Catching up on some Summer Sketches

Its been a long time since I have posted any sketches, here are some sketches from various trips since late summer.

Crater Lake - August 2015 - managed to squeeze in some sketching while I visited Crater Lake for the century bike ride.

Williamson River - a really nice river and place to camp outside of Crater Lake National Park.

Cape Lookout - Oregon Coast Aug 2015

Rogue Pub - Portland OR, Pearl District

Benson House - Portland Or 

Outdoor sketching is a bit "sketchy" with the current wet weather so I hope to focus on some more traditional studio watercolors if I can find the time. 

thanks for looking!

Phil

Art Show Bare Bones Cafe and Bar

Its been a busy summer with a lot of sketching, cycling and some painting not to mention project deadlines, so I have not been keeping up with the blog much. I wanted post an update that I am having a show at Bare Bones Bar and Cafe in the Belmont neighborhood the month of August. There will be an art opening tonight for happy hour 4-7. Come check it out if you are in the area.

Backpacking and Plein Aire Painting

I recently went on a backpacking trip with some friends to a remote lake in the Oregon Cascades. This time I brought along my Altoids tin travel paint kit and 8 1/2" x 11" landscape watercolor Moleskine. I did a number of paintings in Plein Aire here are some of my favorites.

The view from the campsite notice the canoe that someone has packed to the lake and left for anyone to use.

 A small brook trout one of many caught on the trip

Thanks for looking.

Some new Sketches from around Portland

 With the nice weather here in the Pacific Northwest I have been doing a lot sketching outdoors and not much studio painting. Here are some of my recent sketches from around Portland, all these sketches were done in my Stillman and Birns Alpha sketchbook with a Lamy Safari fountain pen and Graham watercolors. 

NE 15th Bed and Breakfast

sketched while drinking coffee at Peets with my son Caleb, he was busy sketching some pretty awesome cats. 

Clock Tower Downtown Portland

this was a lunch break sketch, I don't know the name of this building but I believe its the home of  Water leaf architects.

 Jake's Crawfish

this is a pretty well know restaurant in downtown Portland not far from my Office I have not eaten there but I hear its good, yes that's a Canadian flag not sure what that's about.

Golden West Hotel

This building a block from my office in the Pearl District  was built by Black entrepreneur W.D. Allen in 1906 its a historic landmark for the African American community in Portland and home to John's Cafe a place that looks like its straight out of the 70's . I have always liked the copper mansard roof. 

Smith River Commission

A few months back I was commissioned to paint a scene from the Smith River in Montana. It was for Lady whose husband is an avid fly fisherman. Since I love Fly Fishing and painting rivers this was a perfect commission for me to do. Ideally I would have liked to go on site an do some sketches of the river in person to paint from, but seeing that it was still winter and the River is in Montana that was not going to happen so I settled for working from photos. After some black and white composition/ value  studies and a watercolor sketch of the scene I decided on a composition. 
The challenge of this painting was the large cliffs in the background I did not want them to be too detailed and distracting since the river and the fisherman are the focal point of the painting but they are obviously an important element. I really like the finished painting I feel there is good color harmony and composition, I like the reflection of the cliffs on the water and the sun coming through the trees on the upper left. The fisherman were another challenge since this painting was for a fly fisherman they had to look accurate. I think they came out good  I did a page of sketches of fisherman in different stages of casting to make sure I didn't mess up the whole painting however there is one small error with the fisherman's line (it does not go through the lowest eye on the rod... oops) but I don't think too many people will notice.

Fly Fishing the Smith River, Watercolor 22" x 30" Commissioned Painting

Hillsboro Library Art Exhibit

My work along with a fellow Portland Artist Jo Riemer is going to be on Exhibit at the Hillsboro, Oregon library starting today through June 30. If you happen to be in the area check it out. Also we are having an Artist reception Saturday May 16th all are invited to come here is the formal invitation with all the info. Hope to see you there.

Sketching Portland's waterfront

I have a bunch of new  paintings but I have been to busy to post them. So in the mean time here are a few new lunch time sketches done on Portland's waterfront. All these were done on location in a Stillman and Birns Alpha sketchbook and watercolored at home.

Burnside Bridge Watch tower

Portland Maritime Museum in an old Sternwheel

Hawthorne Bridge

Travel Sketching - Niagara Falls

Here are some sketches from the second half of my east coast trip to beautiful Niagara Falls. My whole family rented a cool old house listed on the National Historic registry located about a 15min walk from the US side of Niagara falls. From what I could tell it was probably the nicest thing in Niagara Falls. While the falls themselves are impressive and provided a lot of good sketching opportunities, the surrounding town was not too nice. The Canadian side of the Falls is a classic tourist trap but was a lot more lively than the American side so we spent quite a bit of time there. 

Niagara Falls (Horse Shoe Falls) from Canada 

American Falls

Horse shoe falls - Canada

 At a view point on the "journey behind the falls" I got a few minutes to pull out my plien air paint kit and do a quick watercolor sketch, this was my favorite sketch of the falls I feel it captures the power of the water, also the mist from the falls aided in the watercolor process 

Inside B&B Niagara Falls

Sunset at JFK

While waiting for our flight to board I did this last sketch of the trip of a  nice sunset reflecting off the planes.

Travel Sketching - Toronto

5"x7" Annex Neighborhood

Earlier this month I found myself in Toronto, Ontario Canada. Why was I there in March after one of the worst winters in history? It’s a long story but in short we were on the East Coast for my brother’s wedding and decided to do a side trip to Toronto. Toronto has a lot of great Architecture and neighborhoods just asking to be sketched but my hopes of doing a load of outdoor urban sketching and painting were dampened by the 15-30 deg F weather. I did however make the best of it and was able to do a bit of sketching from inside looking out windows and also at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) and Ripley’s Aquarium.  Below are the results from my sketchbooks, these were done in my 8 ½” x 11” Stillman and Birns Alpha sketchbook and the small ones are from a 5”x7” ”Nature Sketch” sketchbook.

5"x7" Flat Iron Building

5"x7" Small House Cabbage Town

5" x7" old barn in Cabbage Town

 

17" x11" "Houses on Marchmount Street"

8 1/2" x 11" "New meets Old"  Outside of the ROM

17"x11" sketch compilation from the ROM

17" x11" sketch compilation Ripley's Aquarium

5" x7" "House on Marchmount Street"

Soon I will be posting sketched from part 2 of the trip Niagara Falls.

Plein Air travel Paint kit - low budget edition

 For sometime now I have been wanting to expand my on location sketching to full on plein air painting.  Currently I do most my sketching on site and later add the watercolor washes at home. In preparation for a trip to New York and Toronto with hopes to do some good urban sketching I decided to put together a plein air travel painting kit. I didn't want to spend too much money on a travel paint kit so after doing a little research I decided to make a palette out of an Altoids container with water bottle caps for the paint wells.

My kit includes:

- Altoids pallet with M. Graham watercolors colors- burnt sienna, ultra marine blue, cerulean blue, raw sienna, alizarin crimson, payne's grey and hookers green. 

- Nature Sketch 5"x7" sketchbook (this is an inexpensive sketchbook that does great with watercolor washes) 

- Stillman and Birns 8 1/2" x 11" alpha sketchbook

- Escoda Perla Z travel brush 

- Pentel Aqua Brush 

- Small plastic water container (from my backpacking stuff)

- Sepia Micron .005 pen 

- staedtler lumocolor pen

I tested out the kit on a nice day at Cathedral Park along the Willamette river in North Portland

here are some of the sketches, it worked really well except the aqua brush is a little small for my style and its very difficult to get the right amount of water. It will take getting used to. 

plein air travel paint kit 

"old boat willamette river "
5"x7" Nature Sketchbook

"docked sailboat "
5"x7" Nature Sketchbook

"NW Industrial on the Willamette"
5"x7" Nature Sketchbook

Soon I will be posting sketches from the East Coast trip.

Northwest City Market

Here is another in the series of Portland street scenes I have been commissioned to do. Northwest City Market is a small grocery store on NW 21st its got great character and they always sell flowers outside of the entry. This painting is a bit more colorful than usually  but I think the flowers and umbrellas add a  nice touch.

"NW City Market"
Watercolor
11x14
Private Collection

Sketching Portland

This year one of my goals is to draw and paint more in the field. With the unusually nice weather recently I have been able to do a bit of sketching outside, mostly on my lunch break with couple other architects in my office.
 This is a sketch of Cathedral Bridge in St Johns from a couple weekends ago when the weather was great. The other 3 are from Portland's Pearl District sketched during lunch break and watercolored at home. I have recently made a travel sketch watercolor palette so I can start painting on site but have yet to use it.

 

 

 Cathedral Bridge
16" x10" -Watercolor Moleskine sketchbook
 Lumocolor pen and watercolor

"Building on 13th and Glisan" -
 8 1/2" x 11" Stillman and Birn  Alpha sketchbook
 lumocolor pen and watercolor

"Park Kitchen"
 8 1/2" x 11" Stillman and Birn Alpha sketchbook -
lumocolor pen and watercolor

'Park Blocks Brick " -
8 1/2" x 11" Stillman and Birn Alpha sketchbook -
lumocolor pen and watercolor

New blog and Commissioned paintings

Welcome to my new Blog "Pittsenbarger Watercolors" I decided to start this new site for all my watercolor paintings and watercolor sketches. I started my other blog Trout Illustrated to specialize in Fish and Fishing related paintings. Since I now primarily paint landscapes and cityscapes I felt a more general name like Pittsenbarger Watercolors would be fitting. (I will still keep the other site for fishing related photography and paintings)  Also as I have more exhibits and enter into art shows I want the site to be associated with my name.

Please note that I have added pages below the blog title for paintings that are available to buy.

Please share the link to this blog with anyone who might be interested.

I currently have a solo art exhibit at Anna Bannanas in the Saint John's Neighborhood in North Portland, it has gone over pretty well and I have had several people inquire about doing commissions for them. The following is the start of a large commission of different St. Johns and NW Portland scenes.  These first 3 are all from Lombard St. in the center of St Johns.

Patties - 11"x 14" 

Private collection

This old school diner looks like its in a time warp from the 50's its got a soda fountain style lunch counter and is mixed with a thrift store... strange but the type of place that makes St. John's so unique.

St. Johns Cinema - 11" x 14" 

Private collection

This is an old discount movie theater we go here a lot in the winter with the boys to watch cheap movies. I usually go here when its raining so I rendered it on a wet day.

Signal Pizza - 11" x 14"

Private collection

This is a vintage gas station that was restored and turned into a pizza joint, have not eaten here but its a great old building.