Dixie Sampier

Found Triangles

Do you see all the triangles in this painting?  It was rather unique how I came across them and I’m not one to draw out those type of structures, but when I looked at this photo of Myra Brandt who used to work with my husband, I thought this would make a good subject for a painting.  I entered this painting in a show and the judge knocked it, but, each judge sees things differently.

It was fun to capture all the detail in this simple photograph which was taken at a company picnic many years ago, probably in the early 1980’s.  It is an oil painting, 16 x 20 canvas.  Of course, the photograph is old and not as colorful, but you can see where I am coming from with the subject. I have learned not to buy art books that want to teach you something, and then show you how a painting was painted, but never give a reference of what the artist was looking at to make that painting.  I like to see how they were seeing and know what they were looking at.  That way you can see what was eliminated from the scene,  or what was emphasised in the painting.

Still Life that Moves

A long time ago, someone gave me this beautiful gloxinia plant and I decided to do a painting of it. I set it out on the patio in good lighting and used a painting knife to paint it onto a 16 x 20 inch masonite board. I thought this was a very simple painting to do and I knew I had a good part of that week to do this painting each morning. I discovered  something: live plants can move!!!   Oh dear, each day I noticed it was changing, not dying!  The main flower turned half way around just over night, and then one of the leaves started to turn to another direction. I know plants move, but I expected that simple flower plant to just sit still even though you actually can’t see it move, but, it did!  I think of this painting because my sister in law, Janie bought it and she just passed away.  I will miss her and remember how beautiful that painting looked in her guest bathroom where it gets good lighting. That was a still life that moved, but I wonder, would it be classified as a floral or a still life?

Not There Anymore!

This seems to happen to me a lot of times… I’ll see something that I want to paint, and then it vanishes and isn’t there anymore. I took a picture of these mail boxes when I used to live in the Mt. Helix area. When I actually got ready to make a painting of them drove back to see them one more time and they were gone! They had been replaced with more modern, up-dated mail boxes with locks which was nothing interesting to paint.
Old mail boxes have always intrequed me with so much weathering and character to report from them. This photograph is not a very good composition, and I never did care to really make a painting from it. One thing for sure, I have learned that as an artist, I  see and sense so much more when I am actually viewing the real thing.

Another Black and White

Way back in the 1980’s I took a class from Marie Wordell and she had a live model for us to do one day. The model was wearing a very colorful costume. It was a Spanish costume, so you can imagine how many colors it had and a colorful head scarf besides.

 Oh no! I forgot my palette, but had a tube of black watercolor paint in my basket of equipment. (my gear). Well, it was a matter of painting the essence of what I was seeing and not have to try to report every color on the model and I felt that I did the best job in class of all the students.

This painting sold, and the owner moved to the east coast and I never got a photo of it. The owner was kind enough to send me a photo and so here it is, and as you can see, it is not correctly taken, but better than nothing. I don’t even know the name of the model, and I don’t have a picture of her in class to compare how well I got a likeness of her, but that didn’t matter.  It was more fun just doing what watercolor does, and as one of my mentors, Edgar Whitney would say, “Watercolor is a beautiful lie!”  In other words, you don’t have to tell the truth and report all the facts, just let the watercolor do what it likes to do.  I love the way watercolor behaves.  It is a lot of fun once you become acquainted with its character.

You Just Never Know!

When a person is eager to learn all they can about watercolor and art and even copies from paintings in a book, it is a privilege. One thing to be sure to do when you copy is to put the name of the original artist along with your own name.
About 10 years after I did such a thing, I got a call from someone who owned an antique store and said they bought a painting of mine from an estate sale and said I copied it!  They said I copied it from David Millard. I was sure glad I was safe and not in trouble!  This particular painting was really fun to do because it was done with just two colors, and a charcoal like pencil of a foreign street scene.  I did two of these scenes, sold one and kept one.
The painting was bought by an old neighbor of mine and when she passed on it ended up in an estate sale and that is how it ended up in an antique store. You just never know!

No Palette!

This is about that black and white watercolor that didn’t show up very well in the previous story that I posted.   It is not easy to paint a scene in front of you with no colors to use, but a good exercise for an artist to just look at dark and light values and make a great painting of what you are looking at.

Well, there was this particular place I so badly wanted to go to and paint, and it wasn’t a safe place to be at all by myself, so my husband was so sweet and willing to go with me.  I had to go to this place down in Mission Valley and paint from a large parking lot on a Saturday when it was vacant, and no one in my way.  The towering resident up above this place was my chosen subject.

Oh, no! we drove all the way to this place and I forgot my palette!  Well, I at least had my basket of all my painting gear and in there I always keep a tube of black watercolor.  I never use black on my palette because I would rather mix a black from the colors that I am using in a painting, but if I need the black like the black in the tube I can use it if I wanted to.  It was too far to drive all the way back home to get my palette, so I made do with what I had and loved the way the painting turned out, and I knew I could come back another time and be sure I had my palette with me!  And here is the painting that I did when I had my palette with me, so thrilled about that, I went wild!

When I got home (with the black and white painting), I used just a little bit of red to paint on the roof of this particular resident in this painting and that just finished it to a T! As you can see, I also used an ‘echo’ of the red here and there. My dentist, Dr. Fleming in Ocean Beach owns this painting and it looks very nice in his clinic.  I have more stories to tell later about this particular view in the painting.

Everything So Rosey

I didn’t know any better, but soon learned not to paint with my sunglasses on!  They made everything so pretty and rosey looking, I just loved it. When I would get home after being out painting on location I wondered why my colors looked so blaw. Well, I soon figured out what the reason was. I painted out doors a lot, and so it became evident that I wasn’t seeing color correctly. In this particular painting on the easel,  I’m using only black paint so it really didn’t make any difference what the color of the view I was looking at. This black and white painting has a story of its own to tell the next time I post a blog.

I loved those prescription sunglasses!  I don’t have them anymore because my sight has changed since then, which was around 1993.  Now a days I put on a large size pair of sunglasses that fit over my regular glasses and that suits me just fine.  And, I don’t use them while I paint.  I have learned to use a sun-visor while I paint on location.  And, the word for that means, en plein-air. Some one caught a pic of me wearing the visor with my hat! I don’t like the look but it sure does help me get a good painting to look at!  I have an easier time focusing with the visor on.  If your eyes are like mine, they are strongly compelled to the strongest light, which is using the sunlight above me, then it is best to wear the sun-visor to keep my eyes looking ahead and not being compelled to the light above me. The sun-visor fits down lower than my hat does, so that works very well for my eyes.  I am so thankful to God for my eyes.  And for my ability to paint, and to see like an artist!

A Single Cloud

It is fun to look at the clouds and see if you can see anything that represents an image, like maybe an animal, a face, or whatever. Some of my early art lessons were of this kind of game, to find an image on the canvas that had an underpainting on it and capture it.  Here is an example of an underpainting was usually the first layer of paint that was kind of scrubbed in while not thinking of anything or any object, and was meant to be painted onto. I wasn’t very good at capturing such things, but one thing for sure, I could recognize an image. Here is a cartoon published in 1981 that showed how Dennis the Menance was trying to play this game!

Well, one day as I was looking out of my studio window there was a single cloud over the mountain. The cloud was shaped like a plate and kind of hatted the very top of the mountain. Someone said that a cloud over a mountain represented God’s on the mountain, in biblical references in the Old Testament.

It was kind of strange because there were no other clouds in site. I had never seen anything like this. Of course I didn’t capture it in paint, but got it on my camera.  The name of this mountain is San Miguel Mountain in San Diego area.

Proof of the Fish

Way back when I was in Marie Wordell’s watercolor class in the late 1980’s, we had a lesson about Gyotaku. It has to do with putting paint on a real fish and then stamping that onto paper to prove how big your fish that you caught actually was.  That way no one could exaggerate how big their fish was!

I did not like the smell of fish and refused to do the lesson even tho I went to class, I didn’t stay very long. One of my friends in the class did a gorgeous painting of the fish and didn’t want to keep it, so I bartered with her and gave her one of my rag doll prints. Her name was Valerie Jungck. And now, years later, I happen to live in a mobile home park, and found a friend (Dani)that I like to walk with, and her former room mate was Valerie. It’s a small world sometimes! This painting is enjoyed in my husband’s office and I love it!

Almost Burned

One of my favorite methods that I learned in art school was this particular way of putting down lots of  oil paint from a limited palette, using jabbing like strokes, let it dry and then find something in that paint that looks like something, and paint it out. Kind of like seeing something in the clouds,  finding an object and using your imagination.  Well, this is how this particular floral came about as seen here in this photo which is not a very good copy, but at least you get the idea from it. These flowers were made up and not actually seen in reality. I had this floral painting in an exhibit that I was privileged to do at a banquet held at Buck Knives and Mr. Chuck Buck bought it. Some years later, his home caught on fire, a lot of damage, but the fire didn’t reach this painting. I was glad it didn’t get burned because I could never ever paint another one like it since it was made up, a one of a kind and certainly an original. In the other photo you can see where it used to hang in my house a long with a winter swamp scene, and also a watercolor of some building in Balboa Park.  I am so glad I at least had this photo to share, and this is one floral I wish I hadn’t sold!  The other painting on the wall is of a flower cart and that will be another story to tell some other time.