Plein Air Painting in San Francisco

I am a painter and scale model maker in San Francisco. he/they. Part of The SpookyHaus art coop. More at njbice.com commissions currently closed Absolutely not interested in NFT's and if you post generative AI I will block you.

[njbice]

In my monthly newsletter, I share my latest work, thoughts, and artistic adventures. I also recommend reading and local events, and best of all I share a new photo of my cat, Ruby. My newsletter is for people who love San Francisco, plein air paintings, and an inside look at the local creative scene. I just switched away from Substack, thanks to @redgoldsparks for making me aware of the deep issues with that platform. Fortunately, Buttondown has been super helpful with getting me switched over, and you can still read all of my previous newsletters there. If you are already subscribed, you should receive your email as usual on the 15th. If you aren't yet subscribed, now is a great time! Artist newsletters like mine are an important way to reduce reliance on social media platforms. As we've seen recently, they can be extremely unstable, unreliable, and even fully evil. Signing up for my newsletter means that you will still see my work even if this account ends up banned or shadow banned, and as an artist who relies on commissions and painting sales for my income, I don't want to leave my life in the hands of tech companies. With the newsletter, my subscriber list is mine no matter what happens, as exemplified by my ability to switch providers as I have just done. I also work hard on my newsletter every month to bring my readers something valuable and enjoyable, and it's rewarding to hear when people read it and love it. Thanks to Kayleigh Shawn for this new photo of me, and the portrait of Ruby!

[njbice]

Liveblogging from the mural mines

Yesterday @avanity-project saved my butt and helped me make a paper pattern of the archway (an absurd task) and we primed it dark gray.

Today I put on two coats of Payne's grey and painted the pink and purple layers of the arch. I significantly underestimated how much paint that would require and ended up using up some carefully pre-mixed colors designated for other uses. Oh well.

The purple was a one coat wonder, the pink needed two passes.

[njbice]

Color mixing today for my mural that I'm about to start.

[njbice]

Union and Leavenworth with Danny Folkman from right before the workshop!

If you look carefully, you can see the top of Saints Peter and Paul Church poking up right under Coit Tower. Mt. Diablo is just barely visible over to the right.

[njbice]

Join us at San Franpsycho in the inner sunset for a small exhibition of original paintings! A small, local shop and a local artist supporting each other 🤝

This set is a mix of older paintings that deserve another chance to find their perfect home, and new pieces being exhibited for the first time!

Paintings are so much better in person than on your phone screen, so swing by the shop in the month of June to see them, or join us on Sunday, June 7 for an afternoon opening reception from noon to 3pm.

Thanks to Apollo Fisher for inviting me and curating the exhibit!

There will also be a selection of prints available!

[njbice]

could you tell us a bit about your plein air setup? ive been wanting to get myself a portable easel, and yours looks like it serves you well. does it fold up into that bag that hangs from it?

Looks like you found my post about my home made easel already! Yeah, the two pieces fit together and go inside my backpack. It's made to attach to a camera tripod.

[njbice]

I just got back from a three day gouache workshop with Danny Folkman! We painted in Point Reyes and Nicasio.

Though I'm super familiar with gouache, it was exciting (and challenging) to approach the medium in a new way. I learned a lot and I'm excited to see how it folds into my practice!

[njbice]

Ashbury from the panhandle! I've always loved that house in the left of the painting, so that inspired this composition. Look carefully for the bus up the hill.

[njbice]

Some more miscellaneous New York City sketches:

Jane st. Garden with tulips, Felix Gonzalez-Torres in the Whitney, and the view from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade.

[marlowe-art]

what's better than one bridge? that's right: TWO bridges!

[njbice]

I was there, too! Thanks for the painting session!

[njbice]

Cherry blossoms in Central Park! On the first day of my trip to NYC I met up with the Urban Sketchers. It was the most perfect moment for the cherry blossoms and it felt magical.

I did one gouache painting and two sketches. I used Neocolor II's on top of the gouache for the first time, which was perfect for the texture of the blossoms.

[njbice]

i would so fascinated to hear how you simplify/choose what to draw in your plein air.

i often get intimidated and limit myself to simple subject, and i'd like to change that!

Thanks for thinking I'm good at that! It's something I've been working on for years.

There are two ways I would suggest approaching this, one is exercises aimed at training your brain to simplify what you see, and one is creating limitations that force you to do it in practice.

Exercises include notan sketches (reducing the scene to black and white, plenty of tutorials available on this), thumbnails, and composing scenes with a limited number (I've found 5 works well) of big shapes.

Plein Air has some of these limitations naturally, but set a timer and push to paint the whole scene in a short time, like 1 hour. Use a big, flat brush for a relatively small painting, such as a 3/4 flat for a 6"x6" painting.

Push simplification as far as you possibly can, until it doesn't look like anything anymore, and then walk it back to a degree that you like.

Iteration is key to everything, so try all of these things multiple times.

When approaching a painting, go from general to specific. So start with the biggest possible shapes, get those in, and then break those shapes down into the next level of detail.

Eventually you'll be able to skip some steps and build capacity to paint more complex scenes.

I hope that's helpful!

[njbice]

Bay Bridge from the top of Vallejo st! This was a meet up with the East Bay painters who came into the city to paint at Ina Coolbrith Park, but I went up one more set of stairs for this view.

This is a little larger than I normally paint (8x10) and the buildings were a challenge!

[njbice]

Wondering around for the perfect view, I discovered the Black Point Gardens. This vantage was a new angle on the Maritime Museum and Aquatic Park for me, and so cool to be able to include Coit Tower and the Bay Bridge.

6"x6" gouache on panel, available!

[njbice]

Golden Gate Bridge from China Beach-- a spot I've been meaning to check out for a while! It was so quiet and peaceful. They are in the midst of some kind of remodel. Very unique quality of light on this clear day.

6"x6", gouache on panel, available!

[njbice]

Panhandle Monument

Gouache on panel, 8"x6"

A beautiful day in San Francisco with the Japanese magnolias in bloom!

[njbice]

Last week I traveled to Newport, Oregon on my annual visit to my grandparents! Instead of my whole painting setup I just brought some sketching supplies-- trying to get to know my new set of neocolors. It's an interesting middle ground between sketching and painting and quite fun!

My favorite is this first one, from the tide pools at Yaquina Head. There were a bunch of flies that kept landing on me because of the big wash-up of vellela (Bay Area residents may remember that it happened to us last year). I couldn't stand the flies so I had to stop, but I think the effect of the people standing out from the unfinished sketch is better!

The final image was actually the first sketch of the trip -- I took the train up and we were stopped way up in the snowy mountains waiting for a freight train to go by.