Some new work

Flutes, 2009, watercolor, 25 x 18 in.


Wine glass, 2009, watercolor, 10 x 7 in.


Pixie, 2009, watercolor, 20 x 15 in.


Flicker, 2009, watercolor, 10 x 7 in.


Reflect, 2009, watercolor, 6 x 8 in.


Bell, 2009, watercolor, 7 x 10 in.


Note, 2009, watercolor, 10 x 7 in.


Clear, 2009, watercolor, 20 x 15 in.

Some of these paintings are still available at Left Coast Galleries in Studio City, CA.

Brawl, step by step

Some notes on the execution of one of my large watercolors, for which I had the presence of mind to snap some in-process photos (a rare event)…

First, the top of the mug and the swallowtails were masked off while I painted in the dark background. The masking was done with cut out pieces of ordinary drawing paper sealed at the edges with thin strips of drafting tape, plus a little masking fliud for the fine lines, such as the legs..



That dark background color is a tarry concoction of Phthalo Blue (green shade), Quinacridone Magenta, and Lunar Black (an iron oxide watercolor by Daniel Smith). I actually squeeze the paint from the tubes into a small cup and mix with a little water until it’s nearly as runny as India ink, but much denser. Lunar black in this concentration produces an amazingly soft, velvety black which you can thin at the edges to produce interesting granulation effects. But the caveat is that if you try to paint over this layer, it will turn to mud, so the paint application needs to be accomplished in one pass.

The masked areas produce a hard edge, which I softened with a small bristle brush on the trailing edge of the butterfly wings. The edge of the table in the background was not masked, but painted very carefully in a straight line with clean water to let the still-damp black bleed down, producing a soft graduated effect. You can lay a ruler down on the dry part and use it to guide not the brush but rather your hand as you pull the brush along. A hair dryer is invaluable to fix the paint before the bleeding gets out of hand.

Then I painted in the “background” colors of the wings with benzimidazolone (Winsor) yellow with a slight amount of quinacridone magenta. This yellow has to be all finished before I start to add the black, because I don’t want to bleed the black into any of the yellow spots. The shadows on the table surface are put in wet-in-wet using phthalo blue and quinacridone magenta. Yes, I don’t keep many colors on my palette, but I do get to know them rather well.



The most important thing in watercolor is to decide early on which areas are going to be white and to be sure to keep these clean. White is not on your palette -- it's on the paper when you start, so you must take care not to lose it. You can mask these areas off or just be very careful not to let them ever get wet. They will be the focal point of the whole composition. In this case, the highlights on the handle are pure white (unpainted paper), and the foam sticking to the glass is close to white (with just a very thin wash).

I start putting the spots on the butterflies with Payne’s Gray. These can be darkened later with Lunar Black, where required. The mug is painted with quinacridone magenta, winsor yellow, phthalo blue (green shade), and Payne’s Gray, starting light and gradually increasing the contrast and color intensity with subsequent washes. This is the advantage of using these stubborn staining pigments – you can go over them repeatedly to increase saturation with disturbing the previous washes much. The effect over time should like a developing photo, with the image starting to appear at low contrast and then gradually becoming more intense. If you go too far, that is if you get too dark, it’s very hard to go back. But not impossible...

For example, I neglected to mask off all the legs of the top butterfly, and consequently I had to dig some of them out from that thick tarry black stuff using a bristle brush. I could not get them all the way back to white, because the phthalo blue in the mix penetrates the paper too deeply. This is why those legs appear blue, and the top antenna is especially dark.

BEFORE:



You can see the botched masking and the soft blue areas where I have worked at scrubbing the black pigment off in the above enlargement. Often a watercolor goes through a difficult period where it seems like it could not possibly work out, but just as often the signs of that struggle is what makes it most interesting. I find that the paintings I had the most trouble with are the ones people seem most attracted to.

AFTER:



So this is the top butterfly again after being laboriously "fixed." I scratched off a few highlights with an x-acto knife, and cleaned the edges of the scrubbed legs and antenna to get a harder edge, where required. I’ve learned the hard way that after distressing the paper in this way (scrubbing or scratching), you cannot wash over it again, because the torn paper fibers suck the paint in undesirable directions via capillary action. But you can very carefully stipple in tiny dots of paint if you freeze them with the hair dryer before they take off in unexpected directions. Experience is the best teacher. Eventually you get a feel for how much abuse your paper will take before it turns back into pulp.

The last steps just involve increasing contrast with repeated washes to increase the reality effect. With staining colors like phthalo blue, winsor yellow, and quinacridone magenta, you can really crank it up. I think people are surprised at the appearance of my watercolors mostly because of this contrast, and because of the depth of the black backgrounds.



That's it! I'm sorry I did not get to hang this one on the wall very long. I framed it as soon as it was dry, delivered it to a gallery the next day, and it was sold in a heartbeat. So it goes...

Book release, tiger beetle show

But first, the bad news...

My upcoming show at the Bakersfield Museum of Art next year has been cancelled due to major budget cuts. Well, that's just life here in the Great Recession, it seems. Right, onwards...

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Mortal Dilemmas and Narrow Escapes

      Book cover

Left Coast Galleries has published a hard-cover art book featuring my recent watercolor paintings, along with a concise introductory essay. It's very handsome and is sure to enhance the appearance of any coffee table.

If you want your own copy, you can contact Left Coast Galleries
at 818-760-7010.

Or you can preview it and even buy it online at blurb.com.

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Salt Creek Environment conservation exhibit
in Lincoln, Nebraska

I am pleased to be participating in "Salt Creek Environment: Local and Endangered," an entomology/conservation-themed exhibit at the Haydon Gallery in Lincoln, Nebraska. Opening on July 10, this show will feature 23 artists who have completed works involving the endangered salt creek tiger beetle, one of the rarest insects in the world. This beetle, and the unique inland saline marsh in which it lives, is currently threatened by encroaching development and habitat degradation.

Curated by entomologist Tierney Brosius at the University of Nebraska Lincoln, the exhibit is funded in part by the Nebraska Environmental Trust, the Saline Wetland Partnership, and the Xerces Society.


Spotted, watercolor, 2009, 20 x 15 in.

Spring Art News

So now it's spring, the season of growth and renewal, and we find ourselves bouncing along the bottom, one hopes, of the current economic slump -- the Great Recession, as some are calling it, or the Big Dip, if you prefer. Despite the current atmosphere of austerity and anxiety, it seems a perfect time for savvy art collectors to be doing some bargain hunting, especially at auctions and charity events, where low turnout amidst the new frugality means great deals on fine art are waiting to be discovered. As it happens, I'm participating in two such upcoming fundraiser events...

Incognito at the Santa Monica Museum of Art

The first of these is Incognito, the Santa Monica Museum of Art's annual fundraiser, at Bergamot Station on Saturday, May 2, from 7 to 10 pm. This is a fun free-for-all of an art sale, featuring works by over 400 artists, some famous and some emerging, all the same size, all displayed anonymously, and all priced at just $300. In most cases, this price is a small fraction of the work's market value, but the real pleasure of this event is watching so many people trusting their first glance, plunging into the unknown, and taking home as a result one or more fabulous artworks.

Because most of the work is sold within the first fifteen minutes, I recommend that anyone interested in buying tickets for this event should consider the Patron level in order to get priority admission, and come early in any case... The $600 Patron entry price for two includes one prepaid artwork ($300 value) and the rest is tax-deductable. Participating artists this year include John Baldessari, Kristin Calabrese, Ed Ruscha, Exene Cervenka, Meg Cranston, Urs Fischer, Salomón Huerta, Rebecca Morris, Leonard Nimoy, John Outterbridge, Raymond Pettibon, Allen Ruppersberg, Alison Saar, Eleanor Antin, and hundreds of others, including myself. You can see a video from last year's event here... More information at www.smmoa.org.


Venice Art Walk & Auction

I will also be participating in the Venice Art Walk Auction on Sunday, May 17, 11:30 am - 5:30 pm, at 1010 Abbott Kinney Blvd in Venice.

This is another great chance to find bargains on high-quality art by a similarly distinguished lineup of contemporary artists, and admission to the silent auction is free... That is, you don't have to be a registered artwalk participant to stroll through the auction or to bid on any of the hundreds of artworks offered... You just need to find a place to park in Venice on a crazy busy weekend -- so ride your bike or bring the Smart Car. Proceeds from art sales benefit the Venice Family Clinic.

My contribution to the auction (Thick) is pictured below...

You can learn more about the event at www.venicefamilyclinic.org.


Thick, 2009, watercolor, 8 x 6 in.

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Entomology show in Lincoln, NB

On the more distant horizon, my work will appear this July in "Salt Creek Environment: Local and Endangered," not a charity event but a conservation-themed exhibit at the Haydon Gallery in Lincoln, NB, which features 23 artists who have completed works involving the endangered salt creek tiger beetle, one of the rarest insects in the world.

Organized by the entomology department at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, the exhibit is funded in part by the Nebraska Environmental Trust, the Saline Wetland Partnership, and the Xerces Society.

Read more about salt creek tiger beetles at www.xerces.org.


Spotted, 2009, watercolor, 20 x 15 in.

More images of recent work and other news at www.paulpitsker.com.

Spring forward and other news

Okay, first can I tell you how happy I am that we are getting Daylight Saving Time already this weekend? I know it's just minor seismic slippage of the clocks, but as a semi-professional insomniac it somehow makes the night seem a little less endless.

In other news, my work is featured in the current issue of Watercolor magazine. It's kind of a practical, how-to mag about the nuts and bolts of the medium, but they seemed to enjoy the bugs:

Please stay tuned for news about upcoming art events I'm involved in, such as Incognito at the Santa Monica Museum of Art, the Venice Art Walk & Auction, an entomology/conservation exhibit this summer in Lincoln, NB, an upcoming show at the Bakersfield Art Museum, and more...

Meanwhile, here are some watercolors just off the drawing board...

Brawl, 2009, watercolor, 25 x 18 in.

Glow, 2008, watercolor, 10 x 7 in.

If you're curious about that backwards signature, it's how I sign all my work. It was a script I used in my journal when I was young to keep the ink from smearing... a left-handed thing, basically. I like how it helps keep the signature from being too conspicuous as a visual element in the paintings.

Thanks for looking in!