Ari Targownik

Born

2012-01-25T01:09:00.001-08:00

8" x 10"
Process shots below:

Howarth Park and Yulupa Rocks

2012-01-25T00:57:00.000-08:00

30" x 24"
This is a larger version of this painting.
I painted at this location 5 separate times. I learned a lot though about working at this size, and I think it wont take as long the next time around - give or take some time considering the complexity of the subject.
I truly struggled with this piece. There were many times during the process of making it that I was not happy with where it was at, so I had to force it into what I was trying to achieve - whether I achieved it or not is up to the viewer.

10" x 8"

Cemetary

2012-01-25T00:41:00.000-08:00

18" x 14"
This was an attempt to mix together/collage different view points and times of day within one painting - similar to this work.
I don't think it turned out successful, but at the time I didn't feel any one view was interesting enough for a full piece.
At the bottom of the canvas, I tried to capture a gathering of people in mostly black attire, some in white.

Still?...Life

2012-01-07T21:26:00.000-08:00

14" x 18"

Plein Air - Howarth Park, Yulupa Circle

2012-01-07T20:54:00.000-08:00

8" x 10"
Definitely not a solid piece or study, but I seem to be painting this lighting scenario a lot - as it occurs often during sunset. When there are lots of trees or other complex shapes, it becomes difficult to paint in a short amount of time. To simplify these scenarios, I think I have to pick out only a few important forms, render them fairly carefully, then just quickly fill in the rest more loosely - as opposed to attempting to render everything I see.

12" x 9"

10" x 8"

10" x 8"

10" x 8"

10" x 8"

9" x 12"
This study fails as a painting on several levels, but again, even in the worst pieces there are usually some color combinations that surprise me.

Plein Air - Indian Rock Park, Howarth Park, Other stuff

2011-12-22T22:56:00.000-08:00

10"x 8"

7" x 5"
Took about 10 minutes......and looks like it, he he.

12" x 9"

9" x 12"

10" x 8"

Portrait

2011-12-22T22:46:00.000-08:00

Detail

Plein Air - Mount Tamalpais, Walker Road

2011-12-16T19:32:00.000-08:00

12" x 9"
I had some left over prussian blue on my palette from working on another painting. Unfortunately, I couldn't help but use it a bit too much, for I think it made the value of the houses in the background too dark.

16" x 12"

10" x 8"
This was possibly the coldest I've ever been while making a painting. The wind was ridiculous, but it's to be expected when you are on the top of a mountain.

Still Life made using "form modeling" method

2011-12-16T18:53:00.000-08:00

For this still life, I wanted to try out a method of painting I found out from the website of an artist named Douglas Flynt.
In this method, one makes a drawing on paper of the still life, transfers the drawing to the canvas, and then paints in the objects piece by piece. While I think the method worked, I don't know if I will use it again. For me, it makes the process of painting more mechanical, and not as fun. But on the other hand, it pushed me to get the most detail in a painting I think I have ever attempted.

12" x 9"

This greyscale study is done as part of the method to keep in mind the larger value changes to help you along as you paint the forms.

Plein Air - ILM, Dillon Beach, Sebastopol

2011-12-04T23:51:00.001-08:00

10" x 8"
I wasn't too excited about painting this location, and was pretty unhappy with the way it was going while painting. As a whole painting it's not successful, but I'm happy with some of the color combinations.

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The following 3 paintings were done all in the same day at Dillon Beach:

10" x 8" - SOLD

10" x 8" - SOLD

10" x 8" - SOLD
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12" x 16"
This was done at the location of the special effects company Industrial Light and Magic in San Francisco. The whole area was pretty amazing.

Plein Air

2011-11-28T19:38:00.000-08:00

Did both of these in the same day.

8" x 10"

10" x 8"
This one took much longer than the other painting. I almost didn't paint this scene because:
a) There aren't many different elements in it - which results in not the most dynamic composition.
b) I knew it would be rather tedious with all the various weeds.
I really tried to get a lot more colors into this one using a semi-impressionistic approach. Once I took it back home, I touched it up for maybe 20 minutes. I usually don't like doing this because the colors end up more generic without the aid of the original visual reference, but this time I think it actually improved the painting.

Plein Air

2011-11-27T19:20:00.000-08:00

10" x 8"
Was rather happy with the colors in this one. I tried to push them a little more than usual. By "push" I mean make them different than what I actually see, to give the piece a uniqueness.

16" x 12"
And another factory. I know it's not good to have elements exactly in the middle of a piece, but for some reason, I didn't want to paint this scene any other way.

10" x 8"
Not a great composition, but still worth doing for the study.

10" x 8"
Sunset within walking distance of where I live.

14" x 11"
I may do a larger version of this one, as I was rather happy with the lighting, color, and most importantly as I am finding out, the composition.

10" x 8"
This was done early in the morning. I didn't have a lot of time because I had to go to work, but I saw goats suddenly emerge onto a farm. One of them slowly walked towards me, and this silly little painting is trying to capture the goat's progression as it walked.

Self Portrait

2011-11-27T19:16:00.001-08:00

This is a study for a possible larger piece using similar lighting and modeling of form. The focus on this piece was to have forms come forward and recede into space using color and different levels of contrast.

Studio Enlargement of Plein Air Study

2011-11-27T18:45:00.001-08:00

This is the enlarged version (20" x 16") of this study I did during Ray Roberts Workshop. I may work on it some more, but for now I am kind of letting it sit.
To be honest, I wasn't looking forward to working on this, as I generally don't like working from photographs, or rather....anything but the actual location. However, I came to enjoy working on the piece in a more controlled, slower manner. It's not better or worse than working on the spot, it's just different.

Mini Still Lifes

2011-11-10T14:18:00.000-08:00

While browsing the internet looking at art, I stumbled across a painter named Carol Marine. Her work has a very freshly painted look, many of which are small still lifes. Inspired by this, I attempted make quick, small still lifes in this vein - if only for practice.
I tried to put a time limit on these - I aimed for an hour, but I usually ended up painting about twenty minutes longer.
All paintings are 7" x 5".

Sunrise Paintings

2011-11-04T21:00:00.000-07:00

During the Ray Roberts workshop, it was mentioned that a good exercise would be to paint a sunrise - because it forces you to paint fast. So, I tried it out.

7" x 5" - This was done after the sun had already risen, but still morning time. It wasn't the most interesting subject, but I had all my paints and easel out already from the previous painting. And, painting anything is better than not painting at all, if only for the practice.
This was made right after the painting below.

12" x 9" They weren't kidding, that sun rises FAST. This is actually a bit of mix of moments that were caught as the light was changing. It's crazy how much the colors and values change within just a 20 minute period. It was a mistake using this larger size for the painting. I had no 10" x 8"s left so I went with this, but I should have used the 7" x 5".

10" x 8" - Made right after finishing the painting below, facing the opposite direction.

8" x 10" - This was the first sunrise painting I've ever done. While painting it I was in the middle of a dirt drive way, looking the through a fence gate. Halfway into the painting, a truck honked at me to move, which I had to - so that obviously changed the view from which I was originally working. It didn't matter much though.
As it turned out, the truck driver didn't drive on through at that point, as he later told me he wanted to give me some more time to paint. If I only I had known, then I wouldn't have moved right away. Nice guy though.

Ray Roberts Workshop

2011-11-04T18:56:00.000-07:00

These 10" x 8" studies were done as part of Ray Roberts painting workshop I did recently.
There were definitely some great gems of advice I got during this, all of which could be applied to any painting - not just landscapes.
This was my first painting workshop, and after doing it I would definitely be open to doing more. It's a great way to get outside of your own head and into the mind of somebody else, and see how they approach things.

This was an exercise where we had to make a painting using only 2 values.
It basically forced us to pick which side any given thing we saw fell into - light or shadow.
The biggest thing this did for me was to push colors around in unexpected ways - because at that point, the only way to differentiate forms in a single tone area is through color and/or temperature.

The green section at the bottom of this was originally painted much more intensely, brighter, and more yellow. When Ray saw this, he felt it detracted from the painting and told me to scrape it off and paint the section again. After doing this, I saw that the overall cohesion and harmony of the piece was much better off for it.

The last day of the workshop was devoted to completely a larger version of one of the studies we made, based on the study and photo reference. This study was the one I chose, but I have yet to complete the larger version as I have been involved with other paintings - but I do plan to complete it, as much as I dislike working from photos.

Plein Air

2011-11-04T18:49:00.001-07:00

18" x 14" - This was pretty much a study for a larger piece that I am working on at the same location. The dark portions of the trees are too harsh.

10" x 8"

Self-Portraits

2011-11-04T18:27:00.001-07:00

Hadn't done self-portraits in a LONG time. I wanted to get back into portraiture in general, so what better place to start.

12" x 16"

5" x 7" - I did this right after completing the painting above, as I saw there was some left over paint, so I figured why not do a quick study.

16" x 20" - This was the first self-portrait I had done in a while. I didn't spend enough time on the drawing aspect of it as the proportions are off (mouth area is too big). The piece wasn't really meant to be anything more than just trying a self-portrait since it had been so long since doing one.

Still Life, with process shots (SOLD)

2011-09-07T23:26:00.000-07:00

This is the first time I have taken pictures of a painting at it's different stages of development. This piece is 28" x 22". About midway into the painting I realized some compositional problems, such as the large, bright pink vase on the right having nothing to really balance it out.
However, the main focus of the painting was to have the objects really feel as though they were coming at the viewer, in a 3d manner - specifically the objects as they get closer to the foreground. Hence, why the table is at an angle, somewhat coming at the viewer.
So, the idea was to have more contrast on the left side of the piece - where as the right side/background has less tonal changes and is more out of focus - so the objects in the rear feel as far away as possible from those in the foreground. Looking at the piece now, I see this idea could have been pushed and emphasized in several ways. But this was kind of a first go.

Toned the canvas using thinned down combination of Raw Umber and some Burnt Sienna. Waited for this to dry before moving on.

Painted in the basic shapes using the same colors.

Began painting in the major tones. I started mixing in white to make some areas cooler, just to slightly get into color variation.

Started with the color. My full palette consisted of Titanium White, Cadmium Yellow Light, Cadmium Red Light, Alizarin Crimson, Cerulean Blue, Cobalt Blue, Ultramarine Blue, and Prussian Blue (that's right, 4 blues!). At this point, the paint is applied quite thin, almost like a wash. Also, many of the colors are less saturated than they will end up being later. Basically, I try to slowly build up the tones and colors together, as it can be easy to get carried away and make any one thing too bright, too dark, or too saturated, too fast.

Starting to tighten up certain parts of the various objects.

Finally began really darkening up the background, and still more clarity to the objects, struggling with the structure of the pink vase at this point.

I did not tone the painting "warmer", this is just a photo thing. Working out the patterns on the brown jug in the front. This proved to be rather challenging. Painting patterns/designs on objects, and making them look like surface details, was something I always considered tedious, but not difficult. Turns out, it's both.

Finally fleshed out the apples in the background a bit, more struggling with the designs on the brown mug.

Added the highlights on the jug and chrome metal object, and it's pretty much done (I may go back and tweak some things here and there). This photo is more accurate as to how the piece appears in real life. Probably a bit too dark, but after my last still life I wanted to do one with a dark background for the objects to pop off of.

Atmospheric Perspective

2011-09-07T22:40:00.000-07:00

Did this on Labor Day. I was going to originally paint in a different location, but when I got on the highway there was extreme traffic. I almost gave up on painting that day altogether after driving around for an hour and half looking for something interesting. I decided to pull out a small 10" x 8" canvas board and do a quick study. I'm glad I did it, as I think with this piece I felt like I was finally getting closer to accomplishing the atmospheric perspective I overdid in the previous painting.

This wasn't the most exciting scene, but I set to painting it regardless. I'm still trying to get the hang of atmospheric perspective, and in this case I think I went too far. It's just not working for some reason. Some of the colors came out rather nice, although looking at it now, I probably should have killed the intensity of the red on that barn a bit. It doesn't quite fit with the rest of the piece.

More Plein Air

2011-08-10T22:21:00.000-07:00

The day was sunny when I headed out for painting, but got overcast/foggy rather quickly when I got to this location. I don't think I quite captured the "light behind clouds" situation, but it was fun/challenging to try. It was a nice change from the usual blah, perfect blue sky, so often seen in California.

This piece, being only 10" x 8", taught me that it almost doesn't matter how small or big your canvas is - if left unchecked, your mind will make you paint faster or slower according to how much space you have to fill up. The trick is to not fall into this trap. This one took me just as long as other larger sized canvases, but it shouldn't have.

This was a rather cool looking building that I had been wanting to paint for some time. The idea was that if the painting was fairly successful, then I would make a larger version. I didn't feel it was worth it in this case though.

I was rather happy with the depth and lighting in this one. So much so that I may at some point grid it out, paint a larger version based on this small study, then go back to the original spot and work on the details on location.

2011-08-10T01:25:00.001-07:00

Done in photoshop.

Scary

2011-08-10T01:21:00.001-07:00

An attempt to make something scary. Done in photoshop.

Figure Drawing 2

2011-08-10T00:52:00.001-07:00

20 Minute Poses ^

10 Minute Poses ^

5 Minute Poses ^

Figure Drawing

2011-08-10T00:16:00.000-07:00

20 Minute Poses ^

10 Minute Poses ^

5 Minute Poses ^

Made these at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts. It had been many years, pretty much since college, since I did figure drawing. I almost bought a large newsprint pad for it, but since I hadn't done this in so long I just went with 8.5 x 11 paper and pencil.
It was rather enjoyable. I didn't feel the need to work larger, but perhaps I will at some point. What I would really like to do more is paint a figure with a much, much longer posing time. The maximum pose time for these sessions were 20 minutes.
A bonus to attending these sessions are the cookies they provide, the peanut butter ones almost make it worth it for that alone.

Catching Up

2011-07-30T22:19:00.000-07:00

This is the first post in my blog. If you would like to read this chronologically, start from the bottom of the post.

Quick hand study.

Painted on the 4th of July. The tree in the foreground on the right is something I would normally avoid, but that's why I wanted to try it. I figured it would another level of depth/distance to the space of the painting. The composition is a bit awkward though.

Made this for a gallery show with the theme of birds. I went to the beach at Bodega Bay, just to have the ocean in the background. This was one of the most uncomfortable positions I have had to paint in. I was sitting, but on an angle, body twisted, and lowered to get a low angle view on the bird sculpture. On top of that it was windy and cold, as it usually is at the Northern California coast.
I was happy with the way it came out though, so it was certainly worth it. This also happened to be the first time painting on linen. I can't say it was enormously better than regular canvas, but it was nice.

The yellow part of this land/seascape was water covered with yellow algae. A person who lived in one of the houses seen in the painting told me that the day I was painting was the first time the water ever had that yellow look to it. When I saw it, it was too cool/unique to pass up.

This was an attempt to push the entire color scheme in one direction (more "red" in this case than the scene actually appeared to the naked eye), yet still remain harmonious. It was mostly a failure, as I did not commit fully to one color direction. However, it did result in a more unique set of colors than the rest of my plein air paintings.
I have done this color exercise with more success in this painting, done many years ago - where I pushed everything towards orange.

Once again, should have made the trees that are located in the background recede more into the distance. The weather this day was rather difficult to deal with. As the location was near the coast, the day started out sunny but ended up becoming foggy/cloudy.

Not sure about the composition on this one, and once again, the colors are not quite exciting enough. Also, the palm tree in the center-ish section needs to recede more into the background space. It was really quite dark in value when I was looking at the scene in real life, but I realize now that I should have ignored that for the betterment of the painting.

This was one of the windiest conditions I have painted in. Although some parts are unfinished (parts of the canvas left blank/white), I'm rather happy with the way it came out though.

Because this was a cloudy day, I was able to work on it for a long time with very little change in lighting. I was able to work on this for over 6 hours. Probably shouldn't have taken that long, but the factory details required more time from me.

Completed this painting in the same day as the one below. Was the first time I did 2 paintings in one day. I was happy with the lighting in this one, and also how details of the weeds/flowers in the foreground feel closer to the viewer. The colors feel rather limited in this one though.

So, I should have started this blog a long time ago, but I'm starting now. This was one of the first paintings I completed upon returning to plein air painting.
Normally I don't start paintings when there is a possibility of rain, but I did on this one. Lo and behold, about an hour into painting it began to rain and I had to close up shop. Returned to the same spot the next day and completed it in nice weather. The composition is the weakest part of this one for me.