Santa Barbara Show Extended

 

"Eaton Canyon Fall"

20" X 24" Oil on Canvas

The "Shared Visions" show at the Divine Inspirations Gallery in Santa Barbara has been extended until July. This is a PACC members show and all of the artists have brought in new pieces to spruce up the already great looking show. If you are in the Santa Barbara, CA. area please try and drop by the gallery to see the exhibit. This is a great looking show by the members of PACC.

Divine Inspiration Gallery of Fine Art

1528 State Street, Santa Barbara, CA.

805-962-6444

Santa Barbara Show Reminder

 

Artist Reception

Thursday, April 4, 2013 5-8 PM

Shared Visions PleinAir & Studio PACC Show

at

Divine Inspirations Gallery

1528 State Street, Santa Barbara, CA 

Phone : 805-962-6444

Show runs April 4 - May 31 2013

This is an absolutely gorgeous show by members of PACC. We hung the show on Monday morning

and the quality of work is hands down gorgeous! The 6 artists of PACC brought out some outstanding pieces of work. If you are in the Santa Barbara area please come to the artist reception on Thursday. You will really see some outstanding work.

PACC members Sheryl Knight and BJ Stapen busy hanging the work.

Just about ready for the show, this is a wonderful gallery in Santa Barbara.

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!

Santa Ynez River and the Large Pochade

The members of PACC met yesterday to have our monthly paint out down at the Santa Ynez river just south of the town of Solvang. It is a great spot to paint but was much better about 2 months ago when all of the trees were in full Fall colors still. I was out of 9"x12" panels so I decided to break in my pochade box that I built to handle 12"x16" panels. Had to run down to the garage early in the morning to make an adjustment for the mounting plate of my tripod but that went smoothly. I also drilled to holes in the sides to mount my brush caddie too....can't do without that. Some gusty winds helped to evaluate the pochade box in a real life situation but that puppy hing in there and worked just fine.

I need a wet panel carrier for 12"x16" panels though so I'll make one and probably bungy it to the pochade box when hiking in or out. If you look at the small pic of my other pochade box, the 9"x12" you can see the size difference by looking at the brush caddie. On the 9x12 box it is almost flush with the top of the box....it is about 3" shorter on the bigger pochade box. The only drawback to this larger pochade box is that it won't fit into my backpack so it gets carried by hand. Maybe I'll make some sort of handle for it. It's not that big of a deal since I only paint on larger sizes like this once in a while. Overall though it worked great. If you are interested in building a pochade box check out the link to the right for Jim Serretts blog....he's the man with the plan.   

Painting at the Wilcox Property

"Trail At The Wilcox"

9" X 12" Oil on panel

Today was the paint out with PACC at the Wilcox Preserve in Santa Barbara. This area was set aside as open space and a haven from developers. Land is at a premium down in Santa Barbara and this coastal bluff is prime real estate down there....has to drive the developers insane that they can't get their hands on it.
This was my first time there, and aside from the thousands of dogs brought for a walk in nature by yuppies and eldery doing a good job of staying in shape, the place is a cool painting area.

While there I had a chance to talk to a fellow artist who joined our group to paint for the day. Her name was Kathy Francis from Port Townsend, WA. and she was down here avoiding the fun of Winter up in Washington. Kathy shows her work in a gallery in Port Townsend and a member of a painting group just like ours. Was really fun to see her work for the day and talk about life down here and up north, people we've met and places we've been. Hopefully when she is down this way again she'll hook up with our group to do some painting. When I showed Kathy my painting for the morning she suggested I drag the lowest shadow across the trail and up into the grasses on the right...so I did when I got back to the studio...good suggestion!

   Kathy Francis working it up out in the field

PACC members, Me, Gerry Winant, Morgan Green & Sheryl Knight

Had our monthly paint out with members of PACC at Lake Cachuma today. Cachuma was Gerry's pick and a good one it was. I've lived up here for 8 years and not once have I painted at Lake Cachuma. Everyone arrived at different times but got to work right away. Some did sketches and some did paintings. I got lucky and spotted a scene looking across the lake and jumped right in...painting, not the lake. I was happy because it pretty much is done but I'll do some touch ups tomorrow morning. I was up really late last night and then got up really early, painted till noon and then spent the next couple of hours taking photos around the lake.

Water, grasses and a tree and that puppy was done!

Hanging out with the group as they had lunch and talking shop was fun. Like a knucklehead I didn't bring my lunch figuring I'd head home right after painting...should have brought lunch and did a second painting since things were going so well. This group of artists is really fun and they are all fine artists. Most of them are much more involved doing paint outs, plein air festivals and workshops a lot more than I. Sometimes I think I'm too happy doing studio work compared to lugging around equipment and paying for hotels at a plein air event. I like plein air painting but I think I far more enjoy studio painting.

The cart!

This little cart was bought by a couple of the artists to lug their equipment around and works pretty well. I think they bought it at Ace Hardware....it was a gardening cart but works great for those of you wanting an easier plein air outing. They use bungee cords to hold their easels on top and one hand it to location....whatever works.

  BJ Stapen at work

BJ Stapen and Camille Deller arrived at noon and painted up off the main road in to where we were all painting. BJ has the coolest Virginia accent but I'm not sure if that is where she is actually from. I have another friend from Virginia and they sound a lot alike....they remind me of southern belles you see in the movies. Camille is one of the first painters I knew in the valley who had some wor in one of the galleries that just blew me away. She's now into knife painting and don't tell her but I one day plan to steal her truck!....better mileage and shiny paint.

Camille working it up....I left the truck out so she won't get wise to my plan.

Beautiful Lake Cachuma in the background....which by the way is the water supply for Santa Barbara. I spotted her Utrecht bag on her cart and she told me of one of their store locations in Santa Monica, so the next time I go down that way.....well, you know, artists and art stores.

Tres Hermanas With PACC

On monday I headed out to Tres Hermanas Vineyard in Foxen Canyon, just north of my house. I was to meet up with members of PACC for our monthly painting spree. I did a show, a 3 day, no sales show, at Tres Hermanas and used the time spent there painting. Whoever thought up that show was insane...but I digress. I sometimes like the area and sometimes hate it....I don't like the hills there that much and most of the land doesn't get me excited at all. Fun the first time and wondering what to do next. Anyways....I had to meet with Linda later on so I only had a few hours to paint and felt pressured to paint something decent since I was with the group. I also choose to go big, 12x24, so at some point I decided I'd never finish and I'd be good at getting something started and would finish back home. I figure I did 3/4 of the painting out there and the rest in the studio today. I first wanted to paint the road because it had these nice shadows running across it.

As cool as it looked my eyes kept wandering over to the morning sunlit hills. I liked the shadows being cast from the trees and the warm colors of the hillsides....I went that way. I blocked in my areas and immediately began tweaking things. I wasn't sure of how I was going to approach it, focusing on the hshadows or the sunlight or the colors...in the end I balanced all of that but I think I lost one of them being a stronger element and making the painting work better. I blame it on hurrying...hahaha!

   One of the ladies pulled her car in and set up to paint together since we arrived first. The rest of the group were down the road and around the turn there. I stopped on my way out to say hi and see what they were coming up with. Some good things going with this group. My very wet painting laying across the backseat on my jacket since I don't have a carrier for something that large. Still, it was nice to break out of the 9x12 restriction out there and I'm sure I'll do it again.
My finished painting.....

 

Los Carneros, Goleta, CA

I painted today with PACC, Plein-Air Artist of the Central Coast, at Los Carneros which is the home of the famous Stowe House in Goleta. This is a cool area to paint and one I've painted before at a few years back. Great views of the Santa Ynez mountain range,, wild grasses, trails, a lake, eucalyptus trees, palms...it's got a lot to offer an artist.

The weather was warm and after taking pictures of the group of artists we split up to do our painting. I headed for a big eucalyptus tree for some shade and setup. I had a mechanical problem with my tripod and didn't feel like heading back to the truck for some toold to fix it so I just adjusted things to work and got to painting. Despite the wonky tripod things went ok and in about 2 hours I had a good enough painting to bring home. I like the background mountains and tried painting the trees a bit differently than usual which was fun. I like how they came out but tweaking will make them better. The foreground grasses are there but they too need tweaking. I was going to add a trail but between visits with hikers I was running out of time. I used to want to make a complete, finished painting each time I went out but now have found going back into it the next day makes for better results. This is just because the paint gets really tacky the next day thanks to the copal medium I use and the grasses are always better finished on tacky paint.

There are certain parts of this painting that would make a great larger painting so using it as a sketch is another option down the line. Some of my paintings have come from small parts of other paintings. In fact, I was painting a small 6x8 painting a while back and ended up using just part of it as the inspiration to paint an 8x10. That 8x10 ended up being picked to be used for the invitation cards for one of the California Art Club shows I was in last summer. I still have the smaller painting and each time I look at it I think of how far that quick little painting went. Tomorrow I'll finish this one up.