Coast Guard Project

I'm a member of the Coast Guard Art Program ,COGAP, and each year submit work for consideration for the Coast Guard art collection. Jurying is done in New York at the Salmgundi Art Club. Last year I had a pen & ink drawing juried into the collection and 2 weeks ago I was notified that my painting, "Vertical Insertion", was juried into this years collection. The painting is off a Coast Guard team being pulled back into a helicopter during traning exercises in Texas.

The painting was done from a reference photo taken by a Coast Guard member. I liked the photo because of the gorgeous background sky and clouds. The main subject, the helicopter and men hanging on the cable were something I had never done in a painting so I figured it was time to give something like that a try.

I started with a good sketch of the scene I had cropped out of the photo since the entire picture taken by the Coast Guard member wasn't needed.

After I was happy with the sketch I then blocked in my colors for the sky and clouds and then began to blend all of that with a fan brush until it looked the way I wanted. I painted around the helcopter and men on the line below. Sorry for the glare on these early photos...too busy painting to worry about lighting.I then began to paint in my darks and the grey areas of the helicopter. My oranges would be blended into these colors in areas.

After that I began to paint in the rest of the helicopter paying attention to my edges. The Coast Guard wants work the resembles their equipment accurately but there is room to not have hard edges and I could have gone softer there if I chose. The back wheels looked a little low so I will paint over them and move them higher later.
Here you can see those wheels painted out and waiting for the new wheels to be painted in. You can see the area left unpainted for the men on the cable...I left them last so I could adjust their position with where they should be under the winch since most of my outlined drawing of them was painted over by the sky blending. After the helicopter was done they were added last and this is the finished result.....

The blurred motion look to the blades was created by painting in some of my dark mix and waiting for that paint to set up to a tacky state. Then I used a dry brush to feather the paint into what you see here. This scene was in late afteroon light...almost twilight which gave that sky such wonderful colors.

Once notified by the Coast Guard of the painting being accepted into the collection I then varnished the painting and when dry sent it off to Virginia. It will be framed by them and displayed at the Collection Reception at the Salmagundi Art Club later this year...June I think. I'm welcome to fly to New York for the Reception but I still can't afford to do that. They will present those of us who had work juried into the collection with a really cool looking certificate and photo of the painting in this huge book-type binder along with a letter of thanks. It's really an honor to be included into the collection. The work is donated to the Coast Guard and will be available for display at various Coast Guard installations or other government locations. It's all pretty cool!

Mojave Desert

I decided to paint a desert scene since I really like the desert and don't get to see it as often as I wish. In Pasadena a drive to the Mojave desert was just an hours trip over the San Gabriel mountains on Angeles Crest Highway. Places like Palmdale, Mojave, Four Corners, Phelan, California City and Pinion Pines were fun to drive up to. The fun of exploring the high desert, which is what we called it, is almost impossible now due to the God awful housing development that has taken place since the early 80's. The ruination of the desert I call it.


Back in the early days of the desert there were a lot of guest ranches out here and at one time agriculture. My Dad rented a houseboat on the Colordo river and we had to travl across the Mojave in our blue 1963 Chevy Biscayne station wagon complete with desert water bag hung on the front of the radiator grill just in case. Crossing te high desert still could be a major deal then. Nowadays these same roads are dotted with McDonalds, In-N-Out Burger and Taco Bell...not to mention the occasional Outlet stores for that last minute super deal we are all looking for in tennis shows or jeans. If you grew up watching Death Valley Days it is really hard to appreciate driving across Pearblossom highway and seeing the trash and furniture left scattered along the roadside. Enjoy what you can of the Mojave before developers convince even more of the masses to move to affordable country desert living.

"Floor of the Mojave"

12" x 16" Oil on Canvas covered Panel

Storm Clearing Santa Ynez

Did this painting to practice my cloud work. I love the clouds we get here in the valley and Winter brings spectacular clouds for reference material. These clouds were from a storm that brought rain about a month ago and I waited to get them on film as soon as the sorm began to break up.

Some clouds are just so spectacular that I won't paint them because they will look contrived...like trying to build this monster sky painting with unbelievable clouds....some skies here have totally looked unbelievable. I have them on film but no one would believe it if I painted them. I usually tend to tone my clouds down when painting them but they would still be hard to imagine to most viewers.

"Storm Clearing Santa Ynez"

12" X 16"

Oil on canvas covered panel

Santa Ynez Valley

"Central Coast Splendor"

12" x 24" Oil on Canvas

I was able to paint this one Alla Prima yesterday despite all the fun of having 2 teenaged daughters and their multitude of dramatic events. This explains why I love to paint late at night! I used to think painting was something you could do like drawing...anywhere, anytime. Nope. Painting demands a lot of concentation, (whether you know you are doing it or not). Lifes daily occurances really throw you loops and makes painting take forever at times.

This painting was done mainly to just get better at depicting these scenes of the central coast. One day I will do a fantastic painting of the central coast capturing it's beauty in any light. This is a springtime scene with green hillsides and wildflowers...I chose white instead of doing lupine or poppies again. Did a couple small touch ups this morning and I think it is where I want it to be...for now.

I like to ground the trees with bushes at it's base and dark shadows there. That method seems to work well.

Making that trail meander into the painting was fun...gives the painting some added depth too. The grasses you see here are just vertical strokes with a knife. The base for the grasses are just vertical scumbling with the knife done prior to any grass blade highlights. The dirt areas are also scumbled in with a knife...to finish that off I flick tiny grasses up into the dirt from below. A fun painting to do.

Santa Ynez Eucalyptus

" Over the Valley"

9" X 12"

I did a painting earlier and cropped some areas of the painting to post online. This painting was inspired by one of those little detailed images of that earlier painting. I did this on masonite panel which gives it a softer look unless I go with a bit thicker paint. I like this one as it reminds me of the valley here as seen from one of the hillsides.

...and some details....

Ref As A Guide

"Trail at the Bluffs"

12"x16"

Oil on Canvas Covered Panel

I started painting this scene months ago...summer I think. I worked from a reference photo I shot at the bluffs in Carpinteria. I made several changes along the way since I wasn't jazzed about the painting as it progressed. I started it with wanting merely to capture the grasses in sunlight but realised I really didn't like their color. There was no trail here so I decided to put it in since it looked boring with just the grasses. I added a large greaseplant since there are some in the area.

I've asked 2 people about this painting here and the really like it...I'm not that crazy about it. Somewere along the line I think I lost my drive to finish it so it sat. Today I sat it back on the easel and tried to finish it...making even more color changes in the grasses. I'm still not sure what doesn't look right to me with this one so I'm going to let it sit again.

I think this detail shot shows the best part of this painting to me. Maybe I'll do another painting using just this detail as a reference...now that's an idea!

Santa Ynez Valley...A Meadow View

This painting was sketched out last night in pencil on a piece of scrap paper. Not much of a sketch, merely the outline of what I had in my head to paint. The colors come as I paint the scene on te canvas. I have an idea of what I want so it's not entirely unplanned. This type of painting is done merely to use my imagination and memory of the elements in the painting...trees, grasses, distant mountain ranges. All I do is organize the composition and start painting. Super fun to do.

"Meadow View"

9" X 12"

Oil on canvas covered panel

This scene would be what I imagine the Santa Ynez valley would look like years ago in spring. There are rolling hills here and trees spread through the valley. A path like this would have been created by the Chumash Indians or early settlers, maybe even hunters up from Santa Barbara in search of deer which we have plenty of.

Near Grass Mountain

"Near Grass Mountain"

12" X 16" Oil on canvas

Grass mountain is on the north side of our valley. I've driven to the base of it a few times and while driving around up there the last time I snapped pics for references. This scene was painted to work more on small grasses and plants. For that purpose it is succesful I think. If you approach each painting with a goal in mind I think it keeps you from freaking out about having to paint the perfect Mona Lisa each time. Maybe that's why I can get involved in each painting so quickly instead of fussing over what to paint next.

The fun part of this painting was doing the foreground grasses. You can get pretty creative doing those with your palette knife. I'm really loving doing grasses.

The Trail Gets Better

One of my artist friends made a suggestion that something was missing from the foreground in the recent painting "A Winding Trail". Not one to think I know everything I listened and took another good long look at the painting.....Rocks! Rocks are something I've been anting to try and this painting was painted by me to try doing this type of scene better....why not add some rocks.

I had a student grade panel nearby with a scene very similar to this one that I had worked some other ideas out on so I practiced on it....that's why I bought those student grade panels to begin with. If I want to try a certain looking tree but not sure if I can pull it off I go to the cheapo panels and experiment there....then the panel sits there waiting for some other idea to pop in my head and the need for a spare canvas to try it out on instead of the actual painting....sure saves throwing a good painting away and if I can't get it right on the cheapo panel then my neighbors don't hear me screaming in anguish and frustration.

I think the rocks worked out nicely and fill in an otherwise boring foreground. I feel better about taking the time to practice painting rocks too. They might not be the best looking rocks but I'll get better.

A Winding Trail

I started this one late last night. I was working from my head and trying simply to do get better at them. It's a little too similar to other scenes like this, but hey, some painters will paint the same scene 20 times to get to a result they like so why not me too. I need to push myself into throwing more light in my trees....in other words, bigger skyholes, more trunks. I find myself going this far with my trees and being happy. Is that wrong? I dunno. Forcing myself to change because other painters do their trees with more light seems like I'm chasing someone elses vision. I'm teeter tottering on them. We'll see what happenes down the line I guess.

I decided to snap pics of the progress but got caught up and forgot some shots I wish I had taken but the ones here show the WIP pretty well.

Here is the block in of the sky. A mix of light blue on top and then mixing in a bit of cadmium yellow medium...just plopped down randomly awaiting the trusty fan brush for blending.

Next is the blending...just brushing in an X pattern untill it looks good.Here I painted in the background and blocked in the darks for my trees. I've got my grasses blocked in too but I'll add lots of work there soon.Now I begin to detail the trees. This is just by lightening my dark green mix. I save a bit of the dark mix for touch ups later. I've begun touching up the grasses too. I start with a knife adding color and then finish up with brushes.In the end it became this scene. Pretty fun to do and no sweat dealing with a reference photo. The fun part is you make it what you want and all you have to do is follow some basic painting principles. It's not a Grandville Redmond but then again he couldn't paint like me either! He might not have wanted to but we won't go there today....hahaha.

"A Winding Trail"

8" X 10"

Oil on Canvas

Foxen Canyon Evening

Lately I've been getting better at blocking in of masses for areas in my paintings....ok, well I think Im getting better at it. I used to paint a lot of the elements in my work individually as the painting progressed. That took more time, more mixing and probably not the best way to do a painting. I used to really only block in my darks and paint everything else on the fly so to speak.

I started blocking in masses of color when I started painting meadow scenes...especially meadows with large clumps of bushes in them.


This probably seems redundant to other painters but to me it has become one of those eye openers artists go through...simple things that make life easier. I don't know why I didn't see it sooner.


Anyway, here you can see my blocking in of the foreground awaiting the detailing, some of which I've already started on the back bushes below the trees.

Here you can see what the painting looks like once all of the details are filled in.

I suppose I've done this method for the last bunch of paintings without giving it much thought. I would have hesitated from doing this scene before due to the bushy foreground but now see these as something to accomplish, or conquer, in a painting...not as something to avoid.

The strange way we artists think!

Mountain Grasses

This scene is of the Figueroa Mountains on the northern side of our valley. These mountains are mostly grass covered with sporadic trees dotting the hillsides. I wanted to work on the grasses to get better at doing them. I always get charged up before starting a scene with grasses and when I'm finished I'm sort of let down. Haven't quite got the look I want so the hunt goes on.

"Mountain Grasses"

12" x 16"

Oil on canvas

Near Carpinteria Bluffs

"Summer Field"

9" X 12" Oil on panel

I started out doing a scene of a flowering field being farmed next to the bluffs in Carpinteria. By the time I got to the mountains my ref became more a less just an inspiration more than a ref. These mountains are very different in color to the ones down there since I started messing with them...not a bad thing, that's how you learn and it can get boring sticking to your ref for a scene anyway. What I ended up with a really just a generic, but pleasing, summer field of flowers. I'm happy with it.
I was going to paint this scene 3 times but never felt the flowers would hold the painting together subject wise. I finally just decided to go for it and see how much interest I could generate with just a field of flowers. I think it worked out ok especially considering I'm not the greatest painter of flowers at all.

Chalk Hill Evening

"Chalk Hill Evening"

12" X 16"

If I walk to the end of my street....1 house away, this is the view in the evening on most nights. We live on Chalk Hill and look over the top of Solvang to the Santa Ynez mountain range that seperates us from the coast and Santa Barbara. These mountains can look green, blue and grey in every shade you can thing of at various times. I'm always struck by the contrasting dark rows of trees on the other side of this field. It's actually a vacant lot that the owner has not built on yet so as long as he keeps putting it off I get the view! One day there will be some gigantic Spanish style custom home here hogging up the view and I'll have to find another lot overlooking these mountains.

Normally I would have added grey to the tree area to push the distance but this is an evening scene which had some really nice darks in that part of the painting. I debated it but I just could not see pushing the distance here since this group of trees are right on the other side of the field. I think anyone who lives here would say this is pretty much what it looks like without doing all of the "arty" things to it. Sometimes I just don't feel like succumbing to the rules of art...and don't let enyone fool you, rules they are. The first time you stray from them you'll hear about it. They say in order to break the rules you must first know what rules you are breaking...then it's ok to break them.

Below you can see the edge work on the distant mountains. Softening that hard edge along the mountain tops always gives a sense of distance to your paintings.

Lately I've been really paying attention to the edges of my trees that recede from the viewer. I'm trying to soften those edges up and keep the skyholes soft edged too. My older paintings have these rather sharp edges in these parts of them. These are just the fine little details that you try and fine tune to get your work to look better. I think on the nest painting I'll try letting these edges set up a bit and then dry brush the edges to give them a soft blur....not my usual technique but my technique is always evolving depending on what I learn and what I like.

Carpinteria Bluffs

I went down to drop off work to be juried into a show in Carpinteria not long ago. While waiting for the jurying I decided to do a plein air painting over at Carpinteria Bluffs. I hurriedly loaded up my pochade box and when I got there realised I forgot all of my brushes so instead I took pictures with my camera.

This scene is I believe called "Artists Trail" since all of the trails are named down there. The bluffs are just a large wild area set aside by the very smart people of Carpinteria to preserve part of the natural coastline for future generations...and would be artists!

I loved the shadows being thrown by a row of eucalyptus trees to the left and decided to try and capture their random patterns.

And a detail of the trees to the right.....

Sycamore Tree

I'm still learning to paint sycamore trees. Here, I've concentrated on mainly the trunk area only because I was drawn to the dark shadows of the foliage along the ground at this meadows edge. I really like dark shadows in a painting and do that mainly with the lower portions of my eucalyptus trees.

This is the initial block in of colors. Normally I paint my sky and then everything working in order towards the foreground. For this painting I blocked everything in first.

Here you can see more of the blocking of the trunks. I grab a soft brush dipped in turpentine and basically draw the trees. This takes the paint off in those areas and I wipe with a dry brush to dry up the canvas. After that is dry I then paint in the trunk colors.

Here you can see the basic foliage taking place. I start with the darkest and work to the lightest.

Here the painting was done but I didn't like the tree placement...so I added another tree trunk using the same method as the other trunks. I also did not like the branch in front of the trunks so I took it out.

In the end, this is what my finished painting looked like. Trees further to the left and small foliage adjustments that I'm happy with.

The Painting Continues...

I had a great time at the California Art Club show this last saturday. Some really great friends of mine showed up and we all went to dinner afterwards. You'd have to know my friends to realise how much a group of people can laugh all through dinner. It is really an honor to have your friends show up to support you at one of these shows.
I was very lucky at the show and managed to sell one of the paintings before the reception ended. A major bonus there. I also was able to meet the woman who purchased the painting and speak to her for a good amount of time....another bonus, meeting the buyer. A very nice person.
The painting she bought was one I had sitting here waiting for a good frame and I must have stared at that painting a hundred times. I loved how that painting came out...one of my best so far.
There was some really super paintings in this show. The judges I think had to go through some 200 paintings that were entered and whittle it down to 41. From seeing the work that made it in it must have been a tough job. Judging has to be a very tough job at times.

I was also able to speak with some of my fellow artists there which is really one of the best things about these shows. All artists have one thing in common...we all are trying our best to make good paintings. That can really be tough at times because you never know how a painting will look to others. The paintings I think are my best are usually not the ones that get the attention so sometimes you have to accept the ones you personally feel didn't quite make it and know that some of those are going to be the ones people rave about. I know other artists go through this and it is something we share. The ups, the downs, paintings that get in the show or don't...these are common experiences we go through so meeting artists, and knowing without even asking, that we share these experiences is really special. It bonds us together.
Painting, and knowing what you are painting can sometimes fool you. Recently, a person who really knows his art looked at one of my works and said it looked too much like a painting influenced by Eloy Espoy. The nice thing was that somehow one of my paintings looked similar to such a great painters work. The bad thing is that I didn't set out to do that. The scary thing is that I could do that subconciously without knowing it. I have seen Espoy's work and I really love his work but trying to do someone elses work is not a cool thing to do even subconsiously. I now look at that painting and wonder what I'm going to do with it. It has my trees. Poppies and lupine? Lots of people paint those....especially if you live in California. So, it sits here hanging on the wall until I do something one way or the other. I suppose going through this experience now connects me to a hundred other artists who have done a painting like this and sit at their Blog typing their thoughts about what to do with that sort of painting...which is probably hanging on their wall too!

At The Foothills

Christmas is heading our way so I'm now trying to get as many paintings finished before the holiday arrives. Did this one today to work on some things....it's a cool little painting and has some nice distance in there as well as those nice subtle pinks giving away the time of day.

This started out as a generic scene of the area up here but I think I subconciously painted the mountains down by Pasadena since I've been wanting to paint those mountains for a while now.

A detail of the trail area. I'm still working on painting trails...these are so fun to do in a painting. I'm really enjoying painting the grasses too. This was a fun little painting.

This painting was created using a pencil thumbnail sketch to work from...very basic sketch with no values in it which was ok....just something to work out a composition really...if I did this one again I wouldn't work thhe trees so close on the right side....on 9"x12" you can find things getting a little cramped anyway. It all worked out anyway and I'm pretty happy with it.

Studio Tour Finis

Well, the Studio Tour for 2008 is a done deal. Good presentation, sold 5 paintings and lots of good comments made. I am bushed! 2 days of meet and greet from 10-4 plus an artist reception not to mention the 2 weeks of hussle before the show even arrived. I have even more respect for fellow painter, Les Lull, who did a month long show in Arizona! A month...YIKES!! It can really wear on you.

I am glad to do the show because it is great to hear the feedback on the work and gauge what the public really thinks about the progress I'm making. The public thinks very differently from artists and gallery owners. Each is valid and comes from a different perspective so it is good to get feedback from each of them. The economy is in the ditch so selling anything was a success in my book. I could have sold more but we had 10 paintings reserved for a gallery...but that's another story.

At last years show I learned through sales that smaller paintings moved more. During the summer I started painting a lot of 9"x12" & 12"X16" sized paintings. Good thing I did my homework because those are what sold. Buyers said they were buying for their homes, for gifts and for other homes they owned. The other homes and gifts are why the smaller sizes move. I do have a man interested in a large painting as a surprise Christmas gift for his wife, he took my business card and said he'd be calling in a few days, so I'm hoping that pans out.

The other thing I did was to drop my prices a little. A lot of the painters in this tour did not...in fact, I would bet some increased them. The museum who sponsers this event only takes 20%. I've mentioned the economy being bad and that was more my reason. Sometimes it pays to entice sales and after a dismal summers worth of low sales I needed to do something. I think the plans we made behind this show helped move these paintings so I'm happy.

A studio tour is above all things...fun and a learning experience. It is where you get to meet and talk with the people who actually buy your art. You learn to self promote. By nature I think most artists tend to not want to talk themselves or their art up...you have to. You will meet people who are more charged up about your work than you are. You will meet people who can even describe your work better than you can! As you paint you need to ask yourself why you are doing it and what inspired that particular scene. More importantly, you need to come up with the answers because you are going to be asked. You will need to learn to speak more objectively about yourself...not bragging or boasting. You have to be able to talk about your accomplishments, point out your strengths as an artist and let the buyers know that you are making progress on your road to being a working artist who is going somewhere. It sounds easy but for me it took a while to talk about myself as an artist and where I stand at that moment. You have to let the buyer in to some part of you that they can get a glimps of. They want to know who you are and how you think...it connects them to your work and maybe how they feel about you and your work. Buyers are not purchasing art from Sears, they are buying from the artist and they want to know more about that artist. You need to give them some of that and in the end you make a sale and they got more than just a painting for their hard earned money.

If you are part of an art organization see if they have a studio tour and try it out...learn to promote your art and deal directly with your buyers....remember, if you can sell your art then so can a gallery. The hard truth....if your art isn't selling then you need to first look and evaluate your art. Be honest and if you need to get better then start painting. We all started somewhere in art and we all worked to get to the point of making sales. Listen to what people say about your work, it's important. Never stop learning and never once think you have "made it". I have learned 3 important things in painting......I am learning with each painting. Each painting is another attempt to get better at some particular part of that painting. All of my paintings will be better than the last one. That last one is a tough one but the most important goal I know of and goals are exactly that...goals. You don't really have to reach them everytime but you should be working towards reaching them everytime.

Some pics...Some of the munchies set out....

Some of the nocturnes...These went over very well on the tour.

Walking in to the studio...

This wall had a lot of the smaller pieces.

I'm now looking forward to next years show...feets don't fail me now!

Foxen Canyon Plein Air

A few shows ago I did this plein air painting. This summer was just horrible show wise which is why I didn't do many and this one was no exception. 3 days of no crowd whatsoever so I took my PA rig the second day and painted. This is a scene of one of the fields around the Tres Hermanas winery in Foxen canyon. Nice to have walked away with something out of 3 days effort.

A couple of detail shots....