Santa Barbara News Press Review

Art About the There There

IN 'THE VIEW FROM HERE,' THE CURRENT EXHIBITION AT SOLVANG'S ELVERHOJ MUSEUM, LOCAL ARTISTS PRESENT THEIR PERSPECTIVES ON SANTA YNEZ VALLEY

Josef Woodard, a News Press Correspondent.
March 29, 2013   

           This is an excerpt from a review of the Elverhoj Museum of History and Art show I am currently in titled "The View From Here". The show consists of paintings created by 6 local artists and how each artist interpretes their view of the valley in their art. The show is wonderful thanks to the calibre of the artists and each of them has their own take on what we all see in our daily lives here in the valley. I was very happy to be asked to be a part of this show.
  
          "With the show truthfully titled "The View from Here," six area artists take on the subject of the "there here." What emerges is a sense of place via landscape painting, of six individual sensibilities at work. Along the way, the show roughly tells the story of this Valley's continuing evolution over the years.

Entering the gallery, the viewer is greeted dramatically by the tall, vivid presence of Ron Guthrie's "Morning Sycamore," on the far wall facing the entrance. But the same artist also shows a more unusual painting just to the right of the door, "Mission Santa Ynez Bluffs," a happy convergence of hillside, trees and yonder foothills, a poetic pact of light and composition. Mr. Guthrie also impresses with the vertical tree study "Majesty" and the peaceable atmospherics of his "Storm Clouds Over Adobe Creek."

The rest of this very good review on all of the artists is availble to read in the "Scene" section of the SBNP paper...cost $2.50 to read if you are not a subscriber, sorry.
...a very cool review of the show Mr Woodard, thanks!

Old Mill Road Sycamore

"Old Mill Road Light"

12 X 14 Oil on Canvas

Not far from Mission Santa Ynez stands an adobe grist mill that was built in 1820 by a Bostonian named Joseph Chapman. Chapman had travelled here with a pirate named Bouchard. When they arrived here the pirates, along with Chapman, burned down the Ortega Adobe at Rancho De Refugio. Chapman was arrested and tried and sentanced to a firing squad. Eventually Chapman was parolled to Mission Santa Ynez. Chapman was a master builder so he built this grist mill and another duplicate of it at Mission San Gabriel. I occasionally go down to this mill and take pictures. Along the way there stands this old eucalyptus tree with many twisting branches. I like how the morning light played across this tree and cast long shadows across the mill road.

The old grist mill, now a Santa Barbara historical site

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Shared Visions Show

Shared Visions Plein Air & Studio Show 

A group show of Plein Air Painters of the Central Coast Apr 4 - May 31, 2013

 I will be part of the PACC show "Shared Visions, Plein Air & Studio" show at the Divine Inspiration Gallery of Fine Art in Santa Barbara, CA in April. The show is comprised of 7 Central Coast artists who paint plein air and of course create paintings in the studio. PACC was formed this last Winter and we have had several group paint outs. All of the artists have participated in various shows with each other over the years but never as a group. Each member has a their own unique way of painting scenes of the Central Coast and we saw a really nice balance of those styles when forming the group.

The artists reception will be on Thursday, April; 4th from 5-8pm at the gallery. If you are in the Santa Barbara area please come and enjoy some great art by some fine artists. I'll be there showing my paintings of mostly works depicting scenes of the Santa Barbara area. Should be a lot of fun!

A Sycamore

"Sycamore"

24" X 24" Oil on Gallery Wrapped Canvas

I painted another scene with this same tree that is now hanging in my living room continuing to dry in a pretty snazzy frame. When I finished that painting I had cropped a couple of detail photos of it. One of the detail photos was very similar to the scene in this painting. I decided to crop again from my original reference photo, based on the previous cropped image, and used it for this painting. I also had two 24x24 cnavses I had painted yeyars before that I was never happy with and didn't bother to varnish so I sanded one down and painted over it reusing the canvas.....there is a lot of that going on considering this wonderful economy we're in. Funny, I mentioned to another painter down in Pasadena that right after Christmas I went through all of my old paintings and pulled ones I decided to paint over to reuse the good canvas and she had done the same thing in her studio! Apparently I'm not alone in making ends meet.

I'm really enjoying painting sycamore trees with their spotted bark and scraggly branches. Their bark reminds me of Winter camouflage the military used to use. I wish now that I had taken more reference photos of these trees this last Fall since I've been painting so many of them. I'll have to wait until next fall. In fact, next Fall I will go out to paint some sycamore scenes plein air. Should be fun. Even though this is one Gallery wrapped canvas I'll probably make a nice oak floater frame...or maybe just an oak frame to pop it in...should work nicely like that. I'll wail until it dries to touch and then paint the sides a dark color in case I go with the floater frame.

Santa Ynez Valley Inspired

Valley Evening

12x16 Oil on panel

Continuing my fun with trees, namely eucalyptus trees, this is another Santa Ynez valley inspired painting. The only drawback to this looking more like the valley is the pinkish violet mountains. Ours usually turn a bluish color with pink highlights along the ridges. Still, these scene reminds me a lof of the valley in late afternoon light as the sun goes down over the Santa Rita hills to the west of us. Threw in the little trail here and added some birds....the birds came along because this morning I was thumbing through an old Walter Foster book written by artist William Palluth and he used birds a lot in his paintings, thank you Mr. Palluth. I liked the way Palluth painted his foliage and grasses. If you ever come across some of his work or one of his old books take a look, you'll enjoy the paintings of his.

Here is a detail shot of that nice looking tree to the left......fun with trunks!

Trail and Trees

"Trail To Evening"

8"x10" Oil on panel

Working in the same vein as the previous painting to try slight little variances. I'm still messing with getting my trees to look right. I like to trying things out, playing with shape and color, lighting etc. Always something to learn and workout and I've yet to be satisfied with any of them, haha.

Some details of the painting.....

I like the trail and wish I had raised it up higher. I'm worried the frame edge will cover too much of it...oh well, live and learn.