Ron Guthrie Art

Home Again

2011-12-23T17:26:00.000-08:00

Coast Guard Cutter Stratton, San Pedro, CA

I'm back from my deployment on the National Security Cutter Stratton. I met the ship in San Pedro, CA last week. After being assigned a room with 5 other members of the crew I was give a tour of the ship by Bosun's Mate Macdonald. Mac would answer all of the my questions and generally watch out for me while on board. I was allowed to go about the ship snapping photos on my own for the rest of the cruise up to San Fransisco. I think the crew were not as interested in me being on board as they were in getting to Alameda, the ships home port. Some of the crew had been working to bring this ship here for up to a year and the others were pretty much gone from home to bring the ship home 3-6 months. The crew wanted to go home and I don't blame them.

Myself and Bosun's Mate Macdoanld

Cutter Stratton

We left the following morning which was great since I needed a towel and forgot my comb. There is no supply room on board so I took the shore leave van into downtown Long Beach and bought what I needed at WalMart. There were going to be 12 other civilians on board and the next day they were doing what they could to come up with towels for them...lucky me. I talked to one of the crew and when he first boarded a ship he had forgot his towel and had to go a week using his shirt to dry off.

On the bridge of the Stratton

The next day we headed up through the Santa Barbara channel which is pretty busy with ship, fishing boat and pleasure boat traffic. As we neared Pt. Mugu Captain Cashin brought the Stratton up to 30 knots and maintained that speed for 2 hours. This was not a situation to be painting en plein air up on deck. I was glad I did not bring painting gear. Over the next few days the weather and ocean swells would have made plein air painting too challenging for me. The winds alone would have made painting a chore and you need to be out of the way of the crew at all times. In older ships they had side decks to move about the ship. These new cutters do not have side decks so you are constantly heading below decks to move forward or aft. There are also no portholes so once inside you see no ocean or land...Mac said it is a lot like a submarine that runs on top of the water. If you tend to get seasick being inside one of these for most of your days would drive you crazy.

Sunset off of the Central Coast

Steaming up the Santa Barbara Channel would be the last of our smooth seas. Once out on the open Pacific we would have stronger winds and heavier swells. Some of the machinery I needed to photograph was either not on board or non operational at this point. This is more of a delivery than a Coast Guard mission so that was expected. I took shots at what was available and that will have to work for me. The good part of being on board was being able to really know how the ship feels and acts, what the equipment looks like up close and how it all relates. Understanding how the crew works and what is happening on a daily basis also helps to portray this ship on canvas. Going on board will help immensely to give a more accurate account to the paintings later. I'm thankful for the opportunity from the Coast Guard as well as the kindness and courtesy with all of my questions to the Captain, XO and crew while on board. It doesn't get any better than this.

Rolling with the swells before dawn

Sunrise and chilly weather as we moved north.

Sunday was cold and grey with clouds moving in. I would wake up usually about 3 times a night and finally get up around 5:30 or 6am...my choice. The ships crew operates 24 hours a day so it is hard not to be wakened by the sounds of doors shutting in long narrow companionways or crew members getting dressed to pull their watch. Although there were 6 of us in our stateroom there were never more than 3-5 in there at any one time due to the strange hours of their watch or duties. The strong swells also kept you rolling around in your rack the further north we travelled.

Docking in Alameda, CA

After heavy swells all Sunday night we arrived at our destination. Even I was happy to reach nice steady land. I didn't get sick so that was a bonus. I was able to snap a gazillion shots. I took my sketchbook but the situation to sketch never came up. Early on I was too busy hunting down my shots and later the swells were too strong and it was too cold. I probably could have used the desk in our room to sketch but the guys needed that and I didn't want to get in their way. Being on board the ship for that length of time made it easy to make mental notes for painting and I also made notes in a small notebook I kept so I feel I'm good to go there. Speaking to the crew members about life on board and their duties is also very helpful to me. Understanding the crews point of view helps make sense of a lot of things that might come out in some of the paintings later.

The CGC Morgenthau is a Hamilton Class cutter. The CGC Bertholf, the first built Legend Class Cutter that will replace the Hamilton Class ships. These ships along with the NSC Waesche were waiting for us in Alameda when we arrived.

In the darkness before dawn I would talk with one of the crew while he checked the operations of the deck cranes used to launch the small boats. You get a feel for that type of duty when you are actually standing there watching it be done. If I choose to paint that I will do so while understanding the procedure and really knowing the cold and dark conditions it is done in.

Lowering the Colors

The crew of the Stratton hooking up the fresh water lines to use while in port and fill the ships tanks. The cutter Waesche in the distance.

With the crew mostly off the ship and me staying another night I was able to finish up getting photos I wanted without getting in the way. I checked my painting notes and once satisfied began to pack my gear for the trip home early the next morning. Mac was still aboard so I was able to ask more questions too. Mac is a great guy and helped me immensely. Very professional and dedicated to what he does for a living. If I wanted to see something he always offered to take me there. There were other members of the crew too, who I ashamedly cannot remember their names, who helped me also. They gave me their point of view and voice and things they said I have no doubt will work its way into my work. Overall my time on board was an awesome opportunity for an artist to get first hand reference material, observations and background info. This material will help in future works and I'm sure help to produce better paintings to submit. I enjoyed the trip, a chance of a lifetime for me, and can't thank the following people enough for the chance to do it....

Mary Ann Bader

Karen Loew

Rear ADM Schultz

Captain Charles Cashin

CDR Laura Collins

Crew of the CGC Stratton.

and my pal BM Macdonald

Now to paint....

Made The Papers....

2011-12-11T23:53:00.000-08:00

Last week the Santa Barbara Independent ran an article on my upcoming depoyment with the Coast Guard cutter USCGC Stratton. Click Here to Read. Nice article. Lately I've been spending my time buzzing around trying to get too many things done. I hung a show for another artist friend of mine in a downtown Los Olivos restaraunt early this morning...then used our tractor to help my neighbor move a lot of compost alongside her hilly terrain to keep our projected rains from washing away her hillside.

I went shopping in every store in two cities both 30 miles away to try and pick up a lens I badly need for my camera before boarding the ship...nobody had it so at the last minute I ordered in online from a company in NY...should be here Tuesday. Drove 120 miles to Pasadena to pick up another lens a friend is letting me borrow because it has Vibration Reduction built in. Both of my len's don't have VR and in low light without a tripod it's a safe bet that half my shots are blurred. A VR lens should fix that. Have done a ton of reading about low light photography and watched about 40 videos on youtube about it an other photo stuff...just to brush up and learn some new things.

We had our Small Works show too and now it is on auto pilot...meaning the show runs until January. Good looking show too. The reception was fun and I was able to talk to some of the other artists which is always a bonus. Here in between all of this I've been writing press releases and doing the followup on that...in fact, a reporter from our local paper will be here tomorrow doing an interview about the deployment. I did one over the phone for a paper up in Santa Maria last week too. I've also managed to get in some reading of two issues of Southwest Art that I had set aside to read at a later date. Did I mention mowing the lawn to mulch this falls leave harvest!?

Studio Tour...finis

2011-11-20T18:15:00.000-08:00

Ready for schmoozing!

We wait every year for the Studio Tour to come along because of 2 reasons...meeting and talking with the people who like my work and, of course, sales. Day one of the tour was a slow start but picked up by midday. We had some new people come by who saw my preview piece in the museum and in the brochure put out by the Wildling Art Museum who hosts the event. This year we even had a few who mentioned they saw my work on the website that is put together by the museum....cool!

The paintings were framed and looked great. We made some nametags that look comparable to what you see at a gallery show...professional looking.

We also had a lot of past visitors come by and it was great to renew old friendships. Always great to see these friends who stop by and we get a chance to bring each other up to speed. The weather was great yesterday too. Nice blue skies and perfect temps made for nice conditions to talk inside and out. Linda did a great job with snacks and drinks which is always received well by the kids who come along with their parents.

Linda again did very well with the munchies!

Day two, Sunday, was a different ballgame. We woke to the sound of heavy rain on our deck outside the bedroom and at that point I lost all hope of a good crowd, or any crowd, showing up. We did get a some small groups of people showing up between 12-2 but mostly it was a day of the occasional couples, nothing like Saturday. More small sales on Sunday though so it all added up to decent sales for the entire show. I'm happy.

Linda looking very small next to the Eaton Canyon painting. That painting impressed a lot of people on both days.

One thing we tried this year is a bargain basement table. We put a lot of our older paintings mixed in with some sketches and small works, all unframed, and they provided a good flow of sales. We'll do this again next year. Very few people are looking for the big works to buy and it has to be the economy...everyone understands that so I won't dwell on that. We did manage to get the interest of a couple of serious buyers and that might happen down the line. A nice couple from down south have expressed interest in works I have at Gallery Gabrie and will go there to see more work. I plugged the heck out of my gallery down in Pasadena so hopefully a few others will stop in there soon too.

Presentation...presentation....presentation!

Off To Sea With The Coast Guard

2011-11-15T10:45:00.000-08:00

I am a member of the Coast Guard Art Program, COGAP, and was recently asked if I’d like to be deployed for 4 days on their newest National Security cutter, the USCGC Stratton, of course I said yes. My assignment is to photograph the crew in their duties as well as images inside and out of the ship for future paintings to be submitted to the Coast Guard Art Program. I will board the ship in December and am looking forward to sailing on the newest ship in the Coast Guards fleet.

The Stratton is the third of four mega high tech 418-foot Legend Class cutters to replace the dependable but aging 378-foot Hamilton Class cutters built in the 1960’s. The National Security cutters perform alien migrant interdiction operations, fisheries protection, search and rescue, counter-narcotics and homeland security missions. On it’s first patrol out the sistership USCGC Waesche interdicted 2 vessels within a 48-hour period containing over 25 million in cocaine being smuggled to the US. The new National Security Cutters have the range to patrol from South America to the Bering Sea. The new cutters carry two helicopters and 2 long and short-range boats. The Legend Class cutters are real beauties!

Coast Guard Captain Dorothy C Stratton

Director of the SPARS, the Coast Guard Womens Reserve during WWII

I have known about this new project for about a month now but had to wait for my travel orders to be cut before announcing it. Mary Ann Bader, COGAP coordinator, has been great to work with in setting this all up with the Executive Officer of the Stratton. I’m looking forward to being on board the ship to observe the crew training and operation of the ship. I’ve been going over my photo equipment in preparation for getting as many reference photos as possible in the 4 days I’ll be with the ship. I’ll be posting some of these images when I return from the deployment in December.

Santa Ynez Valley Artists Studio Tour

2011-11-10T09:13:00.000-08:00

S Y V A R T I S T S T U D I O T O U R N O V 18-20

The 2011 studio tour is coming up next week. Linda and I always look forward to the Studio Tour. It's a great chance to meet the people who enjoy my work, talk to old friends and make new ones. I've got some really nice new work up on the walls and we're just about ready for the show now...good thing because I just was picked for jury duty! Yes, there is a down side to excersizing your right to vote, haha.

If you can make it up to the Santa Ynez Valley come on by. We will yak it up!

There are some great artists on this tour and it is a lot of fun getting to see the various studios and all of that very cool work.

Go here for more info!!

Spring Landscape

2011-11-07T11:29:00.000-08:00

"Spring Landscape"

9" X 12" Oil on Panel

This painting started out as a spare panel being used to try out some old paints I had. I never intended to make a painting out of it, I just wanted to try some paints out. After trying out those paints I continued on with other projects and this panel was leaning up against the wall near my easel. Many times I would look over at it seeing various compositions out of the random bits of paint on the panel. After finishing another project I decided to just make something out of those bits of paint and created this scene. I've never began a painting like that but it was pretty fun to approach a painting that way. Maybe for fun you should try to make some random brush strokes on a blank panel and then force yourself to create a composition out of what you have there.

The Allegro

2011-11-06T22:50:00.000-08:00

One of my paintings just returned from a show in Coos Bay Oregon at the Coos Art Museum. The Marine Art show up there is a beautiful show sponsored by the American Society of Marine Artists. I've been fortunate enough to be juried into 3 of their shows. My painting, "The Demise of the Allegro", is one that I painted after a huge storm in January 2010 washed 12 boats ashore on East Beach in Santa Barbara. The owners of these boats have a set time to remove the boats or the city will bring in heavy equipment to shred the boats into bite sized chunks and off to the dump they go.
Some of the boats are live-boards, some weekend boats and some are just waiting for an opening for the limited marina slips in the protected harbor. The boats can anchor offshore off East Beach but they are open to the ocean storms that roll in from the Pacific. Once a boat breaks it's mooring line or drags a flimsy anchor they will wash ashore and be pummeled by the heavy surf. Fiberglass hulls will crack, keels crack or the deck cap can separate basically sheering off the deck from the hull. All of this results in costly repairs to owners so sometimes it's easier to scrap the boat. In all cases it is sad to see a boat come to it's end.

I've decided to post some of the stages it took to create this painting and some of my reference photos taken that day.

In the background you can see two more boats washed up on the rocks. Directly behind me were 2 sailboats and a Uniflite cabin cruiser...farther down were 4 or 5 more boats. You can see how the hull has been scraped against the rough sand and rocks.

Another pic of the Allegro as the storm winds down.

I did a simple sketch of the boat and then painted in my background. I tried to keep that heavy mist that was in the air that morning.

The seawall and boat painted in. I was told by another person there that the seawall had been under the sand before the storm hit.

At this point I began working the water in the foreground. While working the foreground the upper half of background would be tacking up to paint the rigging in last. It is way too hard to paint rigging over wet paint. After painting in the boat and water I decided I didn't like the seawall cutting the painting in half and shortened it to make the painting work better.

My finished version of the Allegro. Being at the actual location taking my reference photos really helped to add emotion and feel to the painting. I have owned a couple of boats in my life so I could totally understand how the owner must have felt over this event. I could feel some of those feelings inside of me just standing there taking photos. I have a strong connection with this painting now due to having been there as she lay aground. The owner tried to get help to dig the boat out but since the cabin was facing the sea she filled with too much sand and water. The owner ended up cutting the boat up. Here is an article in Noozhawk with a pic of the owner cutting her up and a video showing heavy waves washing another boat into the Gaviota pier.

Eucalyptus Tree

2011-11-04T20:09:00.000-07:00

"Eucalyptus Tree"
20" X 24" Oil on Canvas

I had painted this scene about a year ago but back then I painted grasses a certain way. When I see work that has those grasses I want to go back over them and paint them the way I do now. I have moved on to a looser look with the grasses, more "weedy" looking grasses. This one was not varnished so it was easy to just throw it on the easel and go back over the grasses...really, just adding to what was already there. Fun stuff.

Framing Big

2011-11-02T22:56:00.000-07:00

A while back I painted a very large painting of Eaton Canyon. The painting measured 36" X 48". I ordered a very cool looking 5" wide gold frame for it which arrived a couple of days ago....cost a small fortune too. When the frame arrived I couldn't get over the size of it. It's huge compared to all of the other frames I had ordered in the past. I framed the painting this morning and it's now hanging in my living room for the studio tour that will happen later this month.

Linda giving me a hand here...literally! This shows the normal smaller wire hangers I use compared to the larger ones needed for this frame, haha. Big guys there. Nice thick wire on this one too...I think it was 100lb wire wrapped in plastic. Painting and frame weighs about 40-45lbs. For those of you painters doing your own framing you can find these wire hangers on eBay and buy them in lots of 250. See the black tape wrapped over the wire....this is to protect the hands of the volunteers who will one day hang your work in gallery shows. They will appreciate not jabbing loose wires under their finger nails if you remember to take the extra two seconds to wrap the ends with tape. Be kind!

Henninger Flats Painting

2011-10-12T13:58:00.000-07:00

"Fall Below Henninger Flats"

20"X 24" Oil on Canvas

When you are hiking in Eaton Canyon you are below Henninger Flats. Peter Stiel originally owned the property and his friend William Henninger from Virginia began squatting on the land in 1884. Henninger built a home and grew hay, nut and fruit trees up there. Eventually the property was sold by his daughters after his death to various buyers who eventually sold it to the Mt Wilson Toll Road company.
There is a great site with info and photos of the descendants of William Henninger, and his Native American wife Teresa, having a reunion here.
My parents lived almost right below Henninger Flats in Pasadena. Trees are raised there and Henninger Flats is easily spotted from below by the trees at the two campgrounds they have there.

The trees at Henninger Flats are visible just above the sign on the freeway overpass.

I've hiked there with my Dad and brothers and friends over the years. There is an access road that runs across the front of the mountains and gives great views of the San Gabriel valley below. Whenever I'm in Eaton Canyon I always look up to the trees at Henninger and recall the various times I've been up there. Down in Eaton canyon when fall rolls around the sycamores turn color and and contrast nicely against the blue and greys of the San Gabriels.

The trees again visible at upper left in this late afternoon shot from Eaton Canyon.

Rancho Arbolado Lupine

2011-10-06T12:58:00.000-07:00

"Rancho Arbolado Lupine"

24" X 36" Oil on Canvas

I attended a fund raising BBQ for the Wildling Art Museum that was held at Rancho Arbolado. The BBQ was held down in a small valley on the ranch and you parked up on top of a ridge. This view here is from that ridge late in the afternoon as we were getting ready to leave. Below that far mountain range in the distance is Hwy 101 coming through Gaviota Pass. This was last Spring as the lupine and poppies were starting their bloom and the dash of color made a great contrast to the endless greens of the hillsides.
Lupine is always fun to paint and at times drives me crazy. A lot of people like lupine too. Linda, my Mom and Jasminka, my gallery owner love lupine...not to mention the many comments we had on paintings with lupine at last years Studio Tour. Lupine comes in various colors. I've seen purples, blues and magenta colored lupine. All of these have bits of white in them. For some strange reason when I'm painting blue lupine I'll get the feeling it should be more purple or magenta colored...and vice versa. I guess I just need to paint more lupine to get that out of my system or maybe it's just the way I see the colors of lupine. Sometimes they look purple and blue...and violet...and magenta, hahaha. See what I mean!? I'll work with them some more and maybe I'll either see their true colors or just make a better decision and stick with it, haha.

Island Encounters...Wildling Art Museum

2011-09-22T16:27:00.000-07:00

Painting by Carl Oscar Borg

Today is the reception and opening for the Island Encounters exhibit at the Wildling Art Museum in Los Olivos, CA. The exhibit will run from Sept 21, 2011 to Jan 8, 2012. I was fortunate enough to have one of my paintings make it into this show. The show is filled with paintings, photographs and sculpture depicting scenes of any and all of the Channel Islands.
I'm happy to be in this show because my work will hang with some wonderful artists including Carl Oscar Borg, Elmer Wachtel and Lockwood de Forest. The show also includes work by some very fine contemporary artists too. The museum staff and their volunteers have made some wonderful creative adjustments to the main floor hall where the show will be held. I'm looking forward to seeing the exhibit later this afternoon. Do try and make it to the Island Encounters exhibit if you are in the area between Sep 21, 2011 and Jan 8th 2012

UPDATE......
Just arrived back from the Island Encounters opening reception. Wow! I was only aware of a few of the artists that had work hanging in this show before going to it and felt privileged to have my painting in there with them. I was astonished to find works by Elmer Wachtel and DeWitt Parshall. Also were works by contemporary artists Matt Smith, 2 from Kevin Macpherson, Joseph Paquet, David Gallup, Whitney Abbott and many more. What a line up of talented artists.

Elmer and Marian Wachtel both had paintings overlooking Avalon harbor on Catalina Island. The museum put up a current image of the harbor where you could see the area they had painted back then and how it has changed over time. There were recognizable geographical elements that were in their paintings that remain today making it easy to reference what they were seeing and almost the location to where they were painting from...very cool. Parshall had a great subdued painting of a rocky shoreline with some birds flying in the foreground that was awesome. You could see how Parshall had painted thin, almost translucent at the edges of the rock formations too give the viewer this almost blurred edge...I wondered why he had painted the edge that way when I was right up on the small (about 12x16 I think) painting but when I looked again from about 10 feet away the effect was awesome....we painters of today think we are smart, ha! The Matt Smith piece was a small 8x10/9x12? painting with of course the killer rock work he does so well. I wish I had taken my camera but no dice...left it at home tonight but due to the crowd inside I would have never gotten a good shot and so I just enjoyed myself and studied too. Like I said...if you are close to Los Olivos, CA. this is a great exhibit to see....and drool.

Eaton Canyon Painting

2011-09-22T12:46:00.000-07:00

"Eaton Canyon Dusk"

38" X 48" Oil on Canvas

The painting above was painted back in January 2011. It is a large painting, 36"x48", and so it was leaning along the wall here drying...and staring at me. I finally had enough and threw it back up on my easel. It must be an artists curse that if you look at one of your paintings long enough you will undoubtedly see changes you want to make. Sometimes the changes make the painting better and sometimes you should have listened to your first instinct to call it quits. Paintings live and can taunt you, haha. I think the changes I have made on this one were for the better and I'm much happier now with this one...good thing too because it's large and is very hard to ignore here in the studio.
I've gone back in and lowered the contrast of colors in the distant mountains...being subtle speaks volumes. I've also varied the edges of the oak tree shapes, mainly the tops, in the midground. Oooh, much better! I adjusted the colors and detail of the midground bushes that run across the paintings center. I then came to the foreground and added work to the tree, worked more grasses in and worked more on the bush to the right. Some slight work on some rock shadows, the sandy riverbed sand...etc etc etc. Basically I touched up most of the painting and wondered why I had stopped before. Vision! Sometimes it tells you you're finished and sometimes, most of the time, it doesn't really mean it. I don't think there is a painting I have finished that when looking at it later I don't see something I'd change....it's that curse. Really an artist just improves with time and paintings and so it is only natural to see earlier work and want to make changes. Right now, I'm happy with the finish. I'm going to go broke buying a frame for this one, yikes!

At The Foothills Of The San Gabriels Show

2011-09-12T15:14:00.000-07:00

Lifelong friends Lupita and Jose Fernandez and myself...my painting on the wall there
(better picture of painting below).

Sunday 11, 2011 was the day of the show reception for the California Art Club show "At The Foothills Of The San Gabriels. This was held at the Altadena Tow & Country Club which provided the backdrop for the best CAC show I've been to since being a member. The group of CAC members who put this show on did a fantastic job of it and the staff working the show from the Altadena Town & Country Club were awesome. This place is gorgeous and coupled with the work hanging by the members of the CAC made for one heck of a show. Laura Wambsgans was there and she not only had a great piece of work, a waterfall scene, but she was a great hostess and a good friend. Thank you Laura!

Artists' Laura Wambsgans and Bruce Boycks in front of Lauras' painting "Mountain Stream"

Several of my friends and family showed up for support and had a great time. I was hoping to see another friend of mine, Artist Marian Fortunati, but I learned she was over at the Channel Islands doing a workshop with Artist David Gallup. Marian had a great piece in the show too. About halfway through the 2 hour event my painting, "Myrtle Avenue", was sold which brought nothing but smiles from Linda and myself. I was able to talk shop with a few artist friends and in general just had a great night! I was able to hand out several show cards to help promote my September show at Galerie Gabrie too. There were some wonderful paintings there and several in my opinion were priced below their value. If you'd like to see some of the paintings in the show you can go to the CAC page here.

Artist Bruce Boycks, Linda and friend Jerry Gonzalez with my painting

At The Foothills Of The San Gabriels show will run from now until January 10th, 2012. You are welcome to visit the Altadena Town & Country Club to view the show, their address is 2290 Country Club Drive, Altadena, CA.

Linda Vista Painting

2011-09-08T18:06:00.000-07:00

"Over Linda Vista"

18" X 24" Oil on Canvas

Growing up in Pasadena I had always heard of the famous Pasadena Art Center College of Design. If you've seen the movie "Rudy" it was sort of like that only I wasn't wanting to go to Notre Dame, I would have wanted to go to Art Center. I never had the money for that and was too busy working. That doesn't keep you from drawing and painting though so I kept up with that on my own and at classes at Pasadena City College. My Dad worked for Brookside Golf Course and Art Center was up in the hills just above Brookside and the Rose Bowl. One year a friend of mine took me there to look around since his son was soon to go there. It was pretty impressive to say the least.

Recently I was dropping some work off at the Galerie Gabrie in Pasadena and decided to head up there to get a better view of the mountains. I brought my camera and decided to get a lot of reference photos of the San Gabriels mountains. I parked in the student parking lot and hiked down the hillside a bit snapping away. Awesome view across the San Gabriels looking east over Pasadena, Altadena and Sierra Madre...then off into the distance over Monrovia and Duarte.

There was a small road going down the hillside and I liked the view looking somewhat north/east above La Canada at the foothills of the San Gabriels...pretty awesome when you're that close. I painted this scene of that view. I like the mid ground hills jutting up in front of the San Gabriels in the distance. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, JPL, is just on the other side of those hills hugging the bottom of the mountains. Nice area.

A detail from the painting....

Rancho San Carlos De Jonata

2011-09-06T13:05:00.000-07:00

"Rancho San Carlos De Jonata Vista"

15" X 30" Oil on Canvas

I was invited to come to Rancho Jonata, one of the original Spanish land grant ranchos from early California, by the owner and his wife. They are also one of the founding families of Solvang and really sweet people. While there I was driven all over the rancho by the owner and enjoyed their hospitality. This view is one of thousands they have there at the rancho and was one of my favorites. I love the hillsides spattered with oaks and grasses looking off to the mountains in the distance. A truly beautiful place.

Galerie Gabrie Featured Artist

2011-09-01T17:40:00.000-07:00

Featured Artist September, Galerie Gabrie

Last Friday I took the last of the large paintings down to Galerie Gabrie to be hung for the Featured Artist show for the month of September. It was hot down in Pasadena and the air conditioner isn’t working in the truck, one of my paintings got scratched so back to my studio it went. It wasn’t a great day so far. By the time I got to the gallery things started to change. I luckily was able to park right in front of the gallery to unload thanks to a car that had just pulled out…bonus! I ended up having a very good talk with my gallery owner, Jasminka Gabrie, and I began to feel pretty positive about how the month of August had gone. I had just finished doing the Quick Draw show in Los Olivos, which was my first time in that show, and my painting in the auction brought the highest bid. Another painting of mine in a Silent auction also sold. The day after that show I got an email from a client interested in one of my larger paintings. The painting was already down at Galerie Gabrie for my Featured Artist show. She said she would be in Pasadena towards the end of September and would go see the painting then. On my drive home I was feeling much better about how things were going.

Jasminka, myself and Linda at the Los Olivos Quick Draw event.

On Saturday I returned to the gallery to drop off one more painting I had and looked forward to seeing the gallery since this is the day they would hang my work for the show. Turns out the client I spoke of was waiting for them to open and walked in to buy the painting before it could have been sold during the show. You have to be an artist to know how it really feels to sell a painting before it is even hung for a show. Artists usually work thousands of hours alone. The endless solitary time spent painting gives them enough thoughts, hopes and doubts, to fill up the back of a truck. The people who purchase your work are those who carry the message to you that you are, in fact, on the right path….they bring the answers to that truckload of thoughts, hopes and doubts. The drive home that day was even better than the one before regardless of the heat.

If you are close to Pasadena, California please try and make it over to Galerie Gabrie anytime in the month of September. Jasminka will be happy to show you my work and she’s always fun to talk with.

Galerie Gabrie, 597 E. Green St. Pasadena, CA. Phone 626-577-1223

Tuesday through Saturday 12:00 to 5:00 PM

Photos of the show were sent to me by Jasminka Gabrie.

Chamberlin Ranch Oaks Repaint

2011-08-28T20:29:00.000-07:00

"Chamberlin Ranch Oaks"

6" X 8" Oil on Panel

This small painting was painted about a year ago. I recently had this in the Silent auction during the Los Olivos Quick Draw event and it sold to a really nice woman from Hermosa Beach, CA. I had wanted to try and paint another version of the small painting to push the colors and add more detail in the foreground. Before the Quick Draw I grabbed a 16"X20" canvas that had a Marine painting on it and decided to paint over it.

Normally when painting over an old painting I'd sand off any lumps of old paint and then wipe it with a mixture of yellow ochre or indian yellow and turpintine first. This gives you a more even tone to paint over and fresh paint for the new paint to stick to. Instead I just wiped it down with a very diluted mix of turpentine and copal and once it was tacky I painted away without a tinted ground. This forced me to paint thicker since I tend to paint thin.

"Oaks At Chamberlin Ranch"

16"X20" Oil on Canvas

There were slight changes to the newer painting since I wasn't trying to copy the original but just use it as a reference. I got most of the painting in before delivering the small painting on Thursday night to the auction. After the weekend event was over I came back to the new painting and finished it off. I really pushed the colors and detail which was the point of it all. I like the changes and added color/detail of the new painting. It is a good thing to try doing these with ones own work. There is a normal pressure with every painting as you try to make it a good painting of course but in doing a second painting I found that pressure was not there. I already had a good painting so there was a lot more freedom to experiment and make changes here regardless of the outcome...if something didn't work I could always just wipe it down or wipe the whole painting down and start over. Things went well on this one so I'm happy with the effort.

A detail of the tree and foreground....

Quick Draw Fun !

2011-08-21T21:26:00.000-07:00

The 25th Annual Los Olivos Quick Draw has come and gone. A pre-show of the participating artist's work on Friday night, Saturday morning''s Quick Draw followed up by the show reception in the afternoon that went until 8pm had me and all of the other artists ready for bed early on Saturday night. It was a good show.

The pre-show on Friday had pretty low attendance but I think we all knew that would happen considering the current economy. Actually, the economy has effected everything and that's too bad. Artists arrive hoping for the best and soon you see signs of frustration happening. You work hard to prepare for shows, paint your best, spend money on good frames, pay for hotels, gas for the car, get dressed up and then go through traffic, maybe take time off work if you have a job and then go to an art show where few show people up and those who do aren't buying. Hoping for better times.
There is only one thing good that comes out of a slow show, you have the time to talk to your painter friends. I visited with my old friends and made new ones so that was a good part of it...a great part. Finally met Joe Mancuso, super nice guy, and spoke again with Joe Milazzo as well as the other great artists there.
Arrived back at home around 9 and then stayed up till 2 doing last minute things before the Quick Draw on Saturday.

Holly and Stacey from the Wildling Art Museum who worked so hard to put on a great show.

Up at 6am to pack up my gear, and arrived at the show just after 8am. Parked a block away and lugged my gear to the booth I would be in. I took 4 items...my french easel, my french companion, my bag of this and that and the frame I would use. Many of the artists seemed to bring enough stuff to fill up a studio. I don't get that. I wouldn't have taken the french companion if it didn't make things so much easier but it does so I took it. The bag of goodies was my turpentine can, paper towels, hand cleaner and a cloth towel and camera....had to have that stuff....and the frame was needed to frame the painting for the auction.

One very cool thing happened as I was setting up. I was walking past Ted Goerschner and Marilyn Simandle's area and Ted was standing there with a big grin on his face watching me heading back to my car. I've been in a show with Ted and he's one of the artists in the gallery that represents my work but I had actually never met him. I walked up said good morning and introduced myself. I had read and been told that Ted has no problem speaking his mind. That can intimidate most artists...it intimidated me. In 10 seconds I found Ted to be one of the nicest artists I had ever met. He was so casual and easy to speak with. We spoke for a few minutes, he introduced me to Marilyn and I felt great. Ted's never seen my work (maybe thank God for that! hahaha) but I have a very deep respect for him. He's a legend to all of us here in he valley, has taught and improved probably millions of artists with his workshops and books as well as been an inspiration to countless artists out there....he's a Big Gun in the art world to me.

Introductions. Ted Goerschner in white jacket in center.

About 5 minutes before the start..have coffee and ready to roll.

We set up then went across the street be announced to the slow arriving public...it looked dismal at best because hardly anyone was there but by the time they finished making the introductions it was packed and more people where still arriving. I wasn't nervous at all until we went to our booths and started painting....then with people talking behind you, taking pictures, asking questions the heat was on and at times I'd stop to settle down. It can get very nerve racking with an audience only 2 feet away watching your every move. All the while you are also racing the clock and battling doing a fast painting or a fast and good painting. Big difference.

Getting close to the finish. I had Linda mill around snapping shots.

Marilyn Simandle and Ted Goerschner at work

A closer shot at Marylin's painting

At one time they called out a 15 minute warning and I didn't hear what they had said. I stopped and looked towards the announcer with I'm sure the look of horror on my face because the crowd watching me started laughing and assuring me I still had 15 minutes. Whew!
When the bell rang I was happy with the finish, framed that puppy and off it went. The night before I wired the frame for hanging, taped a business card to it and an artist bio. All I needed to do was slide in the wet painting, staple the brads in with my frame gun and was good to go.

The Auction begins...that's a good looking crowd !

The auction went well...below the normal prices but again, the economy raises it's ugly head. Everyone sold their paintings to the very large crowd of bidders. We also had a silent auction going on at the same time and I sold the smaller painting I had there to a woman from Manhattan Beach. You've got to love the people who show up to enjoy your work and efforts and you have to really love the ones who support you by bidding on the work. Face it, sales make the wheels turn and even if the prices were below market prices we all still sold and that's a gift....everyone wins. In that respect this was a successful show and I've been to many, many unsuccessful shows on the road of art.

bid bid bid....

One thing I did was forget to take a finished picture of the final painting...in too much of a hurry to frame and deliver the painting to the auction area. All in all....it was a great day.

Los Olivos 25th Annual Quick Draw

2011-08-16T22:35:00.000-07:00

Create a painting in 1 hour...you bet I can!

It's only 4 days till the Los Olivos 25th Annual Quick Draw happens on Saturday Morning. The events actually start on Friday, Aug 19 when there will be a Quick Draw Art Preview with a Wine and Desert Reception. Collectors can see and buy art from their favorite artists the night before the Quick Draw at St. Marks In The Valley Church. This will happen at 7 - 8:30 PM. You may purchase advance tickets for $20. and they will be $25. at the door. To purchase tickets in advance online click here.

On Saturday, Aug 20th, the event begins at 10AM and will last until 6PM. There will be the Quick Draw followed by the live auction for the paintings as well as a Silent Auction in the Grange Hall. There will also be the additional art at St Marks too. A reception will happen at St. Marks at 2-4 PM. You can download a brochure here. I will be painting in the Quick Draw event and look forward to seeing and talking to you Friday at St Marks as well as during the Saturday events. Please come by and have some fun !!

Grass Mountain

2011-08-06T11:34:00.000-07:00

Grass Mountain

22" X 28" Oil on Canvas

Looking to the north side of the valley we live in a familiar site is Grass Mountain. This mountain is easily recognized due to the year round grasses the cover it's south side. In Winter there is a nice green side to it and in Summer great tones of gold, ochre and yellow blaze in the sun. My attempt here was to go for the afternoon light as it warms the foreground oaks and grasses and push the atmosphere moving across the valley back to Grass mountain. Below is a detail on one of the foreground oaks...

Reworking A Painting

2011-07-25T01:07:00.000-07:00

The original version of this painting painted in Fall/Winter 2010

I am framing up some small ones with the new little frames I made. As I was doing this I saw this painting which I painted last Fall or Winter. I always liked this one but I wanted to try adding some flowers in the foreground to add some interest to the dry Summer grasses. When I got to the easel that tree to the left was competing with my right side tree. I decided to lighten and make the shape slightly smaller. Eventually, I ended up readjusting the base of the eucalyptus tree too....reworking a painting, even a small painting, can lead you into more work than you might think. Having two shapes with close sizes and close lights and darks was a compositional error on my part and I'm glad I caught it.

My reworked painting July 2011

Reworking is strange too. I see things that I like in both versions. Some of it though is the camera. My original Nikon 5200 took the first pic and the second was taken with a Nikon L11. Both Coolpix models but the L11 is newer, has more megapixel capacity but the white balance and lens cannot even come close to the older 5200. Anyway...it was fun to make the adjustments to this painting...taught me some lessons and reminded me of how easy it is to get sloppy and forget some things.

Hillside Evening

2011-07-23T16:37:00.000-07:00

"Hillside Evening"

12x16 Oil on Panel

Trying to improve an older painting that I felt was never quite complete back when I painted it. I went back in and repainted the background mountain, added moredetail to the foreground hillside and slightly adjusted the tree tops. I'm happier with the finish now. I don't usually go back over older paintings but this one grabbed my attention the other day while I was going over my older work. There is just a yucky feeling I get when painting over dried paint. I don't prefer painting over wet paint either. I like painting over tacky, sticky paint which is where my paint usually is by the end of the day or the next morning. Despite all of that ,this one ended up with a decent look to it so I'm calling it quits at this point.

Santa Ynez Hillsides

2011-07-21T23:43:00.000-07:00

"Santa Ynez Hillsides"

12 X 24 Oil on Canvas

I've painted the view from our deck looking across the valley many times. A lot of times I focus on a neighbors oak tree or the ridge you see in the mid ground of this painting. In reality, there are homes that dot the ridge line there and I decided to paint this one minus the homes. I love the color of the hills against the distant blue Figueroa mountains. The foreground here is all out of my head since there are nothing but dry grasses on the hills at the moment. Fun to throw in some color and a tree or two....actually, that tree looks a lot like my neighbors!

Building a French Companion

2011-07-18T15:58:00.000-07:00

Above you can see the French Companion I recently built. The French Companion is smaller than the French Mistress but they both look and do the same thing. I decided to build mine because I had the scrap wood laying around from past projects and didn't feel like waiting for the FC to be shipped had I ordered one online. At this moment the FC is on sale at ASW for $52.99.

Here is how I built mine. The panels are 3/16 Luan I had purchased a while back at Home Depot. First I cut three panels of luan. These measured 13x16 and two 13x8. Then I cut pieces of 5/8 x5/8 strips of wood to fit along the edges of the panels. These are just butt jointed, nothing fancy. The frame strips are just pine that was cut from an old piece of 2x4. I glues these to the panels and then shot in a few brads to reinforce them (you could use short finishing nails too).

I then went to Ace hardware and bought 2 12" piano hinges for $8 a piece. Once I had those I lined up the panels and installed the hinges.

I then stained it with red oak stain and then waxed it with the Howards Feed N Wax. Here is the view of the box closed. for transport.

A view of the box open ready to be sat on the drawer of the French easel. I was going to buy some small latches to keep the doors closed but couldn't find any. I'll hunt online for those. A bungy cord will work for now.

Ready for action! It's that simple...cut panels to size, glue and nail on wood frame strips, screw on hinges, stain and wax....Use! It gives ample room now when using the French easel to lay out your paints, palette knives, turps, coffee cup, donut, and has a nice amount of room to mix paint. Very easy to build.

Summer Landscape

2011-07-17T22:09:00.000-07:00

"Summer Field"

12 X 24" Oil on Canvas

I've been doing other art related things keeping me away from painting so it was time to jump back at the easel. Yesterday I finished building a French Companion for my French easel and I painted this one to try out the French Companion. Works great and it's nice having the added room when using the French easel.

I started this one out trying a darker sky...sort of a slate grey. It really popped those pink mountains and gave it the look of when the sun starts coming out at the end of as storm. I called it quits, went inside to eat dinner and when I came back I decided to lighten the sky. I hate messing with the sky once a painting is done but that "after the storm" look was a little intense. Ya had to be there.

Anyway....good painting to get back to the brushes with.

Small Oak Frames

2011-07-14T15:23:00.000-07:00

I needed some small 6x6 and 5x7 frames for smaller works and decided to make some. To make these frames all that's needed is a table saw, a palm sander, a large rubber band and some wood glue. I have a mitre saw, or "chop saw", as they are known so I used that to speed up cutting chores.

I purchased red oak strips from Home Depot that measured 1/2" X 2 1/2".

I ripped that down the middle to make two strips of 1/2" x 1 1/4. I then cut this into an "L" shape on the table saw. All cuts are done at the same time to keep the wood thicknesses identical which is what you want later when glueing the wood pieces together.

At this point you just cut your lengths of the sides of the frames by cutting your mitre cuts at 45 degree angles. To make it easy, cut the end of one strip of wood at a 45 degree angle. Use one of your paintings to measure out where to make the next cut.

After cutting you just glue the pieces together. I used a large rubber band to hold the frame together until the glue dried enough to hold which was about 30 minutes. I let them sit overnight to let the glue dry completely.

The next day I sanded the pieces smooth. Put a slight radius on the edges, which means to just lightly round the edges or the frame and corners

After that I then applied Howards Feed-N-Wax which contains bees wax and orange oil. This is gives the wood a nice luster finish. After that you give yourself a headache trying to decide which painting to frame! If you have a table saw and a bit of time that's really all you'd need to make these frames. You can sand with sandpaper if you didn't have a palm sander. It is an affordable alternative to buying frames. I enjoy wood working, gives me time to think and by the end of a few hours of work I have something in my hands that will outlast me and it looks good. I can say I made it and saved some money too. It might sound like a lot of work but after you do this once you will realise how easy it is to make these.

Frames...and Making Lemonade

2011-07-09T02:08:00.000-07:00

Straight out of the box....

I order my frames from a company who, for me, has the best prices and some of the best looking frames. I dig their frames and they have a good selection. Unfortunately, I've had to repair some of these frames and usually wait up to 2 months to get them. But, you can't beat their price and they have great looking frames that I like. I'd buy my frames locally, and that means most of central and southern California, but I'd have to pay about 1/2 to 2/3's more cost...and for the same frames. But that's California, we love paying more for gas, milk, real estate, cereal, meat, and frames.

In my shop it goes....

Being a starving artist who orders frames as needed, which means as needed really soon for a show, I end up repairing the damage so life can go on. I received a frame today, dusty and about half of the inner part wasn't stapled together so I took it all apart and then fixed it. I made lemonade.

All fixed!

This economy is horrible to art sales and you have to do what you can to keep costs down and things moving. Yesterday, I finished making 8 small 6x6 oak frames for some smaller pieces and was on cloud nine with how good they came out. Up down, Up down...hahaha. Thank God I took wood shop in high school.

Los Olivos Quickdraw

2011-07-02T01:56:00.000-07:00

August is going to be a busy month. I was fortunate to be invited to paint in the Quickdraw event in Los Olivos on Saturday, August 20. The event will begin around 10am and will be followed up with a live auction and then paintings by the artists on display at St. Marks In The Valley Episcopal church right down the street from the Quickdraw. This event usually draws a great crowd and is the highlight of art events in Los Olivos. Los Olivos is very laid back and has all the charm of a small town life. There are plenty of wine tasting rooms and art can be seen at Gallery Los Olivos, Youngs Gallery and the Wildling Museum. It's a cool little town.

Ted Goerschner and Marylin Simandle painting it up

There are some real favorites of mine in this event, Ted Goerschner, Richard Greene, Joe Mancuso, Joe Milazzo, Marylin Simandle just to name a few. I've met Milazzo and Richard Greene...nice guys. Many of the other artists I know very well and have much repsect for.

Gordon Luce starting to add detail after block-in

In the past they have also had Gordon Luce and Mark Greenaway whose work I like a lot too. I'm not sure why they are missing this years event.

Here is some more info on the event....

The day will feature live music, a silent auction, and more Quick Draw artists' paintings offered for sale nearby at St. Mark's In The Valley Episcopal Church. The Los Olivos Rotary will be offering lunch for sale too!
Come early and spend the weekend! Friday night a special preview Wine & Dessert Show will be held 7:00-8:30 p.m. at St. Mark's. Pre-sale preview tickets can be purchased http://www.eventbrite.com/event/1832329547 for $20.
Tickets at the door: $25

Participating Quick Draw Artists

Vicki Andersen, Betty Carr, Howard Car,; Gwen Cates, Jim Farnum, Julie Fish, Priscilla Fossek, Ted Goerschner, Richard M. Greene, Ron Guthrie, Gary R. Johnson, Sheryl Knight, Lee Kromschroeder, George Lockwood, Joe Mancuso, Joe Milazzo, Vel Miller, Linda Mutti, Richard A. Myer, Cathy Quiel, Camille Renga-Dellar, Ray Sevilla, Marilyn Simandle, and BJ Stapen.

Click here for all of the details on the event....

Arroyo Seco Sycamore

2011-06-29T00:47:00.000-07:00

"In The Arroyo"

22X28 Oil on Canvas

This is the second painting that has been juried into the California Art Club show in South Pasadena at the Fremont Gallery. I snapped this pic just after framing it. This is on the path just north of the Colorado Street bridge and the 210 freeway bridge. There are some really nice sycamore trees on that path that give awesome shade when it gets hot down there on the trail.

I had ordered another frame for the smaller painting but it didn't arrive on time for the turn in of work for the show. We did that on monday and that new frame I had ordered was leaning against my front door when we got home from turning in the work. If it wasn't for the 130 mile trip back down there I would have taken it down to switch the next day but with gas prices hovering just below $4 a gallon that isn't going to happen.

South Pasadena Show

2011-06-28T01:20:00.000-07:00

I'm happy to say that I finally got around to entering work into a California Art Club show going on in South Pasadena. I've missed a few due to other art projects going on and scheduling problems so it is nice to finally get back into one of their shows. I was very lucky and managed to get 2 paintings into this show and one of them was used for the show card. That painting looks better in the actual flesh....trust me. Anyway...if you're in the area this Saturday come on by. There is no fee to come to the gallery and check it out. This is a new gallery they are using this time so it will be nice to see the paintings hanging in a different place this time.
See you at the show!

The Arroyo Seco

2011-05-25T12:57:00.000-07:00

"Fading Light At The Arroyo"

18" X 24" Oil on Canvas

A while back I was shooting reference photos in the Arroyo, the riverbed that runs from Pasadena down into Los Angeles close to Dodger Stadium. One of the scenes I caught was the fading light leaving the arroyo in shadow but the trees high up on the edge of the arroyo walls still lit up. I like that sort of stuff, haha. I decided to paint this one trying to capture that light. I like the lack of direct light and it's effect on the greens and dried grasses in this scene. Some slight bit of light giving the hillside scrub a hazy look...fun stuff to work with.

California High Desert

2011-05-16T15:57:00.000-07:00

"California High Desert"

24" X 36" Oil on Canvas

You know....I've kept from posting this image for about a week. The problem is I just cannot get a decent pic of the painting and it has been driving me crazy. I've used 2 different cameras and tried every setting I could think of. The painting looks pretty good here on the easel but some of the colors here in the photo are just reading a bit too intense. The yellows on the sage bush in the foreground have too much contrast in relation to the rest of the plant. On the easel the contrast of greens/yellows are more subdued and the greens of the sage brush are a bit better milky-green looking. I don't know if it is a Nikon thing or not...yellows come screaming through both of these cameras....and yes, I've tried all of my photoshop tricks to fix it all but I'm tired of messing with it so I'm just going to post what I felt was a bearable photo of the painting. Sometimes some paintings just don't do well in a photo but look fine in a real life setting....this is the king of those types, hahaha.

BINLADEN DEAD AT LAST!

2011-05-01T20:01:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note...we've just heard Binladen has been killed by American Forces.....YAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Savanna May

2011-04-25T09:40:00.000-07:00

"Savanna May"

16" X 20" Oil on Canvas

This painting is all finished up now. Took longer than normal but more importantly I've learned a few things on this one. The funniest thing I learned while painting this one was that my D40 camera does have a White Balance setting! hahaha.

I wanted to take work in progress shots while painting this but my 5 year old smaller digital camera that I've used for all of my artwork finally conked out on me. It took the best shots of my artwork simply because it had a White Balance settings. This setting allows you to choose the lighting you are working under. By reading through my manual for the D40 camera I finally found out it had this and how to find it...once I tried a few shots all worked out fine, whew!

Another thing I've learned is to get away from using a pencil for my initial sketch. Way too much messing with those pesky pencil lines so no more of that.

And finally, I'm learning to see color better...not the color things are but the colors that are actually in front of me. Water is not really blue or green....it can be brown, black, yellow, grey or any hundred other colors. What it is is right there in front of your eyes. What it's not is what your mind tells you it is. An important lesson and I'm getting the hang of trusting my eyes more and more.....and one more thing, if you paint bright red floats that have been faded by the sun you're going to end up with what looks like giant salmon eggs in your painting and there's just no way around that.

Painting & Pencils

2011-04-22T11:48:00.000-07:00

" Savanna May", 16X20, is coming along nicely despite the pencil line fun

A few years ago I asked an artist friend of mine if he used a pencil to do his initial sketch on his awesome portrait works. You'd think I had asked him if he enjoyed using dog food when making meatloaf. That guy hates the idea of using a pencil for sketching prior to painting. Comes from experience. If you use a pencil many times the pencil lines will show up through the paint....especially the lighter areas of your painting. This is the normal look when using watercolors but you don't see it so much in oil painting.

I have used pencil to do my sketching for landscape work which is fine because I hardly sketch much at all when doing landscapes. Usually the line of the mountain tops is the only problem area I have with the pencil showing through so I just scrub it lightly with the brush and it goes away. Other times I will wipe that line down with turpentine...just enough to leave just a trace of it but the paint covers it no problem. And of course, a lot of times I do the sketching with a small liner brush using a wash of turps and yellow orchre...that method works the best. The problem is I sketch a lot due to the to the detail when painting marine scenes. I can't paint a marine scene over a loose sketch. I have to have the drawing pretty exact before I paint. For a marine sketch I go back to using a pencil simply for the control I have with it. Besides....it is easier and faster to erase a pencil line than it is to go back and wipe out a line when using paint. With pencil though you have tons of line work to cover with paint. I've been thinking about maybe trying to do my initial sketch with a light grey marker pen. Tombo & Prismacolor both make markers with various greys. I'd think a 10% cool grey would probably work great for this and the oil paint should easily color this.

Some of the pencil lines still showing through in this detail shot of the painting...when the paint sets up I'll go back over them but it is tedious.

So, the next time I'm down in Pasadena I'll stop into the Blick art store and pickup a couple of these guys to try out.

Bandon Oregon Sailboat

2011-04-09T13:31:00.001-07:00

"Shade In Bandon Oregon"

16"x20" Oil on Canvas

Ok, just finished up the sailboat in Bandon, Oregon today. Geeze this one took forever to finish. Too many distractions lately. This is why an artist needs a studio up in the hills. I'm happy with it but of course there are always things I wish I had done differently...like the boot stripe color. By the way... a boot stripe is the line of color (here a pale greenish blue) painted above the bottom paint (here a dark red). That boot stripe is actually the same color as the stripe just under the cap rail and gunnel (the deck edge). I made a slightly darker mix of it when painting the boot stripe but it blended too much with the still wet paint of the hull so it reads lighter now. Also, the bottom paint should have been a true red darkened down with ultramarine blue but I used alizarin crimson just because that is my normal operating red. In this painting I don't like the crimson. Most bottom paint red is a dull true red color. Also, there is that loose thing...hahaha.

Still, I think it works and now on to the next painting.

Current Work In Progress

2011-04-07T16:35:00.000-07:00

I haven't been posting much lately but not because of not painting. I've finished off about 3 or 4 paintings but they were versions based on a particular painting and I don't want to post 5 similar paintings on here. Also...the normal things that life brings, family and winter storm damage has kept me busy too. Winter storms bring not only bring rain but high winds which knock branches, and at times, trees down. We also have our usual bout of water getting into the barn and workshop so it can get really busy around here with back to back storms.

Bandon WIP...working title

So anyway....this is a painting I'm working on right now. Figured I needed to post something. This scene is from the coastal town of Bandon, Oregon. I passed through it on my way back from Coos Bay last year. Beautiful small town with great fish and chips, crab, quaint little shops and nice marina and waterfront. I haven't painted hardly any sailboats so I thought this one being worked on would do. Hard to not love the lines of a sailboat even if you are a powerboat person. I should have this one finished in another day or two. This image isn't the greatest since it was taken with a diiferent camera...my normal camera had a dead battery and it's charging now. I'm trying to keep my edges soft but my marine work always has a totally different look than my landscape work. I'll go back in the end and try and soften up some more on it.

A Detail of the painting....

Well...back to the easel...I want to get everything painted in so I can get to the part of dialing it all in. This one is taking forever to do...usually the marine pieces always take days to do. It's all of that detail and line work. I'd like to paint them looser but that never happens with me. I think I'm just going to have to live with my work like that, at least for now.

Wildling Museum Demo

2011-03-19T17:20:00.000-07:00

The Wildling Museum, Los Olivos, CA

As forecasted, rain Saturday and Sunday this weekend, the weekend of the demo I would do at the Wildling Museum in Los Olivos. Watching the weather channel we knew the rain was on it's way and the weatherman was right on the money.

When Linda and I arrived to set up it was dry still but overcast and cold. Needless to say very few people came to the event put on by all of the art venues in town with artists giving demonstrations at various locations. At the museum I would guess maybe 50 people came by but I think the cold kept them moving to take things in before heading for home. I met some nice people and a few of the other artists stopped by to talk. The rain came and I came away with a decent eucalyptus painting and went home a little wet and with some freezing hands and feet.

Brrrrrr! Doesn't look that cold huh...ya had to be there. I forgot to tell Linda to take the flash off so there is a bad glare here on the painting. One artist came by and turns out she lived in Hawaii at the same time that Linda lived there and her daughter went to the same school as Linda's daughter....small world. A photographer showing at the coffee shop came by and all 4 of us had a lot of laughs. It was nice to be out hanging with artist friends.

This is a better pic of the painting...pretty common subject with me lately, these eucalyptus trees, I'm messing with various color strategies. The sky doesn't show well here but it is this nice greenish blue blending into a light violet towards the bottom...too subtle to show good in this pic. I don't know what is up with my digital camera that has worked great for the last 4 years...might be time to get another one with more megapixels. That little camera (old faithful) gets good details of anything under 16x20 but it's just not taking good images of the larger paintings. This painting is an 18x24 so the details get blurred. Lots of distractions out there today and there are things I might change on this one but overall I'm pretty happy with how the painting came out. As for the day spent there, well, sometimes nature works with you and sometimes it doesn't. Despite the cold I think we all had a fun time of it.

Santa Ynez Valley Morning

2011-03-18T14:54:00.000-07:00

"Valley Morning"

9" X 12" Oil on Canvas
Just a quick painting that I painted this morning while looking out of my backdoor and seeing this scene. It was a small section of the landscape visable and took about 1, 1/2 hours. I didn't have time to work on a larger piece since I need to get ready for the demo tomorrow at the Wildling Art Museum. Come on out, it's going to rain, thunder and probably be windy! hahaha. Why do a demo on a good day right? hahaha. I heard the forecasted rain for this weekend a few days ago but that's ok...the museum has a large wrap around porch and even it it got that ugly they offered a room inside...but I like it outside. We'll see what happens.

Figueroa Mountain Foothills

2011-03-13T23:49:00.000-07:00

"Foothills Of The Figueroas"

12"x16" Oil on Canvas
This painting was started as more of a sketch to practice dialing in warm colored grasses but eventually worked it's way to a more completed painting. I also used this piece to experiment with atmosphere and depth wanting to get more of a "thickness" in the air across the valley. I didn't overly push that thickness in the air because I just wanted it to evident in the painting and not overbearing. My reference photo had a more crisp look to it since the air is so clean and clear up here so I added what's in the painting. I'm happy with the results and that's what is more important than the actual capturing of what was there in the photo.

Painting Demo - Los Olivos, CA

2011-03-07T13:12:00.000-08:00

For any of you who live within driving distance to Los Olivos, CA (just above Santa Barbara), I will be doing a painting demo at the Wildling Art Museum. My demo will be part of the Artist And Easels day long show in the sleepy town of Los Olivos.
If you enjoy good wine, great art and a small town atmosphere then this is a good show for you. There will be many artists throughout the town giving demos.
My demo will be between 11 and 3 at the Wildling Art Museum. There is a great coffee shop next door so it can't get better than that! If you have some spare time please come by and have a fun day enjoying art.

Saturday, March 19, 11-3

The Wildling Art Museum... 2928 San Marcos Ave., Los Olivos, CA (805) 688-1082

Alla Prima Painting

2011-03-06T22:47:00.000-08:00

"Misty Eucalyptus Trees"

12" X 16" Oil on Canvas
This painting was done alla prima tonight in about 2 hours. I wasn't really racing to finish it or paint alla prima to begin with...it just turned out to be an alla prima painting in a couple of hours which is always nice. I did this one more as a study than anything since I wanted to try out some different background color mixes for the sky. I made this sky with a mix of white, cerulean blue and a dab of cad yellow light added to that blue mix in the lower part of the sky. I wanted a greenish look to it because I wanted to paint the background trees with a slightly darker mix of that lower sky color. This always gives the painting a nice hazy, almost foggy look in the distance. I wish the green showed better here, it's a subtle mix as it rises into the cerulean upper sky and looks pretty cool when you're standing in front of it. Cerulean blue and cad yellow gives a really nice pale green but it requires very little cad yellow since that color is so intense.

Spring In California

2011-02-28T22:33:00.000-08:00

"Spring In California"

24" X 30" Oil on Canvas
I painted this scene over a year ago on an 8"x10" canvas. The painting came out pretty nice so I entered it in a California Art Club show and it sold. I honestly didn't think it would sell and had planned on using the painting as a reference to paint a larger version. Luckily I had taken a good photo of it so the other day I got that out and used it as my ref. I went larger and also made some changes to the painting. The original had a lot of poppies in the foreground but the last few paintings I've done had poppies so I didn't want to paint those again. I like this version and think it is going to look very nice in a frame.

California Landscape Painting

2011-02-20T22:01:00.001-08:00

"California Spring Landscape"

12" X 16" Oil on Canvas
We've had rain for the last two days which I imagine has given me the inspiration to finally finish up this painting. I had started it before the new year arrvied but lost the inspiration to give it a good finish due to other things going on. Eventually it sat leaned against a wall drying and making me feel guilty for not finishing it every time I saw it. With the rain here I decided it was as good a time as any to finish up. Now the only guilt I have is in letting it sit for so long driving me crazy. Some paintings are after your soul.
No specific location for this one, it is just a typical scene of what the area looks like along the central coast of California. Oaks dominate the landscape of rolling hillsides and in spring the wildflowers will carpet the grass lined valleys.

Nipomo Eucalyptus Tree

2011-02-13T23:47:00.000-08:00

"The Sappling"

20" x 24" Oil on Canvas
Another scene up in the stand of eucalyptus trees in Nipomo, CA. I love this spot for getting great shots of eucalyptus trees and grassy meadows. If you've ever driven up the 101 fwy towards headed for San Luis Obispo then you've driven right past this stand of trees. Many of the migrant farm workers during the depression used these tree stands in Nipomo for shaded camps to live in. Dorothea Lange stopped in this area to take pictures of these workers as part of her work showing the conditions caused by the depression for the Farm Security Administration. When I walk among these trees I feel a deep reverence for the farm workers and families effected by the depression. To imagine people living in tents or lean to's and out of cars among these trees and in the heat of the day working in the nearby fields is a very humbling experience. It reminds you to never take for granted the lives we live because it all can be taken away like it was for so many back during the depression.

Life went on even during the depression and adversity as well as back breaking work is what got most people through it. During the depression my grandparents picked pecans in Texas and to help get by my grandpa broke horses. Once the horses were somewhat gentled he had my grandma get on the saddle first because she was lighter than him.

People, like trees, carry on in life. As time goes by they are replaced by the young. This sappling reminds me of that cycle...that life will go on despite the experiences, and sometimes ordeals, life will throw at us all.

Mojave Desert Light

2011-02-07T10:48:00.001-08:00

"Mojave In Gold"

24" X 30" Oil on Canvas
This was painted from reference photos taken near the town of Little Rock, CA up in the Mojave Desert. The plan was to go plein air paint that day but I kept stopping on the way there so by the time I got there it was late afternoon and super cold. Instead of painting I just took reference photos until the sun went down. Not a waste of time since reference photos would give me what I needed to do paintings here in the studio. This area is just above Pearblossom highway and sundown was bringing in some awesome light. I love the desert in the evening and enjoy what the light can do to the colors up there. I think I could spend the rest of my life trying to capture the colors of the Mojave...even the dirt looks good when the sun is just right.

Eaton Canyon At Dusk

2011-02-01T12:59:00.000-08:00

"Eaton Canyon At Dusk"

36" X 48" Oil on Canvas
A large painting of Eaton Canyon just before sunset. This scene was down in the riverbed in Fall this last year. Being a riverbed in a canyon there were plenty of rocks to paint so I took the liberty of editing many of them out of the scene. This allowed me to add more of the sandy bottom of the streambed and keep things not so busy in the foreground area. Took a few days to paint this one due to the large size but it went pretty smooth. The mountain sides of the canyon are an area I'm still working out to get to the point of feeling comfortable painting them and really loving what I end up with there. I like the progress so far with that part of these canyon paintings because the San Gabriel mountains to me are very hard mountains to paint. Lots of rocks and scrub brush so it is sort of a nightmare to handle for a painter.

In The Arroyo

2011-01-12T11:35:00.000-08:00

"In The Arroyo"

22" X 28" Oil on Canvas
I was heading to take reference shots of the Colorado St bridge at the Arroyo Seco in Pasadena. Along the way the path went by these nice sycamore trees casting some nice shadows under the dense canopy. I've been trying to paint more sycamore trees so I decided to paint this scene....shadows, sycamores...win/win. Fun painting to do and full of small challenges along the way. This is a busy painting and one I would have stayed away from painting a couple of years ago. I'm feeling more confident with these types of scenes and am starting to enjoy their challenges. The background foliage is mostly just suggested work and after the initial colors are blocked in it becomes just a matter of suggesting leaves and shadows with bits of color notes. In the end it looks more than it really is...all a matter of suggestion which goes a long way in painting. Below are two images of the early stages of this painting .

Above you can see the background "tree" colors blocked in and at this stage I was starting to add "leaf" detail. Just blocking in the underlying background colors fills up the canvas pretty quick. I did this stage before going to bed and thenit overnight tacking up so in the morning I came back to it and just starting dabbing in the "leaves" and edges of the blocked in colors.

In the upper image you can see more of the background suggested color nots are in and I'm moving on to blocking in the dried leafy trail floor. Once these colors were in I went back over them scumbling with a worn brush and knife adding detail to that area. After a while I just jumped around the canvas dialing it all in until it looked and felt finished....and that's it.

Eaton Canyon

2011-01-07T21:16:00.000-08:00

"Eaton Canyon Meadow"

22" X 28" Oil on Canvas

It seems everytime I go to Eaton canyon I end up in the meadow. It is just as you cross the water when hiking from the parking lot of the nature center there. There are some giant oaks and sycamores that line the meadow on one side and the bottom of the San Gabriel mountains on the other. This is the kind of trail my brother and I used to love running along playing as kids set free in the mountains. Lots of fun painting this one.

Here is a detail of the painting.....

I had the good fortune to visit the canyon 3 or 4 times this past year and that's pretty cool considering I now live over 130 miles away. When I was a kid we used to ride our bikes up to the canyon...or just walk if someone had a flat tire. They had the coolest pictures of a hiker who had been biten by a local rattlesnake. Our hikes were mostly in summer so it got pretty hot in the canyon by afternoon. Now I like to go there either in early morning or later afternoon to watch the colors of the San Gabriels ignite as the sun falls into the Pacific ocean. Sometimes the mountainsides are the most amazing pinks, reds and peach colors....just awesome to see this at various times of the year.

Spring Blooms

2011-01-02T13:51:00.000-08:00

"Spring Blooms"

9"x 12" Oil on Panel
A painter buddy of mine, Rich Gallego, finished the year with a painting I saw and that was all I needed to get his kick in the butt to do a painting before the year ended but it was less than an hour away from midnight on New Years night. I started this one but had to stop to do the Champagne thing, haha. I finished it today after getting caught up with other needed things. This was painted from a small 5x7 study I did a few months back. I realy liked certain parts of the study and wanted to try a bit of a larger painting. I like the far off mountains but wish I had placed them just slightly higher. I also like the textures and bits of pure color in the foreground poppies. Some paintings are just fun to paint and this was one of those types of paintings....fun one to start the new year off with.
Happy 2011!!!

Summer Above Los Olivos

2010-12-18T13:57:00.001-08:00

"Summer Above Los Olivos"

8" X 10" oil on panel
I finished this one just now while enjoying the Pacific storm that rolled in yesterday starting as light drizzle but was pouring all night and this morning. Hopefully Lake Cachuma will fill to it's top with this good chunk of rain we're getting. This hillside is just north of the tiny town of Los Olivos, CA. I drive up there a lot in summer to check out the colors and see what nature has created for artists to have fun with....nature never lets us down.
I had to run down to take Linda Christmas shopping down in Goleta yesterday and was only too happy to find out they now have a Hawaiin BBQ restaraunt there. Yummy! Guess where I'll be stopping on my way down to Pasadena in the future???

Christmas is almost here so in case I don't post anything before then I want to wish everyone who reads this blog a very Happy Christmas and a much better New Years than last year, hahaha.

Nipomo Meadow

2010-12-07T00:11:00.000-08:00

"Nipomo Meadow"

30" X 40" Oil on Canvas

This meadow had such a nice bit of sunlight splashed across it when I was up here at the eucalyptus stands in Nipomo off of Hwy 101. I tried to catch that light and still get a nice sense of the darks in the foreground. There were a lot of greens in this painting so it was nice to work on variations of that. You can never get enough practice with greens in landscape work.

I like the large size on this one too and am finding myself really building much more confidence at larger works. This would have taken me forever to paint a few years ago but now it is much faster. Really concentrating on my grasses the last two years has really paid off. It's hard to see most of the detail in the grasses here but on the actual painting they look pretty cool.

I'm still using the Utrecht Artist Oils and really enjoying the process of dialing my mixes in with them. To me the Utrecht paints are very similar to Winsor & Newton Artist Oils. So far so good with the Utrecht's.

Artist Studio Tour 2010

2010-11-23T20:51:00.000-08:00

Part of the studio ready to the show early saturday morning

The 2010 Santa Ynez Valley Artist Studio Tour was this last weekend and went very well. That's a big change from last years disaster due to super low sales. Sales were up this year which was a very welcome change. In fact, I had a woman pick up a painting earlier today to take to her home to try it out with the decor and lighting and am waiting on her decision by tomorrow. So this years studio tour has been wonderfully succesful especially when you consider that it rained on both days. Sorry I didn't take any other pictures this year. We had a good amount of people come through so a lot of yaking was going on.

As usual, we offered wine, coffee, cokes and a good selection of snacks to eat. Linda makes what looks like a buffet table and decorates with flowers too. Many of the artists on the studio tour don't go this route figuring they want the people concentrating on purchasing art rather than eating. We've always found that people really enjoy this though...a little pampering so to speak but why not. We've never had a sole tell us they were offended by the offering of a glass of wine and the choice of deciding what to eat....nope, not once.

The crowd as always was a good mix of people who enjoy art. I try and talk with each of them and get a little background on them. It is always interesting to see who really likes art around here and how far they will drive to see the behind the scenes part of it. I make friends and always invite them back. We have a couple of get-togethers before and after the tour for the artists to meet and that's always fun too. Holly Kline and Stacy Ott of the Wildling Museum, which sponsors this event, did a great job and work many, many hours for the tour. I can't thank them enough. Hopefully next years tour will be a success too.

Framed in Black

2010-11-17T00:09:00.000-08:00

Loosk pretty nifty!

Well, here is the boat painting in the black frame which really has very dark reddish undertones. I like it but then again I had the idea it would look cool in a dark frame. My general consensus is that landscapes with lots of greens go well in your typical gold frames and marine work...usually lots of blues and greys tends to go better with darker frames...ie black.

Of course I could be totally wrong with that thinking but it seems to work....to me, hahaha. How decisive. I'd be the first to admit framing is better handled by the people buying the work. They know what they want it to look like on their walls so why not let them just buy the canvas and head straight to the frame shop. Sure would make it a lot easier for artists to concentrate on just painting....but that would be in a perfect world. It's nice to present work in a decent frame and I've learned that lesson like a struggling artist usually does. You buy the most affordable, and usually, the cheapest looking frames that "most affordable" gets you. Then one day you look at the work of artists in galleries and then go home to look at your framed paintings and want to kill yourself...."what was I thinking!" is probably a sentance most artists have uttered at one time or another.

If you are serious about selling your work to people who want to buy it make sure you buy good frames...not affordable frames. Look around at professional artists whose work you feel is in the realm of your caliber, or vice versa, and pay attention to the frames. Do your frames look like that? If not then start saving your money for better frames. The presentation makes a world of difference and shows to the buyer you feel your work deserves better frames because it's better work. Hate to sound uppity but if you don't value what you create then why should a buyer value it anymore than you do.

Anyway, I think the boat painting looks really good in this frame...looked good in the other gold frame but I think black tends to go better with this painting. They have this really nice looking black frame that was reproduced from an English designed frame used mainly for landscapes at King Of Frame that I think would make this look even better....something to think about trying out as soon as I hit the California Lotto....by the way, King Of Frame has some killer frames and their prices are pretty darned good too....check them out if you haven't already.

Framing

2010-11-15T00:53:00.000-08:00

I've got this one Larsen Juhls frame that I really like that is a 16"X20" frame. I've bounced it around at various shows with different paintings and managed to hang on to it...well, I had 3 oof these frames in this size plus some more but all of those were sold over the years but not this one. I have 3 16"X20" paintings in various stages of drying and wanted to try them out in this frame....2 landscapes and this recent marine painting. I am only showing one of the landscapes here because they both seem to work with this frame so I'm showing the comparison with one of those and the marine painting.
I like the boat in this frame after all. I thought the boat would look better in a darker frame...a dark reddish undertone color (which really looks black until you get really close) or maybe just a black frame...distressed looking black, not flat or glossy black. After trying it out in this frame I think it is now a toss up. This is a 3" wide frame and is readily available from my local framers so ordering another frame wouldn't be a problem. They just order the style from their Larsen Juhl supplier and cut it down to my canvas size. I'd do it myself but I don't have the equipment to cut frame stock (mitresaw) or the other tool to join the corners. I'd look into ordering a black frame online but geeze once I start looking at frames it becomes and obsession.

Shark's Parlour

2010-11-05T02:20:00.000-07:00

"Shark's Parlour"

16" X 20" Oil on Canvas
One of the sportfishing boats down in Santa Barbara harbor caught my eye. I have always liked the look of sporfishing boats and love the nice big cockpit area they have for the anglers to do the fishing from. I recently saw an old one for sale and it was designed by the great Phil Bolger back in the early 60's...totally awesome looking boat.
When painting a mostly "all white" boat you really find yourself looking at the various shades of whites, off whites, creams, blues, greys...they are usually all in there some place you just have to seperate them on your canvas. Doesn't soiund like a big deal but those colors can fool you at times and then it gets interesting, hahaha.

Fishing Boat New Hazard..finished

2010-10-26T22:04:00.000-07:00

"New Hazard"

12" X 16" Oil on Canvas
All finished up with the New Hazard. You know...painting a scene like this takes me forever because of the boat and surrounding details. No matter how hard I try to loosen up to speed things up it just doesn't happen. I almost hated this painting after working two days on everything but the water. I'd paint for a couple of hours and then walk away to get away from it. It got to be like hating to get back to painting it each time I stopped. Some paintings are like that though....not just marine paintings. Still, in general, marine work always take much longer to work on for me. I paint the water last so I can hardly wait to get to that point, haha.
I'm always reminded when painting marine scenes that you just don't have much control over your "style" of painting. Your painting "style" is governed by the painting gods and not you. I used to look over the marine (and cityscape) works of a painter friend of mine from Canada named Brian Simons. I absolutely love his loose, effortless style of work and drool looking at his boats and harbor scenes. Brians' work has that fresh look of a painter who is at the top of his game and the work looks vibrant and spontaineous. I used to wish I could paint in his style, or that style..any style that had that look. But....you don't make your own style the way you want it. It just comes out of you subconciously. I like to think that "your style is what happens while you're busy painting". So, I don't worry about how my marine work looks anymore, I worry about not painting more of them.
I'll let this one sit and dry and take another good long look at it to see if there will be need for improvements somewhere that I don't see at this moment. I'm happy!

Painting Water

2010-10-24T21:59:00.000-07:00

....painting in progress.

....and no, I'm no expert at painting water at all. I do think at times I do it good enough to get away with it and each time I feel it gets better than my last job of it. The water scene here is of a fishing boat down at Santa Barbara harbor. This boat has so much character that I just was dying to paint it....God knows I've taken enough reference photos of it. I loved the bright sun here and the water reflections. That water was lower in value but I wanted a more high key painting and decided to lighten the boat hull shadows instead of sticking to the reference photo.

Painting water always looks so daunting at first. I've found that calm waters are actually a blast to paint if it is done in order....it just looks daunting when you view it complete. Some artists will paint it totally different but this is just my method. What I do is break down the colors to the "Base" colors and then the colors that will overlap those Base colors. Lastly, I will paint in specks of white as the suns brightest reflections. Above I have began to block in some dark shadows along the hull and started adding my initial Base colors.

Below, I finish up the base colors, the cool grey and the warmer grey as well as the sky reflections and shed colors. If you look at calm waters you will see these base colors...you need to paint these first and then add all of your detail colors overplapping them. This method is just an orderly way of painting water that at first may look confusing to an artist. It's just a matter of breaking the parts down and assigning some priority.

Now the details are added. This has to be the most fun step of painting water. You use what you see as a reference and please remember that your photo or actual location image is only a reference...you can get as creative as you want and there is no need to paint every single detail or paint these details just as they are in front of you or in your ref photo. I've left some things out, added some things, changed colors to what I wanted or embellished what colors were there....it's my painting anyways.

I'm still working on this painting so nothing here is concrete. As soon as these colors a dry enough I'll add my white specks of "sunlight" reflections to give it some sparkle. I think it is all headed in the right direction though and I'm getting close to calling it done...a day or two still.

So, that's it. Paint in the base colors, add detail colors and then a few white (or close to white) highlights to finish it up. This is a method that works for me....give it a try sometime and see what you come up with.

Grey Morning Near Lompoc

2010-10-20T20:14:00.000-07:00

"Grey Morning Near Lompoc"

12" X 16" Oil on Canvas
Was looking back over the paintings that are drying and caught this one that I thought I had posted but apparently not. This was painted back around July or August. I had bought a case of 12 X 16 canvases made by Winsor Newton, yep, the paint company, and have been painting up a bunch of those. These canvases have a great price but many of the ones I've used are slightly tweaked, meaning not square. I fix them as I go but it's more of a slight irritation than anything else. Nice primed canvas with a good weight but whoever is putting them together needs some help, hahaha.

Lupine Afternoon

2010-10-17T23:33:00.000-07:00

"Lupine Afternoon"

18" X 36" Oil on Canvas
I was going for more dramatic evening light here. I highlighted the treetops down to mid-tree height and kept the lower parts toned down...that last afternoon light hitting only the tree tops. I added the lupine lining the meadow floor for some added color but kept their intensity down a notch of two since they wouldn't be catching much of that late light.
I have a framed painting at this size leftover from last years studio tour so I plan on putting this in that frame to change it up. It's a wood grain frame that always gets lots of compliments from those who see them. Should look pretty nice once it is in the frame.

"it's not done till it's done"

2010-10-11T16:09:00.000-07:00

"Farming Corn Off 99"

12" X 16" Oil on Canvas

(When I first thought it was done)

"Farming Corn Off 99"

12" X 16" Oil on Canvas

(....now finished)

As you can see a little time out of sight and then a second look and boy did I need to make some changes here. I liked the finish the first time but right away I wasn't crazy about the foreground grasses. I wanted a simpler look to the grasses there and figured a few times looking at it would convincve me I would like it. Nope.

I let it sit while working on other paintings and finally came back to it today for a second look and gave in to make my changes. I added more detail to the grasses until I was happy. While the paint was out, (as if it ever gets put away...), I decided to add some lines to the barn roof to suggest broad flat panels up there and go back and add some better highlights to the trees.
Adding the highlights to the trees really increased the atmosphere in this painting...that was one of those very very welcome surprises. I really love this painting now.

The Mighty Eucalyptus Tree

2010-10-07T23:33:00.000-07:00

"Majesty"

16" X 20" Oil on Canvas

I wanted to paint a vertical format eucalyptus tree for the upcoming studio tour and finished this one up today. I like a lot of parts in this painting and the overall look. I am still tinkering with painting a very large painting similar to this. I have some gallery wrapped canvas put away that are pretty large so I might use one of those to do this if they are big enough. I hate painting anything large at the moment because sales are so slow that there is no telling how long they will be with me...it's a matter of storage, hahaha.
Here is a detail of the painting....I like the grasses and light work on the background trees. Going larger will give me more room to add more detail to a painting like this so I'm looking forward to that if I painting a bigger one.

Evening Approaches

2010-10-04T00:48:00.000-07:00

I painted this little 5"x7" painting a few months back and really liked the scene. I painted this small one to work on grasses and also play with the background mountain colors. Things worked out in it so in that little frame it went. I had recently picked up some 16"x20" canvases for a good price and wanted something to paint on one of them so I decided to go larger with this little painting trying to pretty much keep to the original painting.

In going larger the only thing I really lost at first was some of the atmosphere in my background. It wasn't really lost...just wasn't as pronounced as the smaller painting had it and my guess is the larger canvas through me a bit. Took me 2 days of letting the painting sit to notice it. I've corrected it and now all works with the larger piece.

"Evening Approaches"

16" X 20" Oil on Canvas

Catalina Paintings

2010-09-29T00:33:00.000-07:00

Paintings framed up for the Catalina show in October at Galerie Gabrie in Pasadena

What a chore this project was...from beginning to end. Travelling to Catalina island and painting there was not that big of a deal but framing these pieces was. I've been using a frame supplier from San Diego and have ordered these frames before with no problem. Naturally, 3 of the 4 frames for this show arrived with bad cuts...meaning the frames were slightly larger than my canvas sizes. What that caused me to do was take them apart and restretch with slightly larger bars...and no the stretcher bar keys didn't work or I would have done that and I tried that first anyway. Also...the smallest frame her, the 9" X 12" was so badly put together that any evenly cut 9"x12" panel wouldn't fit...the frame wasn't square. I had to tweak that to get it to work down in the garage. I thank my lucky stars I like to mess with wood because this all is doable and not that hard but I should'nt have to in the first place. Return them??? Not enough time....yep, that was my first thought that lasted all of 5 seconds figuring out the time frame. After restretching it was time to varnish....no problem there. It's all corrected now and they are soon to be hung in the gallery down in Pasadena.

This show will run through the month of October so if you are in Pasadena stop by Galerie Gabrie to see it. Say hi to Jasminka for me and enjoy lots of great art there.

Galerie Gabrie, 597 East Green Street, Pasadena, CA Open Tue-Sat 11-5pm 626.577.1223

Eucalyptus Study

2010-09-27T11:22:00.001-07:00

Eucalyptus Study

6" X 8" Oil on panel
I recently painted this little study of a eucalyptus tree to work on not only the tree but the background in a more tonal approach. I really like tonal works and am a big fan of Brent Cotton's work. There is always such a mysterious look to that style of work when keeping the overall value very low. The dark lighting and soft edge work is really a big draw to me. Keeping any painting really dark allows the viewer to "see" more as they study the painting. For a painter it can't get any easier to let the viewer complete the painting as they see fit. I think that's why works with low lighting work so well. I think most painters start out feeling they need to paint everything in scene. Painting a dark forest and having areas so dark they are practically void of any detail allows the viewer to fill in what they want...to let their imagination do the work. I love paintings like that.

This little study was fun and allowed me to venture over into tonal work if only for the background. I think I'll do another one soon keeping the values low so that I can paint in a little mystery into my work.

Some detail of the euc.....

Colors of Catalina Show

2010-09-23T11:02:00.000-07:00

The Colors of Catalina Show . Pasadena, CA Oct. 9 - Nov 6 2010

Artists who are in the 4 galleries that comprise the Pasadena Art Gallery Association were asked this last summer to travel over to Catalina island to paint scenes for a show benefitting the Catalina Island Conservancy. I am very fortunate to belong to Galerie Gabrie and headed over to the island with my painter friend Rich Gallego. We were asked to paint the flowers in bloom but we probably missed that by a few weeks since Catalina islands' spring bloom doesn't last very long. We were left with rolling hills surrounded by blue pacific waters. I did however find some gold carpeted flowers and painted away for 2 days.

Rich and I painted the first day together up in the hills near the island airport which was built by Wrigely...of Wrigley's gum fame. The second day we split up, I headed for more flowers near the Wrigley botanical gardens and Rich painted the pier in Avalon harbor. Aside from painting Rich and I had some great Mexican food, plenty of art talk and checked out some of the local artists work scattered in venues throughout the city. The tiny town of Avalon is very cool to stroll around. Our hotel was right in front of the Conservancy bus stop so transportation up to the airport was a breeze.

Rich's gallery, Segal Fine Art, is having their show right now and ends around Oct 9th I think. Galerie Gabrie will have their show with the October dates above. If you can get to Galerie Gabrie in Pasadena it will be worth the trip.

Galerie Gabrie, 597 East Green St. Pasadena CA Phone - 626-577-1223

Open Tuesday through Saturday 10:30- 5pm

Avalon Harbor, Catalina Island

Yellow Moon

2010-09-18T18:13:00.000-07:00

"Yellow Moon"

12"x16" Oil on Canvas

Just finished this one up. I wanted that background very pale and boy did I get it, hahaha. This painting was done more to see how this scene would look should I choose to go larger. I had the idea for a very late afternoon scene with the moon rising. I tried to keep the moon very pale so there isn't much contrast with the sky as you can see. The painting is still sitting on my easel and the moon works better here. The photo seems to reduce what contrast there is. I tried to add contrast but then the trees start getting pretty dark...more than what's in the painting so I opted for not messing with the contrast.

Overall, I like the results and will more than likely go larger with this one soon. I'll probably add a bit more dark to my sky to increase that contrast with the moon but as it is I'm pretty happy.

Rancho San Carlos de Jonata

2010-09-13T00:46:00.000-07:00

"Oaks At Rancho San Carlos de Jonata"

15" X 30" Oil on Canvas

I was very fortunate to be invited to visit and take reference photos of this Ranch. This is one of the "Old California" Ranchos handed to prominate Mexican Citizens and this rancho was given from Governer Pio Pico to Joaquin Carrillo and his brother in law Jose Maria Covarrubias. Early Ranchos were used to settle California and raising cattle was the main business at many of the Ranchos. In the 1840's there were so many cattle that travellers were allowed to slaughter a cow for a meal. The cattles hides and tallow were probably more important than the meat of the cow at the time...in fact hides were considered "California bank notes" and used as currency until the gold rush came along.
Over time the original Rancho was sold off, split up and the land handed down to new heirs. Part of it, about 9000 acres, became the town of Solvang. There were 3 founding members of the Danish American Colony Company who founded Solvang and one of them is the relative of the man who now owns a large piece of the original Rancho de Jonata. He and his wife are really great people and love to paint too.

I tried to capture this view looking east across the Santa Ynez valley to show the vastness of the land and rolling hills of the valley. It's a midday scene and has that sun drenched feel to it. Below is a shot of the painting progressing. I have laid in my darks for the trees in the foreground and was at this point putting in the mid greens in this area.

Foxen Canyon Oaks

2010-09-04T00:08:00.000-07:00

"Foxen Canyon Oaks"

20" X 30" Oil on Canvas

This painting is just abouyt finished. I'm going to let it sit and ponder it for the next few days while starting another painting. It's late and I photographed it which for some reason the late pics never seem to come off good. The original painting is here and has a really decent look to it but for some reason some of that is getting lost in the photo. I'm really too tired to mess with it though and at this point I want to move on to the next painting instead of messing with taking a better pic.

I had a great frame that was custom made to this size of the painting a few years ago. I had painted a vineyard scene but it wasn't my favorite vineyard scene so the painting ended up in my bedroom against the wall. I decided to quit wasting the frame and took the painting off of the stretcher bars. I restretched new primed canvas over the bars and painted this scene. I rolled the old painting up and stached it in the "art" closet, a 5'x8' room I use to keep all of the art materials, packaging, prints, frames and old paintings in. I think this one will work just fine in the frame. Dying to see what the varnish does for it.

It's been hot here the past week and the studio is too warm to paint in. I have an air conditioner but hate running it all day due to the cost it adds to the monthly electric bill....also it is only a few feet from my easel so it is kind of loud. Most of the year the studio works fine but when it gets hot half of the day gets pretty toasty in here....come on Fall!

Oak At Nipomo

2010-08-26T22:55:00.000-07:00

"Oak At Nipomo"

15" X 30" Oil on Canvas
I had a painting at a benefit show to help raise funds to restore the Dana Adobe in Nipomo a few months back. While there I took some reference photos and did a plein air painting. The adobe is on a long dead end street and this oak tree is on the property next to the adobe. It's a huge tree that has to be tens and tens of years old with a great spot overlooking the farmlands of Nipomo. Always a sucker for a good looking tree I wanted to paint it so that's what I did.

The interesting thing about this painting is that I ended up really working hard to paint better grasses and the smaller plants in the foreground. Had I painted my usual grasses I would have had this done in 2 days instead of the 3 that it took to complete. I've been admiring the way Clyde Aspevig paints his foregrounds grasses. I stared at his for a good few hours and thought I needed to work more on mine instead of doing my usual "flick of the wrist" grasses that I normally do. Mine are ok but they probably needed to evolve some more. I don't usually paint many small bushes either so that was something I wanted to work more into this painting. I like Clydes grasses but he attains a much more realistic look than I do or can do at this point. That guy sure can paint small plants though...makes me drool.

Showtime....

2010-08-23T00:50:00.000-07:00

Entry way into the show. This doorway thing is actually there all of the time. Worked for us though.

I'm really out of shape when it comes to spending a day doing a show....an outdoor show. The show was yesterday and I was dead when I got home. What's worse is I woke up feeling as if I had a hangover and I didn't drink a beer all day. My problem was I only slept 3 hours the night before the show getting ready. Nerves and last minute changes I guess....well, mostly changes. As for the show well, they don't go over well in a bad economy. We did a heroic effort at putting on the show...lots of planning and losts of work. It looked great and came off very smoothly considering this was the first effort of a show by this group here in Los Olivos. I've been to worse shows that had been going on for years. This one was first rate. The problem was that buyers were in short supply. People spending $20 or $30 for jewelry or small crafty items but barely any on paintings. We had groups of artists in 4 locations throughout the town. In our group only 3 small paintings sold...in the group across the street only 1 sold. I don't know about the others but I've heard it wasn't any better. I managed to only sell a couple of books. Ho hum and ---- this economy. Sorry but it's starting to piss me off.

There is always good news and that is we had awesome compliments on my work. We had a hugh number of "lookers'' walk through our canopy and lots of great comments. We had a lady show up who came to see my work and she drove all the way from Palm Desert! That's half way across California. She saw my work online and told me she had to see it in person and she loved it. That was very cool. She bought a book and said she would go see more of my work at the gallery. I love people like that.

I suppose I could be more mad at no art sales but honestly I know I'm doing my best work to date and this economy is killing everyone around here. We made a very good presentation in the booth and I'm always good with the visitors. Come November maybe things will get better....VOTE!

Here are some pics of the day.....

My canopy , above and below, which looked pretty good out there.

As you can see the whole event looked good and there was some outstanding art there. This was Jim Woodark and Richard Rice's setups. Killer work from both artists.
This potter set up next to me and she sold about 7 or 8 pieces by the end of the day. I think her mugs were about $20. Very cool work. She does shows about once a week and told me this summer has been very good for her....so maybe pottery classes are in my future....or jewelry making. Actually those 2 types of items always sell at fairs.

The tire planters were interesting but I think they went home with a big zero too. Nice couple and you had to give them an "A" for effort. I'd have given everyone that same A because all of the artists had good looking work...well, except for one guy. He was juried in with some female portraits but showed up with total nudes that looked as if they were posed by girls out of playboy...too funny. I should have gotten pics of that but I'm sure Linda would have kicked my butt if she saw me with the camera heading over to his booth.

There were many types of art...probably too many. I wasn't crazy about the artists being split up over the town and there were a lot of distractions. We had a paint-out down in the center of town, some things going on in other parts of town, bands, pay areas setup...things I don't normally see at shows. I've sold more at smaller shows but that was when we had an economy to speak of. This was in August too... you know, hot August, so it was a bit too warm for a lot of people. Still everyone gave it their best shot. Win some, lose some. Outdoor shows are like shooting craps no matter what the situation is like, sometimes you sell and sometimes you just go home tired.

Now that this show is over I have a renewed urgency to paint new work for the upcoming Studio Tour in November. I also have a show in October but that is a low keyed show where I don't need to be there. I'm itching to do some new work to replace old ones I've looked at too long over the year. New ideas and you know what the wiseman says...when sales are slow paint your butt off because you'll need a backlog of work when it picks up. Zoom!

Artist Canopy Sign

2010-08-18T14:53:00.000-07:00

I am waiting on some small paintings to dry up a bit from varnishing at the last minute so I thought I'd post some of the progress of readying for the show this weekend.

My old sign for the canopy was falling apart. I need to break down and buy one of those fancy ones that are hung across the top of your canopy for shows. I have always got a reason to not do it and everytime a show comes up the sign issue comes up...procrastination at it's best. I was recently at an artists studio as she was having a sale on a lot of her equipment due to her moving back to Canada. She gave me some stretcher bars so I decided to just make a sign since time was short. I wanted a tall sign to fit one of the grids we use to put out front and somehow get my name out there. I used part of the composition from the small painting I had done in the below post titled "Evening Approach". I just added a bit more green to the tree and left an area up top for my name. When the painting and the top area were dry enough I used a projector to place the lettering that was printed on a small sheet of paper. I traced the letters and then put the canvas back on the easel and painted in the letters....I'm no sign painter like my uncle who would do something like this freehanded and it would look perfect. He's a sign painter...I paint letters.

Anyway...while that all was drying I made a frame for it out of a scrap 2x4 I had in the garage. I would like to have used oak but that meant a 30 mile trip to Home Depot so instead I opted for the fir 2x4. Here is what the sign will look like hung in place. We adjusted the floor plann of the booth for the show...see, this is why you put the booth up ahead of time to tweak it to what you want for a particular show....looks cool!!

Distant Hills

2010-08-14T21:55:00.001-07:00

"Evening Approach"

5" x 7" Oil on panel

SOLD
Did this painting to work on the colors and atmosphere you see of distant mountains in evening light. I like playing with those distant highlights on the mountainsides as they collect the last rays of sun. I used an old tube of Shiva Cadmium Orange to do the trees. This tube is one I've had since college in the early 80's. That old tube was more than half full and beautiful color still! I miss Shiva paints. Had to pick that up at the Standard Brands art section right there on Fair Oaks in Pasadena long before it closed it's doors. I think this painting has some great color in it and a nice sense of mood...I'm happy with it.

The Canopy

2010-08-14T21:21:00.001-07:00

It's time to get out ye old artist canopy for an upcoming art show next week. There is going to be a huge art show in the small town of Los Olivos with artists from all over the Central Coast participating. 10 AM to 4PM on Saturday the 21st. Click the highlight above to see the other artists and get more info. I'll be on the north end of town in Saarloos Park close to the food booth, hahaha.

We set the canopy up in the back part of our yard to dial things in for this show. I will have some really small paintings as well as the big ones to show so I need to make a display section for that. It's getting late in the game and I am also working on a new sign for the canopy. The vinyl letters on the old one are finally peeling after 5 years. It looks pretty blah here but wait till it's loaded with art and signage up...it will look cool then.

Santa Ynez Rolling Hills

2010-08-03T02:00:00.001-07:00

"At The Foothills"

24" X 36" Oil on Canvas
Finished this one up right before my trip to Oregon. There are so many things going on right now it took me a while to get somewhat caught up enough to post anything here. Sales are still super slow but you still need to keep moving and trying things. I like this scene and have painted similar scenes from the evening I spent here taking reference photos. These colors are so typical of this area...in fact, a lot of the California landscape looks like this. The warm ochre tones and rich dark greens of the oaks are hard to ignore for an artist. Most of this land is used for grazing cattle by the Chamberlin Ranch here in Santa Ynez.

Lupine and Oak

2010-06-27T00:41:00.000-07:00

"Lupine and Oak"

5"X 7" Oil on Panel
This is such a small painting, 5x7 inches...I started it 3 days ago! Hahaha. There has been so much stuff going on and I felt guilty each time I walked past this painting sitting on my easel waiting to be finished. Sometimes you have to do things that need to be taken care of and art just has to take a back seat. I used to hate when times like this happened but I discovered there is a silver lining there. An artist needs to get away from time to time from their art. The time spent away from the easel is as important to an artist as the time spent sitting at the easel. You have to recharge the batteries and the time lost also keeps the desire to paint where you need it. When I started this painting I was sort of burned out again....not enough to not want to complete this painting but enough to feel it building inside of me.
Another good thing about the time spent away from this painting is that I did get a lot of things done that needed to get done. I took a huge load of old rotting wood to the dump, fixed up a gas bbq my dad gave me, ordered frames, ordered more frames and badly needed larger brushes, made reservations for a hotel in Coos Bay OR. to drop off a painting and see the museum for the first time up there, smogged the truck, went to a meeting to jury artists for an upcoming guild show and cleaned up the garage so I can make some gallery wrapped canvas that I had promised a friend I'd do....a very long time ago. So things got done. and now I'm itching to start a large painting....good deal!

Moonrise At Foxen Canyon

2010-06-19T06:23:00.000-07:00

"Moonrise At Foxen Canyon"

24" X 30" Oil on Canvas

Just finished up this large painting. This was inspired by a small 5"x7" painting done in the studio a few weeks ago. It was nice to go large trying out my new Utrecht paints which I am absolutely loving. Utrecht makes a great cadmium yellow light which lets me mix some awesome greens. I don't buy greens and mix my own from french ultramarine blue, cadmium yellow light and alizarin crimson. I started that combination using Winsor Newton paints using their cadmium yellow pale which is my personal favorite cadmium yellow. I've been trying out various cad yellow lights by other paint companies and Utrecht wins hands down. A good close second would be Lukas's cad yellow light.

I can tell when I'm using the right cad yellow when I can mix my favorite greens in 2 seconds. Using other brands I can play with mixing the same greens for 20 minutes....ok, maybe 5 or 10 but who wants to do that, especially when out painting in the field! It's hard enough to keep the momentum going on a painting without having to mess with the uncertainty in mixing commonly used colors. I like to experiment but not when I'm on a big painting or one that is going really good at any size.

Wooden Boat Foundation

2010-06-08T21:39:00.000-07:00

"Surf Training"

16" X 20" Oil On Canvas

Today I received some show info for the upcoming Coast Guard 2010 show reception at the Salmagundi Club in New York. My painting "Surf Training" has been juried into this years collection. I'd love to one day go to one of these show receptions but NY is a long way off and my life has been spent on a budget, haha....someday. Anyways, the letter from the COGAP coordinator, Mary Ann Bader, mentioned that my painting has already been requested for a 2 month show in the Fall. The Wooden Boat Foundation which is located in Port Townsend, WA. has requested the loan of the painting from the Coast Guard's Collection and will be shown for the 2 months in Fall. I think it will be there during the Wooden Boat Foundations annual Wooden Boat Show in September...well, that's my guess since I haven't called the WBF to confirm the details but will soon....so that's' pretty darned good news!

I'm a longtime, no L O N G T I M E boat nut and have been flipping through pages of various boat magazines for years...one of those magazines was Wooden Boat which was always a blast to read through. I still have many copies too. My pride and joy though was one day walking into a second hand store and finding an almost complete collection of Nautical Quarterly books. These hardcover books were the "to die for" books on things nautical in an upscale presentation with the most "your gonna drool all over them" pictures you've ever seen. Each issue had an artists work in there too so that was also great to see. One issue had Loretta Krupinski's beautiful work...what a style. I've also spent hundreds, if not thousands, of hours reading through boat plan catalogues and anything else you could read on building a boat. Naturally, the internet has only broadened my reading pleasure immensely. Recently I joined a forum to enjoy reading about guys who have built Tolman Skiffs....tough boat from Renn Tolman in Alaska.

(sorry...I know this absolutely nothing to do with art)

When I read the note from Mary Ann I thought how cool is that to get my work requested by an organization who I have off and on followed for years. I guess it's a personal thing but having my art being associated with a subject I have loved and followed for years is just one of those highlights in life. I feel great! I'm really proud a piece of my work was chosen by the Wooden Boat Foundation to show up in Port Townsend this Fall. Too Cool!

Juried into Coos Bay Show

2010-06-01T21:52:00.000-07:00

"Koho At High Tide"

12" X 16" Oil on Panel
I was just informed that my painting "Koho At High Tide" was juried into the 17th Annual Maritime Art Exhibition at the Coos Art Museum in Coos Bay Oregon. This show is an annual show sponsored by the American Society of Marine Artists. They had 232 submissions by 97 artists and the judges selected 66 works by 41 artists. Very cool! Getting one of my paintings juried into this show with members of the American Society of Marine Artists is a nice feather in my cap...the work in this show is usually very high quality Marine work.

Another nice thing is that two of the 3 judges are two of my favorite artists...Austin Dwyer, a Signature Member of ASMA and June Carey, a Fellow in ASMA. Austin does incredible Marine work and June not only paints great California scenes of the wine country but does fantastic coastal scenes.

I'm hoping to actually go to this show in July. I missed the last one that I was in a few years back because I had another show going on down here that weekend. As the show approaches the CAM website will post pics of the paintings in the show and it's always a rush to see something I've painted in with this caliber of painters. I'm jazzed! The show runs July 17 - Sep 18 at the Coos Art Museum in Coos Bay Oregon.

Along Old Friends

2010-05-20T01:06:00.000-07:00

"Along Old Friends"

5" X 7" Oil on Panel
Another alla prima painting that I did after returning from a meeting at the Wildling Museum where we discussed plans for next Novembers Artist Studio Tour. I was preparing a canvas for a larger painting and while waiting for the gesso to dry decided to paint another small work. I painted this one to try out different sky colors and played with the distant treeline colors too. I really like this combination of colors and might just use this for the larger painting I was about to begin.
After painting in the grass I wiped out the trail using a brush and turpentine. Normally I get it really clean but this time I left it sort of stained looking with some thicker areas of "stain" and it gave the trail this sort of grungy smeared look but the colors it left were very cool....I almost didn't want to paint in the trail colors over it. I might have spent more time trying to keep that look but this is a small one that really will be used as a ref for the larger piece...I can mess with it there since there will be more room anyway.

Foxen Canyon Moonrise

2010-05-18T11:06:00.000-07:00

"Foxen Canyon Moonrise"

5" X 7" Oil on Panel

A little painting done last night to brush up on oak trees...something I seem to not paint as much as I should. I like the way oaks grow and spread out and I love their color. Granville Redmond painted the best oak trees I have ever seen when he was painting his Barbizon school paintings after returning from France and before he began his impressionist work. I'd like to get just close to his ability to paint an oak tree because that would be something to behold. Besides...living in California you have an endless supply of oaks for subject matter.

Plein Air in Nipomo

2010-05-17T00:29:00.000-07:00

I dropped off my painting for the show in Nipomo yesterday at noon. I basically set aside the day to get this done so I took my painting gear with me. I looked for a spot along the groves of eucalyptus trees near the Dana Adobe and started painting. I don't know why it is but I have had the really bad knack of painting in midday sun the last 3 or 4 times out. Not a good thing to do despite it always being a convenient time since you aren't getting up early or waiting to chase the late afternoon sun, haha, and yes I mean chase that light if you're not too careful.

Here is a shot of the setup with the view. Not a bad setup out there...just backed the truck up under some shade and sat on the tailgate...that shade lasted about 20 minutes. It would have been perfect had I brought something to eat but I'm always running late and managed to only grab an iced tea out of the fridge when leaving.

I wanted to keep the background trees seperated a bit from the foreground trees on the left so I gave them less leaves and a lot more "air". Here is a shot as the painting was nearing the end....

I have been painting some ocean scenes using this pochade box so I had a lot more piles of paint on there than were needed for painting eucs in nipomo. This is a 9"X12" panel with just gesso on Masonite so the paint was setting up pretty good out there in the sun and nice little breeze that came up. I finished up out there with my stomach growling and headed for Jack In The Box!...saved by the Ultimate Cheeseburger. Here is the finished painting....

It's not a bad little painting and will make a great sketch for a larger studio version. I look at it now and see things I like and things that I'd change...in the studio is the place to really get a good look at what you did out there, digest what works and decide on strategies when doing more PA work...it's an ever evolving lesson on learning to paint better inside and outside. Was a fun day up there.

Sunset

2010-05-13T11:11:00.000-07:00

"Sunset"

6"x 6" Oil on Panel

Trying out varying sky colors for evening scenes. Fun painting to do and took a record time as an Alla Prima painting. I think I did this in about a half an hour tops....not bad for alla prima results. Masonite is always such a great help when doing alla prima work...the paint really tacks up quick as the oils settle into the gesso and board. I use Copal for my painting medium so that also helps.

Anyway....I have gotten into the show up in Nipomo with my Nipomo Vista work posted below here somewhere. This is their first show like this so I'm wondering what it will be like....sounds more like a fair with art added in. I think in the long run it is a good deal because it will make some money to help with maintaining the Dana Adobe there...that's a part of California history and since the CA government chooses to waste tax payers money at great expense the Dana Adobe could use all the help it can get. The show is this Sunday but I have to run up there to drop off the painting on Saturday. I was just up there with the painting for jurying too this last Saturday...3 trips. They need to turn the jurying to "Online" jurying since this wastes time and gas running up there 3 times. I hope they get this dialed in down the line. So far though the staff working the show seem really good....like I said, it's their first time putting on this show. Hope it's a fun one.

Above Cachuma Nocturne

2010-05-04T10:10:00.000-07:00

"Above Cachuma Nocturne"

5" X 7" Oil on Panel

SOLD
After painting the recent Cachuma hills painting I decided to make a nocturne out of the same view. This was a nice personal challenge to take a day scene and convert it to a nocturne. Values and colors change drastically at night so it is up to the artist to create those changes to pull off a believable night scene. It helps if you've painted a few nocturnes to remember how the light available at night causes these changes.
Handling the flowers was an interesting part of this because I think night would really have these so dark you really wouldn't see much of them unless the moon was really high and full. With a low moon they'd be much darker but I wanted to keep them a good part of the scene and lightened them some. This way I could push their perspective in the scene but still retain an overall nocturne scene. I think this one came out pretty good and am pretty happy with the results.

Catalina Trip

2010-05-03T22:19:00.000-07:00

I spent this last weekend over at Catalina Island painting wildflowers. I went over with painting buddy Rich Gallego. We left early saturday morning and came back sunday night. Fast trip but lots of fun. The first painting was done near the airport on the island. On the way up there we saw two heards of buffalo and as we were setting up to paint another one was checking us out from a nearby hillside. Here is my first attempt....
After completing his first painting Rich came by to do a study of a cactus plant nearby. He did this pretty fast and I got some reference photos for future work. There is a lot of cactus on the island and finding a good clump of it to make a good painting would be a breeze any time of year.

The meadow we painted at was about a half mile from the airport and yes you can still order a buffalo burger there.

Rich and his cactus study.....

There were some small golden flowers that were scattered throughout the meadow and they really stood out. I'm not sure what they are called but we have them up here in Solvang too so I'm sure they are fairly common wildflowers. We did see some lupine flowers on the way up to the airport but not enough to write home about.

After painting a good time in the sun I opted to paint in the shade. I have an umbrella that clamps on to my rig but you have to carry that thing, hahaha. Besides, the winds came up in the afternoon so that makes an umbrella into a really good sail...a tree works better if you can find one with a view. I ended up painting two from this location while Rich was down by the harbor painting the pier with it's famous green buildings.

Here's Rich and the pier. He came away with a really good one here but my favorite of his was the cactus study he did on Saturday. I've been wanting to do a cactus painting lately and planned on doing one right after my first one but he beat me to it. Besides....I didn't have to put up with 9000 questions and the ever popular "are you an artist?" like Rich did on the beach.

Overall we had a great time. Rich has a funny sense of humor so we did a lot of laughing. We both did lots of painting and lots of hiking too...my feet and his knees can attest to that. The wildflowers were a little slim but there if you look. I think March or April would have been the primo time for them and that's good too because it's the off-season over there...less tourists and cheaper hotel rates (actually, the room we were at was only $80 for the weekend so we got a good deal there.) Funny, Rich talked to a watercolorist shortly before we left and he told him of a great spot just west of Avalon harbor but you have to crawl on the rocks by the water to get there....had we only known we would have hiked over there but we had a boat to catch....and a nice cushy seat on a boat was all too welcome by Sunday night.

Don't ever ask a guy in an airport tower where you can find wildflowers. You might as well be asking him where is the best place to paint on Mars. The guy knew planes and how to remind us to be on time for the bus to get back to town....or it's a long walk. It didn't take us long to find some to paint though....but there is nothing like the feeling of asking a stupid question even when it's justified, hahahaha. Another fun adventure painting......plus excellent tacos at Petes on Sumner St.

Hills Above Cachuma Lake

2010-04-30T11:31:00.000-07:00

"Hills Above Cachuma Lake"

5" X 7" Oil on panel

This one came from a reference photo I had taken while on a hike near Cachuma lake. I made two hikes that day...one in the morning with an overcast sky and then another when the sun came out to get some sunlit pictures. The hike was only about a mile or so so it was no big deal to do it twice. Great weather and with Spring here all was in bloom along the way. I've done two versions of this painting...the other version is a nocturne that was suggested by a painter friend and I'll post that one later. I like this version and see little things that could be touched up on. Fun little painting.

Wildling Museum Auction

2010-04-26T08:34:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I attended the Wildling Museums annual BBQ fund raiser at Rancho Arbolado. I had donated a painting for the event that was to be auctioned off to help raise funds for the museum. The winning bid was excellent and the museum staff was very happy. The couple who bought the painting were really nice people and my congratulations to them. While I was there I had the chance to go on a jeep tour of the ranch and do a quick hike to shoot some reference photos.

The lupine and poppies were in bloom throughout the ranch as well as many other native plants.

I also ran into a couple who own another ranch in the valley. They had invited me to paint on their property 2 years ago so I will make it a point to get out there in the next 2 weeks. They are a very nice couple with one of the oldest ranches in the valley. The husband is from one of the original families that settled Solvang.

We stopped for a glass of wine on the jeep tour. This area offered views to the Pacific Ocean and the view is one thing that sets Rancho Arbolado apart from most of the ranches in the valley.

All in all the BBQ went very well thanks to the museum staff who did a great job. The weather was awesome which was in contrast to when I was there to paint months ago. It was windy, muddy and cold when I went there....stuff you deal with when painting plein air.

Nipomo Project

2010-04-19T13:03:00.000-07:00

" Nipomo Vista"

12" x 16" Oil on canvas

I was one of 12 artists asked to participate in an event sponsored by the Dana Adobe in Nipomo. They asked the artists to paint a scene of Nipomo past or present. I opted for the present but had a great time researching the town of Nipomo. It seems one of the most famous images out of the depression was photographed there by photographer Dorothea Lange. This is Mrs Lange posing on her car with her big box camera......
The pic she took while stopping in a farm workers camp was known as "Migrant Mother"...you might recognize it....
Lange took a group of photos of this woman and her children. One of them included the tent and some background where she was at while waiting for their car to be repaired on their way to Oregon.

Here is a pic of nipomo today with the same eucalyptus trees in the background...as you can see this area hasn't changed much....

These eucalyptus trees provided shade and a place to camp while working the farm fields of Nipomo. From this shot below you can see some of the pea pickers with the hills of nipomo directly behind them. At the time Dorothea Lange stopped it was because she had saw a sign that read "Pea Pickers Camp".

Anyway....I like history, especially local history! My grandma & grandpa broke horses and picked pecans during the Depression in Oklahoma and Texas. They met at a dance on a saturday night for the pickers...That was a tough bunch of people who made it through that. Next time you sit down to have a fancy coffee drink at Starbucks just think about what some of those people went through....just to survive.

New Frames

2010-04-14T08:50:00.000-07:00

"Manu Mele Aground at Santa Barbara"

12" X 24" Oil on Canvas

I need to replace some frames for the gallery and they just arrived...yahoo! These frames are from San Diego Frame Manufacturing. SDFM make great frames and supply frames to many of the frame companies in Southern California. I love their frames and prices but you are going to wait on them...delivery time is usually at least a month from the time of your order. I'm a single artist ordering a small quantity of frames so maybe that is part of the reason. They supply large orders from the big framers so I'm sure they get preference on delivery times. Despite that one snag, SDFM churns out high quality frames for a great price.

Here are some more pics of the new frames......

"Before Sunset"

9" X 12" Oil on Panel

"The Demise of the Allegro, Santa Barbara"

16" X 20" Oil on Canvas

California Oak

2010-04-12T10:49:00.000-07:00

"California Oak"

6"x6" Oil on panel

A simple scene of an oak tree lining a valley. Oak and eucalyptus trees are two of the trees that stand out most in the California landscape....another close tree would be the palm tree which I'm' not sure is even a tree at all....but when you see their size growing along Colorado blvd in Pasadena what else could you call it but a tree. When I was growing up in Pasadena my elementary school had oak trees out in the playground and along some of the bungalows. Their acorns always gave us hours of fun throwing at each other. And of course sooner or later you had to break one open and taste it since we all knew the indians ate them...not very tasty at all. Probably because of school my first memories of trees are of the oak. Fitting.

Stream At Eaton

2010-04-07T23:26:00.000-07:00

"Stream At Eaton"

6" X 6" Oil on panel

Thought I'd try a painting with running water in it. With all the rain we had this winter it was nice to see the river running up at Eaton Canyon. I wasn't looking for a typical scene of the river up there where it is much easier to tell it is Eaton Canyon being painted...I was just looking for an image with a small waterfall and rocks. Doing a study of both of these subjects will help me down the line hence the painting here.....

I've been wanting to do a waterfall, even a small one, for some time now. I'd like to experiment with the various ways of portraying the water. I could have spent a little more time on this one but it was done alla prima today and I don't want to get burnt out over water...plenty of time to learn to paint small creeks and streams. I like painting the rocks and always seem to have to force myself to make them different values and colors. These have a little too much texture considering they are being polished by the water. On the next try I'll keep the rocks smoother down in the water and rougher along the shore...seems logical.

Santa Ynez Valley

2010-03-27T02:40:00.000-07:00

"Near Santa Ynez"

5" X 7" Oil on panel

This little painting was one of those ones that go so fast you hardly had time to drink your coffee. Well, not that fast but a few hours anyways. This scene is of our valley here minus all of the domestic trappings that are present now, fences, vineyards, sheds, the occasional well house...those things are for another painting.

I've had to stop painting for a few days due to a major waterpipe leak that took forever to fix. I've got to go back down to Pasadena to check on my Dad since he's out of the hospital for knee problem he has...been going back and forth....drive drive drive...I wonder how much of my life has been spent behind a steering wheel. Lots!

Anyways...I think this is a cool little study that just might generate a larger piece.

Into Spring

2010-03-22T12:06:00.000-07:00

"Spring Oak"

6"x6" Oil on panel

Another small painting on 6"x6" panel. I really like how this one turned out. I feel I'm getting much better at painting flowers and the plants beneath them. It's easy to get that floating look so it really benefits an artist to work a little on the plant underneath these flowers. I'm working on that, hahaha. It's always great to work on things in your work and I think this painting has taught me a lot...so success!

A Moment

2010-03-20T00:51:00.000-07:00

"A Moment"

5x7 Oil on panel

Another painting on the trial run of prepared boards. I wondered what it would like to paint on a surface full of ridges caused by the acrylic gel but it was really no different than painting on a board with just layers of gesso. The textures from the acrylic gel are not really that thick to begin with. Once the oil paint is on there the texture really shows up well though. I think it adds an interesting look to the overall painting.

Little Rock

2010-03-20T00:24:00.000-07:00

"Little Rock Shadows"

5x7 oil on panel

I recently drove out to the Mojave Desert heading for the roads just above the desert town of Little Rock. I planned to get there just before evening light and took my time taking reference photos as the light got better and better. This scene was painted back in the studio as a little painting...5x7". I had an idea of trying various scenes on small masonite panels that were prepared with a layer of texture below the gesso. You can see the thick lines of the texture in the painting. To do this I bought two sheets of masonite panel and cut them to the sizes I wanted. I then brushed on a layer of Liquitex Acrylic Gel Medium (Gloss Super Heavy Gel). This gel is white while wet and dries clear. You can apply it in thick strokes and it will retain the shape and dry that way. After that layer dried I applied my 2 layers of gesso so I'd get a good primed surface for the oil paint.

The acrylic gel actually seals the board so very little oil from the paint soaks into the gesso or board. I use copal painting medium with my paint mixes so even 5 days later the paint is dry but as shiney as when it was first painted....usually after a painting dries it turns pretty flat until you varnish the paint. If you were painting in a plein air paint out this method of prepared boards would allow you to frame the finished painting and sell to a buyer knowing that painting would look like the day you painted it weeks later with no varnish applied. The only downside is you have to paint very thin with your darks so that you can apply your mids and highlights over them...remember, the paint doesn't soak in like a board just prepared with only gesso.

Spring In The Valley

2010-03-05T23:33:00.000-08:00

" Spring In The Valley"

9" X 12" Oil on canvas

More work using a lot of the premixed colors from the previous painting that were still on my palette. I keep my palette in a refridgerator when I'm not painting so whatever colors are there, mixed or not, stay fresh for days. I've got plenty of mud from previous paintings kept in a jar for mixing greys so the fridge keeps me from wasting a lot of paint.

Painting Atmosphere

2010-03-02T12:16:00.000-08:00

This is an alla prima painting started and finished last night after dinner. I wish all paintings could be done alla prima. The trouble is too many times something comes up or something is going wrong or just not working. I can see why artists in the past would hibernate away in their studios away from the world while they painted. Getting your concentration broken while on a painting is the worst. I used to think painting took little concentration...just keep that brush moving. How wrong I was. Painting really fools you. Without thinking about it you become immersed in every little detail as they happen and each time someone walks in the door and asks a question or says "look at this" it breaks that concentration. Then they walk out and you lose that momentum and have to work at getting it back....about that time someone walks in again. We have a second refridgerator here in the studio and in summer someone was always walking in here to get a coke or something out of it. Do you know how loud it is when someone gets something out of the fridge? Well...when your into a painting and that fridge is 15 feet away it's deafening!! hahaha.

One could write a book on the things that annoy artists as they paint and man that would be one funny book....here are some of mine....
1. Questions regarding something so far out in left field it's amazing they asked at all.
2. The squeeking castors on my chair.
3. Cats prowling outside sounding like children
4. The howling of coyotoes in the field
5. The UPS guy slamming down a box next to the door.
6. Hearing the same repetitive commercials on the radio...I've got to move the controls closer to me since it is across the room.
7. And my favorite question of all...."whatcha doin?"....I could write a book on the many smart assed answers I have for that one alone....mowing the lawn, checking my transmission oil, doing math, figuring out how to achieve global peace, wood carving, tree trimming, using this brush to hold up the canvas, juggling, checking to see if this brush makes musical sounds if you wipe it across the canvas hard enough, excercising my left arm (only).....painting would naturally be my last answer, hahaha.

Anyway...this one was created using a picture of a painting I did a year ago as a reference. I sold the painting back then but I still have the image of it on the homepage of my website so I just pulled up my website and worked from that. I ventured off from the original a bit, most notibly in using a tinted ground of Indian Yellow. I've messed with that for skies on practice panels here in the studio and liked the results. I really like the effects you can get with your blues and clouds using the Indian Yellow underneath. Fun stuff.

Here is the halfway point into the painting. It was here that I really liked what was put down already and that gives you the boost to pursue to the finish. And here is the finished work.

Eucalyptus

2010-02-19T23:22:00.000-08:00

"A Sketch....."
This really wasn't a painting about a eucalyptus tree. This sketch was done to brush up on landscape work and to try some color mixes out and some minor painting ideas too. This was painted on a student canvas covered board. I have a couple of packs (of 4 each I think) that cost practically nothing from Blick in Pasadena.....which used to be The Art Store on Raymond Ave....been going there for years. I use these to try things out without wasting good canvas or canvas covered panels. A lot of them are now being sold as Acid Free too. I'm not sure what most of them are mounted ...used to be normal stiff cardboard which was no good except for student work. They are now making some that are on masonite type boards with Acid Free glue which is very cool....archival. Now if they could just put real quality canvas on them they'd sell a million. I have some that I bought in Santa Barbara at Art Essentials (bring your American Express card though!) that were made by Fredrix that have Belgian Linen on them...very cool but not quite the same feel as stretched linen....which I still rarely buy due to the cost. I'd love to paint on them but I need to sell more work before that happens, hahaha.

See how well I went off into left field!? That comes from painting alone too much...then when someone listens to you out comes the life story. Sorry. I won't go into the things I was shooting for or experimenting with but I learned a couple of things on this one which actually makes this sketch a success...if only for myself.

By the way....Marian Fortunati, an artist friend I met at the CAC shows recently said some very sweet words about me on her Blog that really warmed my heart. Marian is a very good artist who is a painting machine. I read about her adventures in painting a lot and am just blown away at her dedication to our journey in creating our lifes work. She has a painting that was juried into the current CAC show at the Blinn House in Pasadena that is great work. If anyone who reads this has a chance to get over there, that show, and Marian's painting would be well worth the trip. Thanks Marian...You Da Babe!

Manu Mele Aground at Santa Barbara

2010-02-16T15:29:00.000-08:00

"Manu Mele Aground at Santa Barbara"

12" X 24" Oil on canvas

This is another of the wrecked boats from out recent storms this winter. On the transom of the Manu Mele it says she was from Maui, Hawaii. It's a shame to see this boat end up like this. Around 12 boats snapped their anchor lines in that storm and they were hammered onto the beach by the rough seas. 2 more of these boats are seen further down the beach in this scene. Once the owners get what they can off of their boats the city would crush up whats left and cart if off in a dumpster. That would be hard for any boatowner to stand and watch.