Eaton Canyon

 Eaton Canyon Sunset

12"x36" Oil on Wood Panel

 

I painted this back in 2012. I felt it was done and set it aside to dry. After a while it had gotten covered up by a few other paintings that were drying but then never framed so there they sat blocking this painting from site.

I liked this scene and wanted a dramatic afternoon sun scene with lots of oranges and pinks but I wanted something else too. I wasn't trying to just capture the landscape or even the color...I wanted to capture the feel of the moment...the atmosphere of it all. Painting atmosphere is a whole other deal in painting. In the progression of things painters tend to paint the scene in front of them but in doing so seem to miss the effects of light and all the stuff floating around in the air that creates atmosphere. It took me a while to see that "stuff" and it took me even longer to learn to paint it well. It's all about painting the right values, not the color, but the light and darkess of the colors. To this day I still prefer to paint atmosphere because it is really a good challenge and to me makes for a better painting. 

I think gallery owners would say no, paint color and pizazz, it catches peoples eyes and gets their attention....it's easy to sell. Those paintings really do all of that and would make a subtle atmospheric painting pale in comparison. I just can't help painting them.   

The detail of the painting above shows my attempt to capture that late afternoon sunlight filtered by the air of the canyon. Getting the light and air in front of that distant mountain ridge and balancing that look against the lower hills in the center of the painting was critical. If that didn't look right to me then there was no sense in painting in the foreground at all. Slightly darkening the tree mass to the left was a way of getting better contrast to the middle area hills....it also balanced the darks of the trees to the left side of the painting. These overlapping planes give the painting depth and adjusting the values in each plane created the illusion of atmosphere. If I continue to work with atmosphere and get it right then I think I'll be turning out some monster paintings. So, you can paint a desert or you can paint a desert in sweltering heat and make your viewers feel the sweat rolling down their forehead and long for a glass of cool water. 

The Arroyo Seco, Pasadena

"San Gabriels Over the Arroyo"

18" X 24" Oil on canvas

      I think this is my 3rd attempt at painting the Colorado bridge spanning the Arroyo Seco in Pasadena. The first attempt was too close casuing me to get hung up in details so I just completely scrapped that one, haha. Somewhere around here is a nice landscape covering my feeble attempt. I like this view only because you can see more of the San Gabriel mountains in the background and the nice vegetation in the arroyo. The fact that it also causes the bridge to be in the distance is a not overlooked by me bonus.
      Many, many painters have painted in, near or above the arroyo over the years so I feel honored to be able to paint it along with them and with decent results. If you want a foliage workout the arroyo can give it to you. I took more time to work on these treees and plants wanting not only to get better at them but to experiment and also to just enjoy myself painting them....it's funny because at first there is so much canvas to cover and it can be almost overwhelming. Enjoyment wasn't even in the picture then but it soon became that. Everyone had gone to bed, it was quiet and so I just relaxed and took my time.
      When I look at this painting I think of  my Dad. He's gone now but I spent so much time as a kid being taken to these mountains to camp by my Dad...and besides, on the otherside of this bridge, about 1/4 mile, is the Rose Bowl. I played football in it in high school and also graduated there. Right next to it is Brookside Park golf course...my Dad was the golf starter there for years. My Dad also worked at another golf course, Carmilita, which is long gone but over it was built the Norton Simon museum. My Dad, Pasadena and I share a lot of things in common.  

Meeting the A List

My gallery owner, Jasminka Gabrie, at the recent Galerie Gabrie show in Pasadena 

            Last Thursday I made the rainy drive down to Pasadena to attend the a show at my gallery, Galerie Gabrie. What is normally a 2 hour drive turned into an almost 5 hour drive thanks to rain and Los Angeles traffic during rush hour. I wanted to go to this show because it's good to go to your galleries shows, to see my owner and her husband Jim and I would finally get the chance to meet other artists who are represented by the gallery. 2 artists in particular were there, Charles Muench and Dan Schultz. These 2 artists are very experienced California artists who will undoubtedly be in this years California Art Clubs' Gold Medal show (last years show). Dan has a gallery in Ojai and Charles has been selling phenominal pieces for years and lives in the Sierras. Both of these guys are ones I look up to and who I would consider on the "A" list of artists. I think we all have our "A" lists...the artists we look up to and aspire to one day be equal to. I'm not going to tell you the rest of my "A" list because everyone would have a different list of artists on their list. Mine list is a mile long anyways. 

Deck The Halls With Smalls at Galerie Gabrie 2012 

           I've got to tell you, meeting these type of artists is pretty much a trip. I've been to shows where other "A" list artists were in the same room but I hadn't met them. Charles and Dan were introduced to me by Jim Gabrie and they were both very cool, super nice and casual...nothing like I thought they would be. For some reason I always think artists who paint at much higher levels are always on this ethereal plane of thinking, kind of looking through you as they contemplate light, shadow, value and composition in everything they see while awake....maybe they do and are just so damn good at multitasking and can do it while they make you think they are interested in your conversation! There was no intense arty talk nor did they look down on me....it was just fun talk with laughs and very much like meeting someone at a bbq in the backyard. It was too cool and a fun night at the show. 

          Another artist who is represented by the gallery is Ted Goerschner. Ted wasn't there but he lives about 5 minutes from me and we have been in a couple of shows up here in the Santa Ynez valley. I met Ted a year ago in a Quickdraw event and we had the chance to talk right before the event started. Ted was the same way....down to earth, super nice.....a lot like bumping into your favorite neighbor despite the man's gigantic reputation as an American artist.

Ted Goerschner making it look like childs play...I snapped this pic of Ted painting away in the 2009 Quickdraw in Los Olivos, CA. Ted's work can be seen on the Galerie Gabrie website 

          People up here had warned me about Ted...Ted was a guy who spoke his mind and if you goofed on a painting he'd tell you in no uncertain terms....sort of like one of my painting teachers in college. Ted turned out to be absolutely charming but I couldn't help but feel relieved when we first met that we weren't standing anywhere near my work! My lesson in meeting the "A" list artists is go ahead, be thrilled as hell and  relax, they don't bite.....(and maybe hide your work!)          

Stream in the Arroyo

The inspiration for this painting came from Pasadena. I wanted to try painting a stream scene and there is a really nice stream running under the Colorado Street bridge and the 134 freeway bridge there. This is the water runnoff from the San Gabriel mountains that originally was the main water supply, along with 4 wells, to the Indiana Colony who settled Pasadena in the 1880's. Above you can see the old Colorado Bridge to the left and the 6 lane 134 on the right.

 Looking under the 134 you can see the foliage that grows along the stream. This stream at times can become a raging torrent due to winter rains in the San Gabriels. Devils gate dam and other water control areas along the arroyo have kept any major flooding from happining for years. I've wandered all over the arroyo over the years and taken plenty of reference photos. Down under this bridge is a great shaded spot that this painting came from.

 Stream in the Arroyo

22" x 28" Oil

Fun painting that came out nicely. I like the bright sun relfected off the sky on the waters surface and the dark shadows on the water cast by both the undersides of the bridge and trees. I also like the nice contrast between the young and old trees.

A couple of details pics from the painting....

Henninger Flats Painting

"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.

Eaton Canyon Painting

"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!

Eaton Canyon

"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.

Catalina Paintings

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