Renée Goularte: Art in Process

pouring a landscape

Renee Goularte — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 17:51:47 +0000

Sometimes I manage to create a piece of art work that I just love to look at, and this is one of them. I am very pleased with the texture in the trees, the the coolness of the blue bleeding into the rocks on the edge of the pond, and the occasional spots of undissolved pigment.

There is something very freeing about just pouring paint onto paper and letting the subject matter create itself, without a preconceived vision or idea. One day I took several quarter sheets of watercolor paper and just brushed, dripped, and poured some paint onto the wet paper with no real plan in mind other than to use just a few colors and to go very bright. I do this every so often, just to get out of a mental tight space. Once the paint is on the paper, I tend to just set these aside in my “in process” pile and then look at them occasionally. When I don’t have a specific project in mind, I get one or two out, tape them to the wall, and just look at them, trying to let my eyes do all the thinking.

I kept coming back to this one. I loved the bright colors, and it definitely spoke “landscape” to me (they usually do) but it took a few months before something finally clicked. One day, I just started to draw, following some of the contours and shapes that had been created by flowing paint. I started with the trees and some of the long lines to establish the main layout, then started drawing in the rocks and finishing up with the little grassy parts.

I have a general tendency not to stop soon enough when I am working, but with this one it seemed that when I was done, I was done. Unlike many other of my supposedly finished paintings and drawings, I have not gone back on this one to add another rock, or more grass, or make this tree a little taller. I am happy with it just the way it is.

exploration in gray

Renee Goularte — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 21:42:15 +0000

This little drawing was done one day in drawing class when I just needed a little diversionary break. I grabbed a scrap of bristol paper (7×11) and an assortment of warm grays (Prismacolor) and just started doing some cross-hatching, with no plan in mind. It created itself into this little sand dune / ocean sort of landscape. I like the texture of the cross-hatching and the illusion of distance created by the use of space and the flow of the lines. The drawing process of drawing this was very calming, and I like the feeling of serenity it evokes.

night

Renee Goularte — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 15:55:23 +0000

My latest, possibly first of a series. I started with the rectangle, carefully measuring and lightly drawing in pencil points, then taping off the rectangle with artist’s tape. I did the little black and white painting, let it dry, and took off the tape.

After a few weeks of thinking about it, one day I covered the trees with a piece of scrap watercolor paper, taped it down carefully to create a little white border around the rectangle (about 1/4 inch, maybe less), and let myself go. I wet the paper with a brush and basically splashed blue and purple watercolor on the paper. I blew some with a straw, just a little to spread it around and help it blend, and then dropped pretzel salt onto parts of it. The salt sucks up water and paint, making a spotty texture. I plopped in a little yellow, waited for it to dry completely, brushed off the salt, and took off the paper mask.

I have another painting similar to this one, of an oak tree, which still has a white background. I’m thinking of doing something similar, going greenish or maybe fall color-ish.

This is done on a half sheet of Arches 140# watercolor paper (15×22).

stripes and white space

Renee Goularte — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 19:43:45 +0000

One day I walked into my watercolor class and saw a vase of flowers and a long piece of bunched-up striped fabric arranged across the worktable. “Uh oh,” I thought. The very idea of dealing with all that fabric seemed overwhelming. After our instructor’s demonstration of how she does her sketching and laying out the initial color and the use of negative painting, I sat down and just stared at that complicated fabric for a long time, the glass vase with its reflections, and all those irises and leaves and lilies. After a while, finally, tentatively, I started drawing the contour of the vase and laying out the main contours of the fabric, and then, suddenly, I started looking at the fabric a new way. It was basically like a landscape! The hills running into each other, the valleys in between… and then the fabric started to make sense to me. But I left a lot out, because I am a big fan of white space, and I wanted this to be about the fabric and the vase, without all the clutter of flowers and leaves and background. In this class, people are always talking about filling the paper with color, but I don’t think that’s always necessary. Maybe I’m just lazy. Maybe I don’t want to deal with the details of backgrounds. But to me, white space can be just as dramatic as the subject matter itself. In the end, I like the way this turned out. I don’t think it needs background other than that little yellow glow.

playing around

Renee Goularte — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 18:22:54 +0000

Just for fun, last week I did four little watercolor “pours” with the idea that I would do some drawing on them.

The purple and blue landscape is about 8×9 and the smallest, the green and yellow landscape, is about 4×7. The green, yellow and blue pour and the gray and rose one below are both about 8×10 or so.

These are fun little things that are relaxing to me. I do them now and then to loosen up, usually when I am stuck on something else that’s not quite working. It’s like taking a little break. I just let the paint go where it wants, sometimes slanting the paper to help it move along, or blowing through a straw for some drippy effects.

When they’re dry, I just get out my pens and start following the lines to define shapes, colors, and spaces. It’s fun and relaxing; I like letting the work speak to me, instead of trying to control the space.

landscape with rocks

Renee Goularte — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 19:14:33 +0000

The other day in drawing class I just started playing around with my colored pencils. No plan in mind, just started cross-hatching on the page. Of course, usually when I have no plan in mind, I end up with a landscape of some kind, because that’s what I love doing most. Landscape with sky. So in the course of a couple of hours, I went from blank, white page to this soft, quiet landscape. I used a lot of cross-hatching, giving it this wonderful texture. I think it has a nice feeling of space and perspective. I probably used about fifteen or more colors on this, but I couldn’t even begin to remember which ones. I love the way it reminds me of a quiet, warm, summer day. From far away, those rocks look like a flock of sheep, which is kind of fun.

monochrome

Renee Goularte — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 18:35:11 +0000

Portraiture is not really my thing, most likely due largely to inexperience, non-practice, and undeveloped drawing skills, but recently we played around with faces in my watercolor class, working from photographs. This little blue watercolor is the result of a monochromatic value exercise in which we started out by painting only the shadows. I went for a combination of Winsor Blue and French Ultramarine, using for inspiration this photograph of my daughter taken a few decades ago. I just love the way her hair is flying around kind of willy-nilly, and the expression on her face, which is lifted just a bit. I created a black and white image of the original photograph and painted only the shadows. I came back in later and darkened up a few places, and consciously chose to not add any other color. I am not bothered by the fact that it looks nothing like the photograph, since it was not my goal to do a portrait, but rather just to see what would happen if I concentrated only on shadows. I like the way the negative and positive space work together, and that there is a rather ethereal quality to it.

landscaping

Renee Goularte — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 18:44:08 +0000

One Sunday morning in December, while listening to a math educator’s closing speech at a math conference at Asilomar, I was observing patterns in the building’s architecture while drawing in my sketchbook. (I had recently discovered that I hear better while drawing, but that’s a different topic.) I randomly started sketching landscapes among my patterns, and the idea for this mixed-media piece was born.

In my watercolor classes with N. Eric Oback at San Jose State University a lifetime ago, I had done a number of watercolors that mixed hard edges with textured colors. I’ve always loved that combination, and I could see clearly the direction I wanted to go with this idea.

I began by measuring and taping off the rectangles with artist’s tape and painted the landscape inside the panels. I was thinking early summer, with its various greens and touches of gold from fields of wildflowers, and a cloud-dotted sky. When the painting was dry, I removed the tape and just looked at it for a while. Originally, I had thought that this painting would have some minimalist splashes of neutral color stretching across/behind/through the panels, but that idea went away when I decided to extend the landscape instead. I retaped the outside edge of all the rectangles and extended the existing colors beyond the panels, but something wasn’t right and I wasn’t sure where to go next. I set it aside and then, after several days, I got an idea but was still unsure….

… so I photographed the work, printed out a couple of copies, and got out my colored pencils to see what I might do. I started cross-hatching on one edge, liked it, kept going, and eventually decided to go ahead and add colored pencil to the original. I got out my watercolor pencils and started the cross-hatching. My goal was to go darker but include the colors of the sky — the subtle pinks and yellows — and also bring in the greens and golds from the landscape. Using a variety of colors layered over each other gave this section the neutral “feel” I was looking for.

This piece is one of my favorites. I am very happy with the mesh of colors, the two different textures, the way the panels seem to grow out of the cross-hatching, and the accidental “sunshine” just over and through that second panel. I’m looking forward to doing a series of paneled landscapes with different shapes and sizes and colors. Coming soon…. maybe….

shadows

Renee Goularte — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 21:41:20 +0000

This colored pencil drawing evolved from a trip to Mt. Shasta to visit friends, from the carrying of and snapping of cameras out onto the snow, and my comment about the beauty of the trees’ shadows. My friend Doug later showed me what seemed like hundreds of photos of trees and shadows he had taken on the mountain, and he promised to send me some. One photo in particular stood out: a little cabin in the snow, at the foot of a rocky mountain, surrounded by trees. I printed it out, brought it to my drawing class, and made a quick pencil sketch:

After thinking about a few adjustments — move the cabin a little to the right, eliminate some of the trees and rocks — I transferred the main contour lines of the composition to bristol paper and proceeded to lay down a light layer of overall color…

… then continued to add color — darker values and a variety of color details in the trees, more detail in the rocks on the mountain, some very subtle coloring on the snow, and some purple added to the tree shadows. We decided to use this drawing for our Christmas card this year, which started me on a card-making project using several of my favorite watercolors and drawings.

Not a bad drawing, overall, and I think very worthy of Doug’s original photograph.

sunrise

Renee Goularte — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 01:55:52 +0000

Sometimes I take a break from working on paintings where I am trying to make water sparkle, or make trees look like the sun is shining through, where I am focused on creating the subtle colors of clouds or just the exact way a shadow might look in a group of rocks. Sometimes I let my brush do a little dance on the paper, without a preconceived plan — just getting into a flow — letting the brush do the work.

If I’m lucky, I end up with a happy little accident that speaks to me and asks me to continue. Such a thing happened with this little painting.

One day while waiting for another watercolor to dry, I took an eighth sheet of paper (7×11) and simply let a round brush create a few blue and purple lines. Just for fun. I looked at it a bit, decided I liked the shape, and added the drippy part at the bottom (a technique I learned to love in my watercolor classes with N. Eric Oback at San Jose State University in the late 60s). Later, I put it on a shelf where I could just look at it for a few days. Hmmm, I thought… it seems like a landscape to me! After several days of of lateral observation, I decided to replicate the drippy part with a hint of yellow … just a bit of sunshine, then added just the tiniest touch of orange peeking over the mountain.

There is a school of thought that says the whole paper should be covered with paint, but I am a real fan of white space. I love working with negative space, letting white space become just as important in a composition as the colored space. In this little painting, I think the white space is just enough to balance the color. I love the composition, the inference of landscape and sunrise, and the minimalist use of color.