Sort of Plein Air, well.....

I had to go with Linda to Santa Maria today. She's been doing a lot of driving lately so I decided to drive her up there and take my plein air gear with me. It has been windy lately and I didn't have much time to get loaded up so I just grabbed a small painting box I had. I would paint inside the truck to avoid the wind. I used to take this box with me when I used to sit (work at for the day) the galleries. It's small, light and only lets you hold the basics. That's important because you can take way too much gear with you at times. For a quick, easy, no fuss painting I take this box and prop my canvas on the lid. One of these days I'll fix it so it holds a 9"x12" in there securely.

My plan was to paint while Linda was inside of the place she needed to go to up there. We figured she would need an hour or more so that gave me time to do a simple painting. Turns out where I parked the truck there was nothing of interest to me....the side of a house across the street, the back of a hamburger stand, an intersection and part of a parking lot. I like urban art scenes but I don't paint them very well and didn't feel like it was lesson time given the short time available to paint. Instead I used my memory and plunked this one down in a little over an hour. This was where I had to stop since I had to give her back her seat. The wind had her hair looking like it was possessed.
Linda came out before I could add detail to the trail and flowers, some shading on the mid ground so I did that once I got home. I painted this sitting in the passenger seat and using only imagination for reference. I'm still working on painting better grasses and this was a good one to work on that....also gave me more practice with the oak tree. A fun little painting, not really a plein air painting, but something constructive to pass the time while waiting for Linda. Here is the final painting.....
"Wildflowers"

9" X 12" Oil on panel

Kalyra Vineyard

Kalyra Vines

12" X 16" Oil on panel

This vineyard runs along the south side of the Santa Ynez valley. Below the vineyard run the Santa Ynez mountain range seen here in the distance. I tried to paint this one Alla Prima but everytime I plan on doing an alla prima that never happens...things pop up that need taking care of etc....in my opinion, you need to sneak up on alla prima work, hahaha.

Anyway, this one is more practice for the show down in Temecula next week.

Santa Ynez Ridge Scene

Late Poppies on the Ridge

12"x16" Oil on panel

Thought I'd try some more rock fun. I still think mine never turn out as good as most other painters' rocks. I have seen some rocks that I just drool over. I really think it is a mental thing when there is something you paint and you can never seem to see it as being ok. I tried to keep my edges soft so the rocks don't appear to look like Colorform rocks, in other words, having that pasted on look. When the edges of rocks are too sharp they look as if they were cut out of a magazine and glued onto your canvas. Another thing I tried to do with these rocks was not to mess with them too much. I've done rocks in the past where I tweaked them nonstop for 2 days because they didn't appear right to me. I put down my shadowed areas of the rocks and then just added the highlights and blended lightly for a very short time. I think my downfall in the past with rocks was just repainting them over and over...never being satisfied with the rock appearance.
Well, enough about my rocks because I could whine and whine all day about them.

Nocturne, The Wee Hours

"The Wee Hours"

9"X12" Oil on panel

I painted this one about 3 weeks ago but couldn't get a good photograph of it at the time to post. I finally gave it another try and this will have to do. It's pretty close to the paintings actual colors.
This was just an attempt to try out Thalo Green to give that nice greenish look to the night sky. They had a very cool Nocturne show at the Wildling Museum in Los Olivos last November and there were a few paintings with this greenish touch. I loved the look of that and wanted to try it out. There was a painting by DeWitt Parshall titled "Night Near The Village" that beautifully used this greenish color in the background night sky. I tried hunting on Google for a picture of the painting to post here but couldn't find one. If you ever see it you'll love it.


Parshall went much darker with his foliage which appears almost black in the painting. I'll try one like that down the line too.
At this show was a painting by Charles Rollo Peters, "Mission Santa Ynez". It was first exhibited by Peters in New York in 1899. I live about 5 minutes from Mission Santa Ynez so it is really cool to have seen that painting and think about it everytime I go to the mission to take reference photos.

The Deep of Night

"The Deep of Night"
9" X 12" Oil on panel

Had to stop painting for a few weeks due to needing to do chores around the house. Life creeps in from time to time and you just have to stop painting and get things done. I was also putting together a book for my Army Reunion and another book that I'm waiting on before I speak about that one. The Army Reunion book came out great. The guys are gonna love it.
To get back into the swing of things I decided to do another nocturne....good thing too because because I was rusty. I've been painting lately with Lukas 1862 paints. Their Cad Yellow Light is the closest Cad Yellow Light to match Windsor Newton Cad Yellow Pale. The bonus is it's about 1/3 the price of WN CYP. Actually, the Lukas paints are pretty good and I'm still trying their mixes out....pretty darned good so far. I also entered a Lukas Paints painting contest and won a gift certificate to Jerry's Artarama Artist Supplies....very cool deal!
I decided to go very dark on this one since I really like dark nocturnes. The painting is lightened here to show the detail...it's actually darker IRL. I added the trail at the last minute to spice it up a bit. Fun little 9x12.

Brush Holder Homemade

I was trying out my French Easel the other day and realized there was no where to hold my wet brushes...not good since I usually have 3 or 4 brushes going at a time since I hate to stop to clean them while working. So, I found a scrap piece of wood in the garage and made a holder to mount on the side of the easel when set up and painting. When I'm all finished and the brushes are clean I can take it off and it will store in the lower drawers of the easel.

To mount the piece of wood I sketched this out. I couldn't remember the name of these types of screws so I took this to the hardware store to show the guy there. They are called Hanger Bolts and were in the Furniture Hardware section at Ace Hardware. You just drill your pilot hole slightly smaller in diameter than your screw threads. All you do then is use a pair of pliers to screw them into the hole gripping at the section with no threads on them.


This is what it looks like once your screw is mounted to the scrap wood piece...one on each end which simply slide into the holes you drilled into the side of your easel.


Here you can see the brush holder mounted to the side of the easel and held in place with the wingnuts.


This holder has to be removable because when the lid of your easel is closed all of the wooden lid pieces and legs fold where the holder would be. You can see the mounting hole drilled into the side of the easel here.


Before closing your lid you unscrew the wing nuts and store the holder in one of the lower drawers of your French Easel.


You can use any thickness or width of wood for the holder you want. Just measure down the side of your easel to check your length and make sure your holder will fit in the space with the drawer closed. Get some of your brushes to make sure you drill random holes of various diameter to fit the brushes. It's a fun project that will make painting a lot easier in the field. This is not like reinventing the wheel because there are some pretty fancy brush holders out there but at .30 cents per part,and there were 4 and a scrap piece of wood, the price can't be beat!

Seascape Rework

The nice thing about painting is if you really work at it you will improve your painting ability every year. The even better thing about that is you can always go back over your earlier work and improve them with your new and improved painting abilities. I don't do that with all of my work but certain pieces are worth the improvements. I think my grasses are 100% better now and this beach scene had grasses in the foreground that made me cringe each time I looked at them. I decided it was time to go back in and fix that. I also added some additional time to the foreground sand, adding shadowed areas and tiny dots of paint to portray the bits of wood, charcoal etc that you see on the beach. I like the improvements made to this painting and find myself "cringeless" now when looking at it.

Here is the original painting. note the short, stubby and lifeless grasses in the foreground. Also see the lack of interest in the sand there too.

Here is the same painting with the improved grasses and shadowed sand areas. I think this really adds more interest and a better feel of a beach scene.

...a detail of the grasses....

6"x8" Fun

I'm still gearing up for a show in November by getting paintings ready that I will show in a Featured Artist show at Gallery Los Olivos. This is in the town of Los Olivos, CA under the Artist Guild of the Santa Ynez Valley. Our Guild has been doing these Featured Artist shows for about a year now.
I want to show some smaller 6"x8" paintings in hopes of boosting sales...which have been beyond horrible around here. Art purchases are one of the first things to go in a bad economy and believe me it has gone! Because of this I have scaled back some shows that were very slow in the past and been concentrating on producing better work. I figure it is better to use the time to prepare for better days by becoming a better artist. I'm still working on that.
Anyway, here are a couple that I photographed the other day. Both 6"x8" on canvas covered panel in oil.

"Canyon Haze"

"Moonlit Trail"

The Carrizo Plain

"Carrizo Plain Bloom"

6" X 8" Oil on panel

Yep, the massive Carrizo Plain squeezed down into a small 6" X 8" panel, hahaha. Well, part of the Carrizo Plain is in this scene. Another 6x8 painting for the Featured Artist show at Gallery Los Olivos. I had this scene setup to paint in a larger, maybe 16"x20", format. Doing this smaller, actually doing all of these at a smaller format, is really teaching me to simplify various parts of the painting. Most people suggest just using larger brushes. Makes more sense to use the same brushes you already have and buy cheaper, smaller panels to work with the same theory. You don't have the room to get too detailed so you mass areas. It not only teaches you that but it also makes you paint faster, hahaha.


I love this scene because it is the desert in bloom...those tiny gold flowers lining the desert floor. The afternoon I was up there taking my reference photos the weather was great, the desert was in bloom (it was Spring) and the late afternoon light was getting better by the second. Hopefully this Spring I will be able to head up there and do some plein air work.
For those of you who live in California the Carrizo Plain is not to be missed in Springtime...don't go in summer unless you enjoy oven temperatures.

Chalk Hill

"Clouds Over Chalk Hill"

6" X 8" Oil on panel

I painted this scene in a larger 12" X 16" back in early summer or maybe Spring. This view is actually looking over at my neighbors field. I wanted to paint another small 6" X 8" today so this one was done, again, alla prima. Maybe a couple of hours work but a very fun couple of hours. I've got that Featured Artist show coming up and need some smaller 6"x8" paintings to offer. I'm trying to have a mix of large,mid and smaller pieces to offer. I've done 3 of these in the last 3 days. In between I've been updating my website, blog duties, ordering more frames, running errands and fixing plumbing problems around here.


I really should be cranking out these little guys but I think I get stalled in the picking the next subject phase of it. I decided on this one because I loved how the first and larger one came out. This is actually a somewhat cropped version of the original which was a slightly wider scene. I thought it would be cool to see how hard it would be to do the clouds in this smaller size....it was tough! Luckily I had the brains to buy some smaller Filberts just for the purpose of doing some smaller paintings and they came in really handy.



Hey, for those of you that do plein air work and have a spare $20 and an ever lasting desire to puchase anything that is affordable and is geared towards your art education I would recommend buying a book that I ordered today. Sacramento artist TerryMiura has what looks to be a very cool book that he wrote for his Plein Air students. It walks you through the various stages of one of his paintings. He does his art talk in it as well as explaining his painting process. Why would I recommend a book I haven't even seen yet? Because Terry is a killer artist and whose work I admire very much. Any insight to Terry's painting method would be worth it and worth much more than this book costs....at this price you'd be a dork to walk away from this. Check out Terry's website and you be the judge....while you're there check out his Blog, Studio Notes...lots of good reading there.
No, I don't get a cut from Terry on recommending his book. I'm just pointing you to what I know is going to be a good deal...and it's learning. People think you need to invest major bucks and major time to learn. I bought the small book "Plein Air Painting In Oil", a Walter Foster book, by Frank Serrano years ago. I learned a great deal from that book. I read it in a couple of hours...due to the pictures, hahaha. You could read it in 10 minutes but you need to study the images. I've gone back to that book a couple of dozen times over the years...it taught me a great deal. You read the book in a few hours and then paint your butt off the next few years. The learning is in the painting. Thats an education, not the standard one but one that has been working for me so far...I'm still very much learning everyday.

Twilight Alla Prima

"Central Coast Twilight"

6X8 Oil on panel

I had this small 6X8 Ray Mar panel that was an early effort at plein air....hated the painting and had it leaning against a wall behind a dozen other paintings for about 3 or 4 years. I wanted to do some more small pieces and decided it was time to re-use that panel.

I figured a quick nocturne would be fun. You know how painting goes...nothing is definite, or Plans Shmams. I was 3/4 of the way through with the painting last night and I painted that stroke. You know that stroke? That's the stroke that you do that suddenly makes whatever you are working on look totally different if you just follow up on it. Like you're painting a mountain and suddenly you paint that stroke and it now looks like a small hill and it would look much better as a small hill so it becomes a small hill...thanks to that stroke. Then people walk up to you and say how beautiful that hill looks and it's perfect in that painting and you're a genius.

I think it's divine intervention from painters long past.

a detail of the painting.....

Anyway, the painting turned into a twilight scene because it looked better as a twilight scene. I finished it up as a twilight scene and happy that I did. Past daylight and not quite night....Twilight.

Summerland..down by the beach

" Beach Party"

9" X 12" Oil on Linen

I was on a recent trip to Carpenteria to pick up artwork at a show that had ended. I decided that on the way back I would stop and get some pics of the beach at sunset in the very small town of Summerland. To my good fortune there was a group of people ahead of me that ended up making a bonfire. Down at the beaches around Los Angeles you can only make a fire in a pit which is a concrete ring....keeps the ashes out of the sand...sure. It really was very cool to see a fire on the beach without the ring....reminded me of Jaws, the early fire on the beach scene before that girl went off to do some nude swimming and met the shark.
I got some good shots and couldn't wait to try painting a fire....hint, to make the fire bright paint everything around it dark.

This was painted Alla Prima last night into the wee hours.
Enjoy....

Alla Prima Study

"Hilltop Study"

6" X 8" Oil on panel

This morning I wanted to get some painting in before having to run some errands and other things that needed to get done. I haven't had the chance to set up my French easel outside and do some plein air and wanted to at least try it out...so I set it up in the studio and plunked a small 6X8 panel on it and off I went. I tried this little scene from a photograph I had. Problem 1....not very good light in the studio unless I'm painting on my big easel that has extra lighting on it. Problem 2....where am I going to set my brushes? I usually have 4 or 5 brushes going at a time when painting and there is plenty of room to balance them all on the big studio easel but not on a French easel. I need to make a small brush holder that I can clip on easily.
The only other problem I had was the panel I was painting on had some lousy canvas mounted to it. I made that little panel so maybe it was a piece of scrap canvas I used because the other panels I made work just fine. The finish shows a lot of the canvas texture but at this small size it is obnoxious in the final photo. It works ok IRL but in the photo it sort of sucked.

The study took about an hour to do minus all the searching for a spot to set my brushes on. Now to make that brush holder......

New Frames Arrived!

Actually, it isn't that big of a moment. My order of new frames arrived. These are to help out for the busy month of November 2009. In that one month I will be participating in the Artist Studio Tour here in the Santa Ynez Valley. That has become a very good event for me. I get to meet many of the people who buy my work and many that don't. Many of the people have lots to say about the art, framing, painting and interesting stories too. We put out food and drink and it is really like a gathering of people all interested in art. Very fun, very laid back and the sale or two sure doesn't hurt. The event is put on by the Wildling Art Museum in Los Olivos.

November will also bring the Faulkner Winery Fall Art Invitational which I will be participating in. It is a 2 day plein air painting event and the winery will be having wine tasting galore....more to come on both of those events.

I will also be the Featured Artist for my local Guild, The Artist Guild of the Santa Ynez Valley. We show our work at Gallery Los Olivos in Los Olivos California. The gallery has a Guild section and my work will be featured on one of the walls there for the entire month of November. I am not an artist member of Gallery Los Olivos anymore, I am showing my work there in the Guild Featured Artist show for November.
...by the way, Gallery Los Olivos has some really great artists in there and if you are ever in Los Olivos you have to go in there and check out their work. I know most of these artists and they are a great bunch of people.

Gallery Los Olivos

2920 Grand Ave, Los Olivos, California

Phone-805-688-7517

If you find yourself in the sleepy little town of Los Olivos in November please stop by Gallery Los Olivos to see a nice collection of my work. There will be many small pieces that will be affordable and make great Christmas gifts!

Give the Gift of Original Art this year!!

Santa Ynez...Evening Light

"Evening Across Santa Ynez"

12" X 24" Oil on Canvas
I love the last light hitting the mountains. It always gives off this wonderful reddish glow up here in the Santa Ynez Valley. If you are around earlier and are just a bit away from the mountains they have this fantastic light blue color...drives me crazy. I'm from Pasadena and that's a more desert environment than here...lower elevation of course. as I was growing up down there the San Gabriel mountains had the same wonderful pinkish-red color...shifting to violet as the light grew dimmer. I love the San Gabriels...harder than heck to paint though.
Anyway....this was the view one night from the eastern part of town in Santa Ynez looking towards the south side of the valley. I was after that pink glow and nice shadows.
a detail of the painting.....

While at the BBQ....

" Calkins Road Vineyard"

12" X 16" Oil on Masonite panel.

Linda and I went to a BBQ at a friends house over on Calkins Road just north of the sleepy town of Los Olivos. Their house is actually a cutting horse ranch and while we waited for the charcoal to fire up I grabbed my camera and strolled the grounds looking for reference material. Not oddly enough or this area there was a vineyard next door to the ranch so I walked over and started snapping away. They had this old wood shed at the end of the rows so I decided to paint an angle with the shed in it since I hardly do structures.
This is the result of that BBQ spare time.

Moon Over Kansas

" Moonrise Over Kansas"

12" x 24" Oil on Canvas

OK...I can't sit and paint vineyards non stop. I've been wanting to paint this scene of a field of Brome hay on the farm next to where my Army reunion was at. The farm is owned by a lady who is an Artist. She's built a small studio on the property with plans to open her own studio there down the line. The studio looks like an old cabin nestled under some huge trees...very cool looking but at this moment very hard to find because she does'nt really have a road leading to it, more like a dirt trail and it's overgrown now from the hay. The next time I go out there I hope to meet her.
This scene is looking away from the cabin towards another farm next to hers. The sun was setting and the moon was on the rise. The moon looked so small compared to the massive sky it was floating in. This is type of painting is totally one of just enjoying the moment, the moonrise, the light...a very tranquil moment. One thing about Kansas...it really slows a person down and gets you in tune with things you only glance at record speed here in CA. In Kansas there was plenty of time to sit and watch a sunset with all of it's changing colors, the clouds floating by and really enjoy the show. I suppose that's what we do on vacation. I did that every night for 5 days and haven't' had the time to do it once since I've been back home. I suppose that was the enticement to paint this one, to see that sky again.

Vineyard, Lucas and Lewellen

" Lucas & Lewellen Vineyard"

12" X 24" Oil on Canvas

This vineyard is right up the highway from where I live. I don't know how many times I've driven by with my camera pointed out of the passenger window snapping away trying to get a good reference photo. I've captured this scene a few times with the camera anddecided to go ahead and paint it today. I started to do it Alla Prima but when it was most of the way finished I had to stop. We are having a heat wave here and this studio of mine is a converted garage but it still gets really hot in here by midday. I finished it off later this afternoon when it began to cool down. A little different from my previous vineyard painting.

A New Gallery

I've been wanting to put this on here for a while now. I was approached by a gallery a while back but wanted to wait until things were more definite before posting it. My work is now officially being represented by Galerie Gabrie in Pasadena, Ca. This gallery has been in business for years and represents some wonderful artists. The owners are some very nice people and very serious about the art they offer from their gallery. At our last meeting I left a couple of paintings with them but more will go down there soon. If you are in the Pasadena area please stop by to visit the gallery and see the great art they have.

Galerie Gabrie

597 E. Green St. Pasadena, CA 91107

Phone : 626-577-1223

Vineyard Alla Prima

"Kalyra Eve"

12 X 24 Oil on Canvas
I'm going to do a Plein Air show at the Faulkner vineyard in Temecula. The Faulkner Winery Fall Art Invitational is on November 7 & 8. ( click here for info on that...http://www.faulknerwinery.com )

I'll be painting both days in their vineyards along with many very, very good artists. If you can make it please stop by...it is their Barrel Tasting Festival during harvest time down there.



To brush up on that type of painting I will go do some plein air pieces locally at our vineyards. Before that though I decided to do a few Alla Prima pieces to work some things out and get my speed up to snuff (Alla Prima - to do a painting in one sitting). This painting is the first of those and was done this morning in about 2 hours. It is 12"x24" oil on canvas. Not blazing speed but I'll get a little quicker before November. I'll post the upcoming alla prima pieces and plein air pieces as they roll off the easel...by the way, I finally bought a French easel to try out. Looks pretty cool and after rubbing on more wood conditioner it looks even cooler!