Elverhoj Show

Art From The Groves

I have a couple of paintings that were juried into the Elverhoj Museum of History & Art here in Solvang, CA. I feel pretty good about that because getting into any show is good. I know many of the artists in the show so it will be nice to be together and talk shop. One of my paintings is a studio piece and the other is a plein air piece done last Winter along the olive groves below the mission.
Sales have been practically non existant for me in this economy, and yes, the economy still sucks, so the occasional show is something to look forward to. I like shows...it's fun to see your peers and meet new painters....see the talent out there. Shows are good for inspiration. As a person it is great to see really fantastic art but as an artist it really inspires you to do better work. I've always been honest about my work and when I see something else painted better it makes me want to paint better so shows are a good way to push your(my)self.

Teaching yourself to paint....I hate that term because nobody really teaches themselves to paint. Books, the internet, art teachers, seeing other painters works....it all effects us even if some of us want people to think they were some naturally gifted miracle that discovered painting all alone. Baloney. If you want to learn to paint you turn into a sponge and soak everydrop of inspiration in no matter where it comes from. Thanks to nature what you take in will become your own vision and have your own look unless you're trying to go after some other artists style and you don't want to do that. Be who you are....even in art.

Anyway, if you are around Solvang on June 14 between 4-6 pm come by the show reception. The rest of the show runs June 14 - September 28, 2014. The Elverhoj is located at 1624 Elverhoy Way in beautiful down town Solvang, the land of Danish bakeries and wine tasting rooms !    

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.  

Refugio Road Alfalfa Field

"Alfalfa Field"

12" X 16" Oil on Panel

There is something about farm fields that just draw the eye in. I guess it's just the immense size and geometric patterns they can have...linear draws to the eye. This field is about 10 minutes drive over in Santa Ynez enjoying late afternoon sun...the cut alfalfa just drying away. In case you're not a farmer, they cut the alfalfa when it's ready but freshly cut alfalfa is too rich with water in it so it has to dry laying in the field in rows like this...then it's turned over to dry the other side. After that it will be scooped up by the baling machine and then stacked to further dry and store until it's sold or eaten.
I'd just like the drive the machines they use to do all of this because they look so cool. I'm sure it's hot weather doing all of this too. In Oklahoma in 1976 they payed you a nickel a bale to lift the bales onto flatbed trucks....it's all done by machine now.

Summer Light

My reference photo

If I had about 10 sets of arms I could paint all day long paintings inspired by the area I live at, the Santa Ynez valley. Late afternoon light is the best I think and many of my paintings have come from that time of day. Seeing the bluish/purple mountains with their pink highlights from the setting sun was enough inspiration for me to paint this scene. I was driving down the road and had my camera so I took some reference photos. I didn't want the entire image, but maybe one like that will happen, so I located a nice spot in the photo and away I painted.

I am out of larger canvases at the moment so I did this one smaller at 12"x16"...should have gone larger though. Maybe I'll use this later as the study for a larger painting.

"Summer Light"

12"x16" Oil on canvas covered panel

....and a detail image from the painting:

 

 

Mission Bluffs

"Bluffs at Mission Santa Inez"

16x20 Oil on Canvas covered panel

Paintings that are inspired by our local mission, Santa Inez, are always fun to do. This painting was inspired once again by the bluffs next to the mission that overlook the entire eastern part of out valley. I've hiked many times up and down the bluffs. Below the bluffs is a large filed used for planting. Right now they have olive trees growing in that field and once they are established it is going to look great. This view looks southwest towards the santa ynez mountain range that borders to southern end of the valley...on the otherside is the Pacific Ocean about 600 feet lower than here.

 

This view is looking the other way, to the north. I was standing on the trail you see in the painting. I've painted from this same spot too overlooking the valley. It's nice and quiet here.

Coast Guard Painting for 2014

"AMLEP Boarding Mission"

18" x 24" Oil on Canvas

A couple of weeks ago I was notified that my painting "AMLEP Boarding Mission" had been juried into the 2014 Coast Guard Art Collection. This painting makes for my 8th painting into the Coast Guard art collection and I'm pretty proud of that. Long after I am gone I'm hoping these paintings will still be in the collection and shuffled about the country being seen in various shows or maybe even hanging in some government office. Leaving something behind that my two daughters would be proud of and remind them of me was my original point in becoming a painter in the first place. I'm on my way to doing just that. I'm hoping for even better paintings to be left behind to really show them what their Dad was capable of doing.
Being a member of COGAP, Coast Guard Art Program, has been a lot of fun so far. It has also been my way of helping to support the troops that serve our country. These paintings in the collection are sent all over the country to be displayed in shows that show the mission of the Coast Guard and maybe will inspire some to one day volunteer to serve. I'm happy to be a part of that.      

Morro Rock Surf

I remembered to take some work in progress shots with this painting. This is titled Morro Rock Surf but shows nothing of Morro Rock which majestically juts out of the waters edge in Morro Bay. The title just sounds better than Morro Rock Jetty Surf...and I wasn't that far out on the jetty. Morro Bay gets some huge surf so no messing around out there for me.

Here's the start. Not much of a sketch but that's not needed much in painting...it's all done on the fly and with color.

Painting in the base colors of the rocks and water. I try to do 2 things here...get it as close to what I'm looking for and to fill up the canvas fast so it seems like you are making progress, haha. You are painting over these base colors so the sooner they are in the sooner I can begin the "real" painting.  

Adding detail to the rocks while the water sets up a bit. I don't like working wet on wet so I will move around to let areas get as tacky as they can.

 Adding the water detail and shaded foam of the wave. This is the beginning of dialing it all in which really is more of the work. As this stage progresses things get altered and changed around quite a bit to get the finish I want. In looking at the final image you can see how many changes were made from this stage. 

 

The final painting. In the upper stage you can see how the rocks vary in color. In my final version I went back over some of them to tie them in more with a tan/reddish tint leaving only foreground rocks grey. The last two marine paintings were primarily blue colors so for this one I wanted something different...reddish grey water, tan rocks with a reddish tint and an overall lighter value to the painting. 

"Morro Bay Surf"

12" X 16" Oil on Panel

 

 

Work Work Work..on the website

            Late last night I went to check something on my website and realised I was way behind in keeping it updated. So I started updating the pages of the website....what a chore that has become. I built it and maintain it but it is way larger than when I first built it 18 or so years ago. It's a beast!
           My website is divided into two galleries, pen & ink and painting galleries. The painting gallery is keeping me plenty busy when it comes to updating pages, adding new paintings etc. I spent most of today fixing glitches on pages and adding 8 more pages for new paintings. I still have other work that needs to get posted there but that's going to have to wait.

The ftp program I use to load pages online sometimes works slow. I was having a boatload of problems with my computer too the last few months. A slow computer and an iffy internet connection is no fun. I got a cool Christmas present from Linda that I was begging for, a Toshiba 3 terrabyte desktop harddrive ($80-90). I moved almost all of my images and all of my music files onto that which made my computer speed back up and work better...gigabytes and gigabytes of photos/music were moved over to that puppy but because it holds so much it hardly put a dent on it's storage capacity. I also made a complete backup of my computer on it too. I think I've used about 1/10th of it's disk space. I love that little black box on my desk. For the bad internet connection I bought a Netgear WiFi Range Extender ($60.). Plugs into any wall outlet halfway between my computer and our router and bam...a way better signal here. I went from a connection of around 20-30 on a good day to 80-90 now....much faster connection. Life is good. If you store a lot of image files, like most artists, having more storage helps a lot.

           

We Move On.....

Welcome To 2014 My Friends

Today is Jan 2, 2014. I'm glad you are here and wish you and your family the best the New Year that truly deserve. I hopefully will continue down the twisty road of art and if things go right I should be a better artist by the end of the year, if you are a painter the same should apply to you if you work at it...nothing is free except doing nothing, that doesn't cost anything but you get what you pay for. We continue to pursue being better painters in 2014.

I couldn't paint yesterday because of the holiday. I even went to bed at 11:30 but because of that I was up at a dark 4:45. I made coffee and headed for the studio. I had planned on starting work on a new painting I have in mind as a good way to start out the year but instead I decided to go back at one I had painter in early 2013 but over the year had grown less and less happy with the mountain colors. In the original painting the mountains were painted a more violet color. I've done that before but for some reason in this painting the violet was just too intense. To me the painting looked like 3 horizontal stripes moving across the painting. I know the compositional move to fix that and in future paintings will do just that. For this painting, adjusting that color of the mountains will do for now.

"Valley Evening"

12" x 16" Oil on panel

 

Now it feels better to me. I like the atmosphere in this painting. A few birds in there too which is the easiest way I can think to add some life to the scene. I'm still no big fan of including people in landscapes....they just draw too much attention. I know a lot of painters would disagree but that's ok. They can paint their own paintings.

My trees are always slowly evolving as I learn to paint them more and more. Each painting is another race, another lesson, another test of how much better you can paint compared to the last painting. Of course, how you see your progress and how fast they happen are variables all of us painters have to deal with as we learn.

 

 

Happy New Year...and Good Riddance 2013

This will be my last blog post for the year 2013. I've decided without a doubt 2013 has been yet another sucky year to add to the last few years. Lets see....rock & roll had some great years, the 50's, 60's, 70's even the 80's were all good for music. The 90's were the declining years of rock & roll and 2000-2010, well, there just was no rock & roll. Rap, white kids trying to rap, female singers spewing out vocal gymmnastics or using the voice of a 12 year old....all of that since 2000 continuing up to date. I try and keep myself in check and not let myself become "an old person who doesn't understand the music of our youth today" but honestly, turn your radio on and decide for yourself. Classic Rock has become the last bastion of rock & roll as we knew it but how many times can you listen to the Eagles singing Hotel California or Walk This Way by Aerosmith. The only saving grace to music is that a computer allows you to hunt down all of the B-sides you like...thank you "for not getting it" Xerox.  

In the last installment of Indiana Jones there is a line that goes something like this "Indy, it appears that we have reached a time where Life stops giving and starts taking". I've lost my Dad and youngest sister. Friends I know have lost people too. An old school friend of mine since the 7th grade is now going through treatments for cancer...that used to be something old people got. The worst part of growing older has nothing to do with yourself, it has everything to do with those around you that you love. A good goal for 2014 would be to learn to keep my head up in spite of the things to come. 

Art....I am painting better than I ever have. Better than I can imagine I have the ability to. Go figure. Art is such a bumpy ride. There are times where you make definate progress and other times you seem to be going sideways instead of up. To those of you who paint just hang in there....the "up" will happen. As for sales....did I mention 2013 totally sucked! I'm right there with a lot of you who this economy has effected. Remember...VOTE! The People of this country still call the shots, not the Government....nor the Media. VOTE! 

 

 Hopes for 2014....I hope all of you, including myself, improve in our art. My goal has always been to one day paint something spectacular...something a Master would have painted. You should have this goal too if you paint. Never be satisfied with your work or you'll never even get close to painting something spectacular. I hope our country finds it's way and that's up to you and me. It's important. I know this is an art blog but America, and the state of it, should be in everyones mind. I hope our kids stop killing each other in our schools, I hope the people running around knocking people out for no reason other than to see themselves on video doing it enjoy a long, slow and painful death, I hope every single terrorist does the same.

Lastly, I will try more to do good in 2014. Doing something good for anyone is what life is about. It makes you a better person and makes life a little easier for the other person...so why not. To start the year off on the right foot I will do something good...now. To the first of my Subscribers or Followers who emails me with the promise that they will do something good for someone else I will send you the painting below titled "Above Santa Ynez"...for free. The painting is an oil painting that measures 8"x10" on stretched canvas. All you need to do is buy an 8"x10" frame, put a nail in your wall and you're good to go. You have to be a subscriber or follower of my blog and the first to email me....my thanks for your interest in my art and for you promising to do something nice for someone in 2014.

****To email me go to "About Me", click on Ron Guthrie then click on Email****

Now I've strarted my new year off on the right foot.
UPDATE....The painting has already been snagged up by Monica, the first to email me. So the painting will be on it's way to Atlanta soon...Congratulations Monica!

! Happy New Year !

    

Foxen Canyon Moonrise

"Moonrise Near Foxen Canyon"

16" X 20" Oil on Canvas

 

This painting is one of maybe 3 or 4 that I really feel are the best I've done of capturing what the Santa Ynez valley really looks like. I have it hanging near my computer here and get to see it daily...yep, I like it that much. The painting was one of those milestone paintings you do, a painting that you feel shows some significant growth as an artist. I like this painting so much I used it as the cover of my art book. I'm getting ready to start another painting and have been looking at my work here getting ideas.

I love the sky colors here, not mine, they belong to the valley. I had a period of painting a lot of large sky/low horizon paintings. I can see the draw to artists who paint skies...they are so much fun to paint. Skies can be painted so many ways and direct the rest of the painting. I'm looking back and forth at the actual painting and telling myself I need a better frame on that painting! I think if you kept a painting around long enough you'd reframe at least it 10 times.My advice is sell them quick so you don't go broke buying frames! 

Over 100,000 !

Painting near all of that mustard on the Palos Verde peninsula, CA.

 

I was signing in the post something else and noticed on my stats that I have now officially had over 100,000 visitors to my blog. Imagine if I had recieved 1 dollar from each visitor, hahaha. All the paint and frames I could have bought is staggering. Still, it is quit an accomplishment for this little art blog among the hundreds of thousands of art blogs. 

 

I hope to post better work here in the coming year. It has been a crazy last 2 years, lots of things going on and an economy still dragging artists on the ground...I'm one of them. Hopefully, better art will happen depsite it all.

 

If you are reading this then you are why I post here and share my work and crazy thoughts with you. I'm honored you have taken the time to check out my work and I thank you for doing so.

Thank You!!!

Christmas Card for 2013

This years card was painted yesterday afternoon while waiting for guests to arrive at our house. Linda went out to meet them and as soon as she headed out the door to drive to their hotel I started painting. I finished the painting shortly after they arrived. Alla prima work is fun and this snow scene was pretty easy to paint. The background is really just blurred tones of paint. Then some blurred tones of purple bushes and then rigger brush work foing the branches of the tall plants and smalle trees. All the foreground was just an off-white and then some violet shadows. Lettering was done in photoshop over the finished image.

 

Maybe next year I'll start a painting for a Christmas card and print some to actually mail out. That would be cool but needs to be done ahead of time.

 

So, Merry Christmas to everyone....live by the Golden Rule, love one another, appreciate the things and people around you and enjoy life no matter how hard it can be at times....we only have it for a short time so try your best to enjoy as much of it as possible and let the rest of it not bother you.

 

My best to you and yours!!!!!

Quick Oak Frames

Last year I painted two snowman scenes to give to my daughters to hang in their homes during the Christmas season every year as a way of forcing them to remember their Dad, hahaha. The truble was I did the paintings at the last minute, which is when most ideas pop into my head, and didn't have time to frame them. I gave them to the girls but told them to let me keep them to frame them which took me forever. This week I made frames for them, finally, and they came out pretty nice. Above is the raw oak wood on left that I cut down to what I need on the right. It's just a basic "L" shape. After cutting 4 sections and glueing them together the painting will slide in from behind and stop at the lip you see on the section to the left of that crack in the wood.
Here is what the frame looks like all finished and with one of my paintings inside to test it......

This isn't the frame I'd use for this painting but it shows how the frame works with a painting in it. The dark stained oak works nice with the actual paintings of the snowmen. I think my girls will be happy.....and that's another project that's finally finished!

Coast Guard Painting 2013

AMLEP Boarding

18" X 24" Oil on Canvas

           This is the painting I have done this year to submit to the Coast Guard for consideration to their 2014 Collection. The painting is of an AMLEP boarding of a Senegalese fishing boat. African Maritime LawEnforcement Partnership (AMLEP) missions are joint missions with Africian Navies and US Coast Guard to deter "illicit transnational maritime activity", or for you and me to understand, nab the bad guys.
           I liked this scene which was from a photo taken by Petty Officer 2nd Class Etta Smith. I cropped the area of the photo I liked and worked from that. The ship was longer but I needed to work with a more rectangular format (18x24) and didn't want the ship and inflatable boat too small trying to fit the whole fishing boat in. I cropped what was important and happy with the results. One nice thing about painting fishing boats is getting to work all of the rust and faded paint in. That's fun stuff for an artist.
           I'm also happy with the water in this scene. The sky was pretty overcast, I actually added some blue to it up top but the reality of the photo was an overcast sky. Overcast skies suck for artists in general, remember everything has it's day in the sun too, but for an artist it zaps out strong shadows, bright highlights, more intense color and lowers the mood in my opinion. All of those conditions can make for a terrific painting but I didn't want that here. With the sky as I made it the water surface color works very well. No strong color reflected off of the ship onto the water surface which keeps the eye where it needs to go....on the ship and inflatable, the Coast Guard does have it's parameters so I keep that in mind with work possibly headed their way. This has been submitted so I'm crossing my fingers.          

Foothills Above Santa Barbara

"Foothills Above Santa Barbara...1999"

16"x20" Oil on Canvas

"Foothills Above Santa Barbara...2013"

16"x20" Oil on canvas

I painted the first version of this painting in 1999. I thought I was done at that point. I never varnished it after it had dried because the more I looked at it the more I felt it just didn't feel finished. Late last year I put it back on the easel and made lots of changes. I added the larger trees in the mid ground and totally revamped the foreground. I also added more rocks in the mountains. It sat drying once again but still I felt it was missing something. I decided to go at it once more and make more subtle changes to the foreground  especially the flowers. I touched up the trees with branches and added twigs and smaller branches to areas of the bushes. At this point I'm calling it finished for good because it now feels finished.
The upper photo is very much like the scene actually looked. I wanted those dark shaodws of the mountains and probably overlooked the rather mundane mid and foregrounds of the original scene. What I added and changed was out of my head but I think adds more interest. Switching the point of interest from the mountain shadows to the trees was better for the painting regardless of the accuracy of the scene. I still see what I liked in those dark shadows along the mountains, they now add to the total painting. I think that had I not added the tall trees and just revamped mid and foreground colors, flowers and grasses it might have worked that way too forcusing on the mountains again....hmmm, idea for another painting.   

Surf At Morning

"Surf At Morning"

12" x 16" Oil on Canvas covered MDF Panel

I am again painting coastal rocks in the surf with this painting. I like the flattend foam patterns in the water as well as trying to improve my work on rocks. These rocks had those striated pattenrs in them which gave them that yellow/orange line of color adding interest to the normally dark rocks. I also liked the shadows across the foam on the rocks too. In the actual painting it is easy to see that the color of those shadows is a light violet and against the stark white of the foam in the sunlight it makes for a great contrast.
The brown sandy bottom and churned up sand in the shallow foreground area gave tge water that murky look...almost resembles muddy water...it's a big contrast from the silvery sheen on the top of the water right below the incoming wave. 
One thing I love about painting water, any water, is that at first you are only laying in base colors and it looks horrible. Then you begin to add reflected colors and shadow on top of that and it really is amazing to see it turn into water. The answer to painting good water is reflected color....but it is only going to work well when you paint a good base color. What is the base color? It is usually the color of what is under the water....the bottom, since water is clear, colorless. The deeper the water gets then you begin to lose the light which makes your base color become dark blue, light blue, green etc. You can learn a lot on how to paint water just by looking at a photograph of it. When it's moving it is harder to read but a still photograph makes it easy to dissasemble the parts of the water in your artistic mind. You'll see the base color and then the reflected colors on top of that. Sky, clouds, the far shoreline, docks, boats, rocks, these are your reflected colors. The less the water is disturbed by wave action the more reflected color you will have. 

....a detail of the foreground rocks and water

Resurgence & Ecologist

    I've received my copy of the November/December 2013 issue #281 of Resurgence & Ecologist magazine. This magazine is an English publication that covers ecology, social justice, activism, arts and ethical living. I was approached by the magazine to use an image of one of my paintings to go along with a story written titled "Urban Zoology" by freelance writer Mary Ann Lieser. Mrs. Lieser's story of wildlife seen on her pre-dawn 5 mile walks had won a 2013 Nature Writing contest by the magazine. In the story Lieser describes encounters with grazing deer along her urban Ohio environment so my painting seemed appropriate.
    I stopped my truck to take the reference photo of that deer crossing the road. He froze and just watched me take the photo. Around that turn behind him is Hwy 154 heading into Santa Barbara. We have deer everywhere where I live. They walk into our yard and eat the leaves off of our apple trees, roses, asian pear tree and apricot trees. One time when putting the trash out after dinner I heard this clacking sound and one was hopping (prancing) up our street in front of our driveway. Another time I walked out of the door to the studio and 2 deer stood 6 feet away from me in the driveway. They darted away and I almost fell backward into the door not realising they were deer and not Big Foot...hey, it was almost dark. If you ever get a good look at a deers legs you wouldn't believe how something so thin can lift that animal over a 6 foot fence in a single hop. They really are amazing animals.
Thank you Emma Cocker and the rest at Resurgence & Ecologist Magazine...and nice story Mary Ann Lieser.       

Morning Rocks

"Morning Rocks on the Coast"

12" x 16" Oil on Canvas covered MDF panel

I've been enjoying painting coastal scenes lately. I really like painting the water but painting bluffs and rocks along the shore is such a challenge, a fun challenge. I don't know what it is about rocks but at times they seem to be really hard for me but other times they fall together almost on their own. I'm learning that with rocks "less is more...always". Seems the less finessing of brushwork makes for better rocks. A little knife, some slapping paint in with the side of the brush and bang! Rocks. Whenever I labor over them to make them look "right" they never do. Maybe I'm just expecting too much working like that. When I work the faster slam-bang method I'm happier with my results.

The one thing I did do on these rocks were to play with edge variation...keeping some edges loose and painterly and other edges sharper....some with knife and some with the softer brush edges. I'm happy as a clam with all of that. Fun stuff!

A detail showing some edgework....

Cambria Seascape Demo

Thought I'd post this one as a demo if it worked out in the end....yes, I'm not one to post a demo that goes south, haha. This scene is of an area south of Moonstone Beach, Lampton Cliffs to be exact...the edge of that bluff you see to the top left is actually the beginning of the old Harper Sibley Ranch which is now known as the Rancho Marino.
Off to the demo.....

This is the initial sketch, kept very simple and used as just a guide for where things will go...and that's always negotiable as the painting progresses. 

After the sketch blocking in colors will begin. Took me a while to understand the importance of blocking in colors as a method of painting certain paintings. I only do it with about half of my landscapes I think. For more complicated paintings blocking in seems to be the best way to do it....especially for water. After I took this picture I went back in and readjusted the colors of the water in the foreground...that green tint was too light. I discovered that only by beginning to paint in the other colors over the top of that green tint...sometimes you just can't judge a color without something to reference it by.

After the block in of colors, I call them base colors, I started painting in the details which really is the hard work to the painting. I started with my foreground water, into the background water. then rocks working from the front back. This stage takes the longest time. The previous two steps are done quickly because most of the time on the painting will be spent right here...painting, tweaking, tweaking, tweaking and add too the mileage you will rack up walking to the other side of the studio to take a look from a distance, smile or frown, and back to the easel to tweak some more.

 

Finally, the last stage is making small adjustments to the entire painting until you feel it is done. Each artist has to make that call. When I can't seem to make any more brushstrokes that make sense in making it better I stop. Hopefully at that point Linda won't walk in an say "shouldn't the water be more blue???" Ugh!"

"Cambria Coastline"

20" x 24" 

Oil on canvas