Dirt
Today was supposed to be a plein-air day. I was all set to get my painting gear after work and go paint on the river. But I stepped out of work to cloudy skies and the promise of rain in an hour or so. As we established last week, water can do bad things to the surface of oil paintings, so that plan went out the window. I decided I wanted the green time anyways, skipped the going-home-and-getting-paints step and just biked straight to the river with my sketchbook. I got a quick sketch in, and took a bunch of reference photos and videos. There are several really nice potential scenes stacked right on top of each other in this area. There was just enough time to visit all of them briefly, and I got some nice references for these scenes on an overcast day. Often times, when I'm forced to pivot like this, it feels like I've wasted my time for the day, but I recently came across this idea of creating "Dirt", the rough soil of little sketches and ideas that accumulate to help us grow bigger ideas. So today, I'm choosing to think of my aborted mission and the subsequent meager sketch created as Dirt - the raw material for future paintings.
A short film I made about the experience.
Also, here is a quick video I put together to share my time down by the river today. This is what I spent most of the afternoon assembling after I got home. I guess I could have worked on a painting at home inside, but this idea was calling me, and I chose to lean into the distraction and create something else. I’ve been somewhat obsessed with analogue film emulation of digital video, and have been learning how to do that sort of emulation. Here’s what I’m hoping is a nice marriage between drawing, sharing the feel of the adventure, and old-school analogue film emulation.
Hope you like it.
-ZR