things come to those who wait."

"I always thought that was 'Good things come to those who do the wave,'" said Simon. 

"No wonder I've been so confused all my life.” 

~ Cassandra Clare, City of Glass

Personal Best - My Favorite Paintings of 2012

So I have not done as many paintings as I would like. However I have done more this year then I did in the last five years. I think that is a really sad state of things. My New Year's resolutions this year is to do more paintings.

I find a lot of inspiration in the children I work with, but because of legal reasons, I really cannot talk about them very much here. I respect their privacy and honor their families. We travel together with aloha.

Above is my favorite painting of the year. It has such a good feel to it. There is a softness of the reflected light that comes into the room I captured here. There is so much to be happy with in this paintings.

Above is another of the students in my class.

I really like his oxygen tank to the right. There is a neat reflection I rendered here. The few brush strokes render so much information. The bit of blue as his shirt and the dark as his chair.

This painting makes me smile. I managed to capture his smile in this. I had to work from a photo in this painting. With the others I worked from sketches and supplemented with photos. I really couldn't capture his smile any other way. While I can tell that I used a photo, I am really happy with it.

Above is an acrylic landscape I did after a watercolor I did earlier. The watercolor made my list of my favorite watercolors.

I tried to make this more then a pretty landscape. My main focus was on the surface of the painting. I took to heart the lessons of my art professors at the University of Hawaii and really wanted to have a dynamic paint surface. I layered the phases of color and staggered them to obfuscate the paint order. I wanted to make play with the shapes like an abstract expressionist, but still create a figurative image

I think this painting works. So much so I think I will do a few more like it. Let's see what I can come up with.

This is another painting of a student-- it's really rough to not talk about them directly. Their hearts are so much a part of what I try to capture here. Hopefully it comes through to you.

I really tried to capture his stature and the way he carries himself. That is one of the strengths of this piece. I spent a lot of time on the sight word wall in the background, I think it adds a lot to the piece and the way it is laid out.

Above is a portrait of Brandon's uncle, Glen, the owner of The Armchair Adventurer.

Armchair is the local Model, designer board Game, and Role Playing Game store.  He is my merchant of dorky delights. 

His store is like a hoarder nightmare, claustrophobic and stacked to the ceiling with merchandise. Walking through his store is often precarious; a misstep could leave you buried in a heap of Osprey Books. However his store is also where I often enjoy great conversations with my friends over a bottle of wine and a great game.

He had a heart attack earlier this year so I did this painting for him. He is surrounded by his true love, his store and all his precious artifacts.

"There is a marvelous story of a man who once stood before God, his heart breaking from the pain and injustice in the world. 
'Dear God,' he cried out. 'Look at all the suffering, the anguish, and distress in your world. Why don't you send help?' God responded, 'I did send help. I sent YOU.'"

 ~ David J. Wolfe

Personal Best: My Favorite Watercolors of 2012

This is a recap of my favorite watercolors from 2012.

Maybe I'm biased on the above watercolor, but it's one of my favorites.  It's of my dad at an Independent Order of Odd Fellows meeting and it is the first time I painted him. I like the looseness of the sketch and how the colors pooled in the shadows.

I am really proud of this one and the likeness. So much so I framed it and it's proudly displayed in my living room.

I do really enjoy doing candid from life sketches of strangers. I really think this is one of my best. Its of a college student studying at the Starbucks near my house.  As it was finals week, he stayed long enough. I had time to really plan out this sketch.

I worked in pencil first, then planned out the lights and darks. I then worked quickly and got most of this done in a half an hour.

There are so many things I like about this sketch. I love the white ear buds and how they look against the background. I love how the shadow on his computer came from a drying paint pool. I really like his backpack and the chair, how simple they appear, done in just a few brushstrokes, and still very defined they are.

This year I really started to regularly paint landscapes and this is one of my favorites. There is a stigma about painting landscapes in most artists minds for a lot of reasons. I really had to struggle a little to get over that feeling.

This is a view of Olomana from Olomana Community Park.. I used it later in a larger painting and was very happy with most of the elements of this watercolor. I love the puddle of red on the left corner that makes the mountains in the background.

Here is a painting of a stranger I painted while between films at the Honolulu International Film Festival. The man in the picture had been to a bunch of the same films we went to at the festival.

I really like the shadows of this picture. The blue gray shadow on his face and the difference between his face and his arms and legs. The purple shadow behind him also looks very good too.

The last of this collection of watercolors is another landscape. I like this because I really worked out a method of painting the mountains in this drawing that created a neat effect and worked well with watercolors.

Here in this watercolor I drew in two colors of ink: brown and red. I used the red to define the highlights and the brown ink to define the shadows. The effect is created especially with the green mountains is also really nice. The red ink makes the highlight areas bounce , while the brown ink blends and melts into the shadows.

The mountains here are the next ridge near my house. So there is that element of familiarity here.

"The only person you have to please, 

with your art, is yourself." 

~ Don Getz

2012 Koolau - Koolau from Kaneohe District Park

I have been painting mountains closer to my house recently. This is the neighboring ridge to my house. The painting above is painted in the afternoon during a cloudy day. The cloud's diffused light made all the purple colors.

Above is the same ridge painted early, in a clear morning. The light was a little softer then I made it. However, I was really happy with how I was able to plan this painting out. It was a really good exercise in watercolor planning. I utilized both my fountain pens, marking the highlights in red and the deep shadows in brown.

The effect looks pretty neat... I may have to try it a few more times.

"Watercolor condenses time and consolidates experience."

~Frank Marcello

2012 Koolau - Three Ridges

So this installment of the 2012 Koolau book comes from my drives home on Kamehameha Highway. As I'm driving home in the late afternoon, the sky is white with the perpetual cloud-cover of the Windward side of the island. There is a great view of three ridges of the Koolau Mountains, silhouetted against the hazy sky and against each other.  

I had to make a detour one afternoon and drew these ridges as the sun was setting.

The first ridge has the small tunnel of the H3 interstate going through it. I debated whether or not to include it. I decided against it because the painting looked so good without it.

In this painting, the clouds go a little thinner as the sun began to vanish. This painting lost a lot of the details captured in the first one. I still like the silhouettes.

"What is magic? In the deepest sense, magic is an experience. 

It's the experience of finding oneself alive within a world 

that is itself alive. It is the experience of contact and communication 

between oneself and something that is profoundly different 

from oneself: a swallow, a frog, a spider weaving its web."

 ~ David Abram

2012 Koolau - Kualoa Beach Park

These watercolors done at Kualoa Beach Park. I did them in the same trip as these. 

The sunlight was fading and I wanted to start the drive home. As I was walking back to the car I was awestruck by the way the light was hitting the mountain. It looked so blue against the gray sky. I sat at a traffic barricade next to my car and quickly sketched out these two paintings.

I am rather happy with this painting now. For a while, it remained a half finished sketch in watercolor. There were some moments where I thought of abandoning it, I really didn't like it. Mainly because I really messed up the shape of the mountain. 

It is a little darker then I would have liked it. That is more of a by product of the multiple layers of paint on this one.

Before I got back in my car I did a quick contour line drawing of the mountain. The dim light obscured all the ridges of the mountains.  There was just a strong shape of the mountains against the sky.

I really like what the paint is doing in this painting. The star-bursts from where the watercolor pooled on the page look really sharp. I was pretty lucky with them as they can be a very fickle thing.

"Watercolor is like life.

 Better get it right the first time – you don't get a second chance!" 

~Sergei Bongart

2012 Koolau - Mokoli'i

So last Tuesday was election day in the United States. To avoid being online constantly clicking the update button on the Huffington Post, I decided to drive around the island and go to the beach and paint.

Both these paintings are of Mokoli'i or Chinaman's Hat, because of its resemblance to a straw hat. The Hawaiian legend of this island deals with a giant lizard or Mo'o and a great Hawaiian warrior defeating it and throwing its tail into the water. The tail is the island of Mokoli'i.

This is at Kuoloa Beach Park. It was bright when I got there and by the end of the drawing session it was getting kind of cloudy. I think I captured the change in light pretty well.

My mom did a celebration of this special place on her website, dailycelebrations.com.

"Art is both the taking and giving of beauty; 

the turning out to the light the inner folds 

of the awareness of the spirit. 

It is the recreation on another plane 

of the realities of the world; 

the tragic and wonderful realities of earth and men,

 and of all the inter-relations of these." 

~Ansel Adams

2012 Koolau - Olomana II

So here are last two of my landscapes from Sunday. Again, I must say that I have really been captivated by Mount Olomana. Above was painted at Olomana Community Park. The sun was much brighter. I love how the red ink looks on this painting.

This was my favorite painting of the morning.

This second painting is the view is from Maunawili Elementary. It actually is a great view of the first two peaks of Olomana. I am a little sad that the red ink from the previous page bled into the sky of this page. However, it still looks really good.

"All the arts we practice are apprenticeship. The big art is our life."

 ~ M.C. Richards

Olomana I

I hinted before I wanted to do a larger version of the landscapes of Olomana I have been doing. I worked on this painting and am very happy with it.

I am unsure if it needs a little more work or it is done.

Overall I am really happy with this painting.

I began the painting in Cadmium Red and Burnt Umber with the intent of painting the project green. The red under painting bleeds though in a few places and where the paint is thin. It makes the greens look brighter.

I'm really happy with the sky even though there was not a lot of work put in there.

2012 - Koolau - Olomana I

I spent Sunday taking great delight in creating watercolor paintings of Mount Olomana located on the Windward side of Oahu, near my home in Kaneohe.

I learned from the Wikipedia article that the word "Olomana" means "divided hill" in Hawaiian. There are also names to all three peaks of the mountain. The first is called also called Olomana, the second is Paku'i,  and the third is Ahiki.

There is no end to the information on Wikipedia.  Or to my ongoing education.

I finished a total of four paintings. I will post two of them today and the last two in a few days.  I am struck by a number of things.  Above is a view from Olomana Community Park, and is very much the iconic view of Olomana.
 
The above picture was painted on October 28 at 9:20 in the morning. There was a real softness to the morning light that I tried to capture. There is a nice blue tinge to everything.

This painting above is a view from Kailua High School's baseball field.  The little bump on the left side is actually more of the Ahiki (backside) Ridge which is almost as long as the right peak. 

The second work was painted closer to noon--about 11:30-- and the noon sunlight is a lot more dramatic and harsh.

After working in Kailua for a little bit, I am finding that Olomana is really captivating as a subject and is very inspirational. I hope to use these studies for a series of larger paintings in acrylic and oil of the mountains.  I very much see these watercolors as studies for that larger project.

"Inspiration follows aspiration."

 ~ Rabindranath Tagore

2012 Koolau 1-3

I had so much fun working on the Little Mountain Book,  I began another watercolor book. This book is bigger then the small 5"x 3" book I did that group on. This new book is 8" x 5.5".

Starting on this new book I am struck with a few things: one how much longer these larger watercolors are taking me to complete and two how many more pages are in this book then the last one (43 as opposed to 26).

Mainly because of that second point I think these watercolors are going to take me the better part of the year . So I do not have that much of a problem calling this book 2012 Koolau.

I have also taken to writing one the back of them so I have things to write here. All three of these paintings were done at Kailua High School.

Above was done 10/03/12 at  9 AM

The next two are from 10/09/12. The Vog was really bad the day before, covering the mountains with a haze.  When I drove to work on the 9th it look like it had cleared a bit over the night. The landscape was really clear, no clouds or mist.

I took some time around lunch to do this watercolor. There was a slight hint of a Vog in the sky.

This is what the same mountains looked like a when I got to my car at 5. The vog was catching all the light of the afternoon. It completely obscured the ridges of the Koolau mountains. The haze shimmered in the afternoon giving the mountains a glow to them.   

"Why do two colors, put one next to the other, sing?

Can one really explain this? No."

 ~Pablo Picasso

Little Mountain Book 25-28

So this is the last of this sketch book.

We took a trip to Koko Head this weekend and I did the above drawing of the Koolau Mountains from the top.  It came out rather nice, I like how some of the watercolors pooled near the center of the page.

Like rain... and inspiration.

This is the entrance of Hanauma Bay, a popular snorkling spot that is located along the southeast coast of Oahu about a half-hour drive from Waikiki. My watercolor is the view as seen from the top of Koko Head.

I am not really happy with this above drawing. I had a difficult time capturing the water along the edge of the shore. This is the first time I did a shoreline watercolor and the water crests are a little tricky.

On the other hand, here are two from my hike up Ka'au Crater. The one above is overlooking Kailua. Is there anything more beautiful than Windward Oahu, my hometown?

This last one was from the climb down Ka'au Crater looking at the back of Palolo Valley. My grandparents grew up in Kaimuki, near Palolo Valley. 

Little Mountian Book 19-24

So, almost done with this sketch book, my friend and source of creativity. Will be sad to say goodbye, yet excited to start a new book. 

Here are five more of my drawings.

The above view is from Kailua High School on the Windward side of Oahu where I work. I had some time in the morning while waiting for one of my students to arrive.

The next few are from a hike I did up Ka'au Crater. 

I decided to try one of these in black ink instead of the red. It has a really cool, color-wise that is, look. I am unsure if I like the landscapes with the black pen in them.

This is a view of Olomana from the overlook. It's unusual for me to look at the peak from that side. 

 I like how the clouds came out on this one.

This one above is looking at the ridge line on the Koolau Mountains from the top of the hike. I had a little difficulty with the red ink in this one, though the effect it creates is kind of growing on me.

This last one is the ridges leading up to the Koolau Mountains on our descent down the trail. I like how I'm using yellow in these last couple sketches.  I may do a few more like this with the remaining pages.

Little Mountain Book 7-18

This weekend I went camping at Ho'omaluhia Botanical Gardens. I had a good time, but as promised I had some time to do a few watercolors. I was on a roll and did 13 this weekend.  I should probably break this into 3 posts, but let's see if this will work.

Above was done Saturday morning. It is a view of Nuuanu Pali. There are still clouds caught on the mountain peak. I enjoy the detail in this one. It is a large amount of actual space to fit on such a tiny page.

OK, here is a zoom in and to the right of the last one. This is a view of the prominent rock cliff of the Pali with misty mountains in the background. I like how I rendered the mountain with the cloud on it.

 Here is another land locked view of the cliff folds of the Koolaus. I think it is a little less successful then the one in my previous trips 

This is the last one from Saturday morning. I think I managed to capture the feeling of really strong morning light hitting the mountains in this one. I am really happy with the rhythm I created in the folds of the mountains.
 

We went for a light walk around the park and I stopped at a Park bench during a break and did this one.  Looking at these paintings, after the fact, I can see the difference in the light from morning to the afternoon. I painted the shadows more crisply.  I also avoided yellow in the high lights, relying instead on the greens to cover tone changes.

It is kind of interesting to look at the changes in the next few, considering I only painted them a few hours after the ones from the morning. 

I ended up for most of the afternoon on a overlook that had a great 360 view of Kaneohe. This is Olomana and is to the left of the views of the Pali I did (The first two paintings of this post.)  Olomana  has a very neat look to it.

I particularly like the way I rendered the trees in the foreground. I was struggling with them for a bit but I like how they look here.
 

Another view of Nuuanu Pali. I really must have been drawn to them. as I did so many views of them. I think I really wanted to show the contrast of the two ridges with atmospheric perspective separating them. The mountains looks so crisp.   

I then shifted my view on the overlook to Kaneohe/Kailua instead of the Koolau Mountains. I like these two peaks. I think they are glorified hills, but I still like the way I painted them.

This was the last of the pictures I painted of the Koolau Saturday afternoon.It was also my last picture from that overlook. I really like how crisp everything looks.
  

This morning I woke up and painted three more pictures. It was rainy and there were clouds all over the Koolaus.I did this first painting from the same location as the first picture. I really like the blue/gray tone I was able to get in these.

This is of the Koolau ridge line as the clouds danced over them. I am really happy with how this came out.

I was worried it would not work. In watercolor, the white is the white of the page so it can be difficult to make white shapes look good because it represents not putting paint some where. It is one of those weird things with watercolor that so many little things can screw up.

This was the last of the paintings I did on this camping trip. I really wanted to capture the mist covered feel of the Nuuanu Pali. I like how this came out.