August 24th, 2010

I turn 27 and hit the road! Took the 101 up Crescent City, it gets extremely scenic from Eureka to Crescent City. I highly recommend the drive if you haven’t done it. It’s about 6 hours from here to there, but it’s nice.

A turnout just south of Crescent City:

I then head up 199 to Grant’s Pass to get to Oregon.  Beautiful area I had never seen before.  I really want to go back to Six Rivers(the forest) someday.

August 25th, 2010

A straight shot up to Portland from Grant’s Pass on the 1-5. Gotta say, I’m pretty impressed with the amount of overpasses, hehe. Really neat looking city with all the bridges. I went to the Portland Art Museum. It was decent, had some good landscapes. I was bummed about the ban on all photography (what gives??) but I was able to sneak in a few without them saying anything.

Some 17th Century Painter:

A close-up of a Frank Vincent Dumond:

After visiting the museum I headed east down the 84 aka the Columbia Gorge.  For an interstate highway, my god is it gorgeous.  One of the best drives I think you can do in the US.  I didn’t get many pictures of it though, and the ones I did don’t do it justice, but here’s one for the hell of it:

I make it to the town of Hood River. It is in the ideal spot as far as the scenery goes. A 20-mile radius in any direction will take you to incredible vistas and anything outdoorsy you can want to do. They put us painters up in a couple of townhouses for the event, 5 to a house. It worked out comfortably. I meet the other painters in my house: (Greg Caudell, Mike Kowalski, Mike Orwick, and Mark Larsen. Mark got there at the same time I did. We got to talking, then he tells me of a cool vista point to paint from. “Wanna paint??” Sure!!

This piece was actually done over 2 days.  The first day was laying it down.  I spent about an hour and a half a day on it.

August 26th, 2010

Opening day!  We meet at the Gorge White House, just a few miles south of town.  Everyone seems to know each other already, but everyone is super nice.  I thought I’d be the one out-of-towner for some reason, but there are a few people all the way from Alaska, and even Texas.  I did a mediocre painting of Mt. Hood, but I don’t like it enough to put it up on the web.

I went into town to find some cool spots by the river.  I found an awesome viewpoint to paint from in Ruthton Park.  Extremely windy though.

It was not nearly as dark and moody as I depicted it.  I punched up the contrast a lot by bringing the values in the middle ground way down.  I was very much inspired by the old French masters who really pushed the drama with storm clouds and muted palettes.  Another piece I returned to on multiple days.

Before returning to the Gorge White House, I did some sightseeing at Panorama Point.  A lot of people painted here at sunrise, which must have been amazing.  Even with Mt. Hood obscured by clouds, it’s still amazing.

I went back to the farm to paint the garden.  There are a lot of interesting varieties of flowers to paint.  I’m not much of a painter of flowers, I have to admit, but I think I made a decent composition out of this one.

Once the day was done, the painters all got together at the taqueria to eat tacos and discuss places to paint  & Triangle brand oil paints….

August 27th, 2010

The itinerary stated that the Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood was going to be our destination, but we learned that the place was going to be overrun with marathoners or something.  So it ended up being a free day to explore the area.

I crossed the bridge into White Salmon and Bingen.  Cute towns, very much a classic logging town.  I painted this view pretty much as just a warm up.  I didn’t drop this piece, the dirt on it is actually wood shavings that got blown onto it from like a half-kilometer away.

I went up to Trout Lake, about 20 miles north of Hood River.  There is an iconic view of Mt. Adams from the school ground I painted from.

My painting of the mountain:

There was still plenty of painting time so I went back to the bridge and painted this one from Washington looking east.

Another view of Mt. Hood:

August 28th, 2010

We were supposed to go to Springhouse Cellar’s vineyards in Mosier, but it was impossible to find for most of us.  But again, the 20-mile theory pans out and I end up at the Rowena Overlook.  It’s a marvelous view of the Gorge and eastward to the Dalles.

My two paintings of the area. The weather was perfect for the 2.5 hrs I spent on the first one. The wind started to kick up on #2, so it’s not nearly as finished, but I feel like the sense of immediacy comes across better on the 2nd one. It’s a toss up as to which one is better to the viewer.

A beautiful sunset on Mt. Hood to end the day:

August 29th, 2010

Again the itinerary sends everyone to a place where it doesn’t quite work out…. I go to the Maryhill Museum in the town of Maryhill Washinton, east of The Dalles.  It’s amazing how the scenery totally changes about 30 miles east.  It turns into like Nevada or something, it’s weird.  The museum is pretty cool.  It doesn’t have a ton of work, but it does have some interesting work that you might not expect in a place like this.  It has a nice Lord Leighton opposite a giant William McGregor Paxton.  It also has a room dedicated to Richard Lack and this piece by R.H. Ives Gammell, former teacher of Stapleton Kearns as well as a ton of other well-respected artists.

It also has a room full of Rodin sculptures which are incredible to see in one place like this. There’s a glass case full of little studies, as well as sculptures diagramming his process.

Not only is it a quality museum, but it is surrounded by gorgeous views, so gorgeous that I had to set up and paint.

After painting there, I went westward to Horse Thief Lake. Instead of painting the lake (which is quite picturesque) I instead painted a few of the petroglyphs.  Being that they were rocks, I had a fun time painting in a chunkier thicker style that showed more brushwork.  It was fun to paint a picture that was so low-key with just a bit of rim light and the light background.  I think it was one of my favorite paintings of the week.

A bit of the scenery that I did not paint:

August 30th, 2010

Other than touching up paintings I did during the week, no real painting done this week. I really just took it easy and recharged the ol’ batteries for the rest of the week.

August 31th, 2010

I went out to Lost Lake. I picked the absolute worst day to do it though. As soon as I got there it started to drizzle. It’s a nice hike around the lake, and I took a gamble on the rain. There was a 50/50 shot of it either clearing out or raining harder. Guess what happened? Trying to paint in the rain really sucks. I toughed it out for an hour before I got fed up. I feel like I did an alright job considering the circumstance. No photos, there was no way I was risking the camera on this trek.

September 1st, 2010

I went to Sauvie Island, a farm and nature preserve northwest of Portland. It’s a beautiful area. It reminds me of the back road farms of Marin, except with more variation in the foliage.

There were some nice clouds in the beginning of the first painting, but the sky traded nice clouds for nice lighting.

This was the last painting that I did in Oregon, and it’s my favorite one.  It was done in the evening light.  I painted it thicker than usual, and the shadows made a design I like.  I felt like the color combination was good, the trees are convincing and the composition was pleasing enough.  I felt good about it when I finished it.  I can pick out things about it now, but overall I think it’s a good piece.

September 2nd, 2010

I’m in total tourist mode today!  I went out to Beacon Rock to hike up to the summit and check out the 360 views of the gorge.  It was well-worth it though quite tiring.  I will definitely do some paintings of the views I snapped.

I then went out to the Eagle Creek Trail.  It’s an incredibly beautiful hike.  Has to be one of the most beautiful trails I have ever been on.  Had I more time and stamina I would have went further than Punch Bowl Falls but it was getting late and I needed to get to the preview party for the showwwww…. 
 

Some crazy kids trying to muster up courage to jump into the falls:

I sold the dark stormy painting of the gorge at Ruthton Park. I knew I could find somebody who would buy that one, but I didn’t expect it to fly off the wall the way it did… Overall I was very happy with the way my work was received. Had they more money, I believe I would have sold more. From what I’ve heard, my muted, value-oriented palette seems to stand out amongst a lot of the painters there in Oregon, who are more colorful and tends to go towards a chunkier application. There are a lot of fine painters here, and overall probably one of the best plein air shows I’ve been in, at least in terms of quality. Check out my Facebook fan page album for a sample of the paintings which I liked.

Hello all,

I recently completed a new series for a show that will be running at a local tattoo shop. To go with the venue I chose a subject which would fit the place. I like doing things like that; I guess it comes from studying illustration. I do much better with a loose parameter than just telling me to “go nuts.”

I painted my friend, the model and excellent photographer Julia. I wanted to continue the process of the “Hip Hop” series yet in a different genre. The names of the pieces are all of species of roses, to further enforce the theme.

“Tuscany Superb,” 12″x14″, oil on canvas.

“Dupontii,” 18″x24″, oil on canvas.

“Goldyla,” 12″x14″, oil on canvas.

“Perle D’Ore,” 12″x14″, oil on canvas.

“Anastasia,” 12″x14″, oil on canvas.

“Alba Maxima,” 12″x14″, oil on canvas.

“Gray Pearl,” 12″x14″, oil on canvas.

1: Pencil Sketch

After toning the canvas I did a careful sketch of the figure.

2: Underpainting

I then painted the figure to a finish. For most of these figures I finished in 2-3 layers, but this painting only took me one layer.

3: Tattooage and pattern

I first painted the pattern of the background cloth, then the tattoos on her back, then I fused them together by painting into and out of the figure.

4: Glazing

I didn’t glaze all of these, but for ones like this one where I wanted to harmonize everything a bit more or adjust the values I threw an extra layer on it.

The show hangs Saturday August 21, and the official opening reception is September the 4th.  The show will be held at the Buddha’s Palm Tattoo Gallery in Sebastopol, California.  I will be showing along with my friend MJ Lindo and Robert Harris.

View Larger Map

I just dropped the paintings off at the show, and got the flyers… If anyone wants one (or more) send me your address and how many you want, and I’ll mail em out to you…

ps. Thank you all for the comments on CGhub as well! Really appreciated!

I’m going to break down my last week in Alameda the same way I did for the San Clemente plein air event. I had a great time and I met a lot of cool artists and fans of art.

Day One:

They set us up for the event Monday morning with all the packets and maps and such then sent us on our merry way to go paint. I found an interesting blue house with white trim that turned out to be quite popular. I know at least one other person painted it.

(Most of my pictures are going to be on the grainy/blurry side unfortunately.  I took these inside of a dim room…)

I then went over to the southeast coast of the island and painted this piece looking out towards Oakland from a small park.

The day wrapped up with an orientation dinner where all of the artists got together to connect, talk shop and drink plenty of alcohol… Fun times!

Day Two:

The US Navy graciously opened up the aircraft carrier USS Hornet to us painters to work our magic for free.  It’s normally a museum with an admission fee which is totally worth paying.  There are a lot of neat things aboard the ship, including this Avenger WWII Torpedo Bomber.

This particular gal had its wings taken off and propped up for display.  I spent about 2 hours on this piece.

A few cutters from the east coast had arrived and were docked next to the Hornet.  It started getting pretty windy so I probably could have went further with it than I did.

Day Three:

The beginning of the day was spent at the Hearst Art Gallery in St. Mary’s College in Moraga. (Superbly Independent: Early California Paintings by Annie Harmon, Mary DeNeale Morgan and Marion Kavanagh Wachtel)  The show was extremely inspiring.  As a bonus they had a few great pieces of their teacher William Keith.  It was a good show, all 4 artists have a distinct style but had a common thread of Northern California Impressionism that is a nice legacy to enjoy up here.

Even though photography is *technically* not allowed at the show, once I saw someone taking flash photography (eesh) all bets were off, and I snuck a couple nice shots in there…

William Keith:

A Marion Wachtel Oil:

I got back to Alameda and sought out a more natural view that would suit the inspiration I got from the show.  I went to Bay Farm Island and found this view:

I experimented with making the sky a lot darker than I usually do.  It worked to make the ground look more sunlit.  Afterwards I went to Lincoln and Willow and painted this piece of the liquor store on the corner.

After finishing that one I went over to the St. Joseph’s elementary school and caught the late evening light on the building.  I’m not crazy about the color relationships on this one.  I like the values but the color not so much…

There are some drawing mistakes on these that I wish I could correct right now, but hey that’s the nature of plein air painting.  I’ll try to do better next time.

Day Four:

This was the day of the Quick Draw.  We were told we could paint anywhere on Park Street from the bridge to the bay.  While most people found a spot on the street they liked, I chose to paint a scene on the beach.  I woke up in the mornin’ feelin’ like Charles Chapel Judson, so I painted this foggy windswept scene facing back into the city… I edited out the mundane buildings for a simple composition.  This was definitely one of the most successful paintings of the week.

Once we were done sharing our pieces, I went over to the center of town and painted the First Congregational Church.

I thought this one was also pretty good, it’s a fairly simple design once you look at it in terms of light and shadow.  The ratio of the entire piece is about 2/3 shadow 1/3 light.  I use a good recipe for sunlight where you make the light side lighter than you think you see it, and vice versa with the darks, then once you have that set up, paint the reflected light planes a bit lighter and colorful than you think you see them.  What you’ll hear is “Wow that looks so real” and the unintentionally-dreadful “It looks photographic.”  If its from a layperson, just take it as a compliment…  I finished the day with a painting of the Posey Tube which I am still working on.

Day Five:

Friday had no painting.  Instead it was the first day we showed off our best 3 paintings of the week.  I put up the painting of the bomber, the tree with the dappled light, and the blue house.  The results?  I won the Frank Bette Award Honorable Mention (essentially 2nd place) for the bomber, and a sale of the tree painting.

Day Six:

The big day where we strut our stuff and show off all the paintings we can stick on the walls.  Since I can’t stand sitting around and shmoozing with the general public, I set up my painting gear and painted this scene of the wall next to my booth.  I also wanted to try out my brand new batch of Rosemary & Co. Long Flat brushes that everyone is talking about these days, including Richard Schmid and Jeremy Lipking… I painted this with only 3 brushes, all being those mongoose flats.  I love how you can get these extremely unpredictable strokes by twisting the brush around as you stroke, but will come back to its shape every time.  I highly recommend them and am going to try out some of the other styles from that company.  Great stuff.

Overall I had a great time.  There were always a good amount of people making sure the artists were well-taken care of.  Becca Payne, the organizer, genuinely cares about the art and artists participating in the event.

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Been sitting on these drawings for a little while… Haven’t thrown up a Dirty Sunday post in such a long time…

From June 19th through the 26th I participated in the 9th Annual Paint San Clemente event in Southern California. There were a lot of artists participating in the event, since there was no jury, only a pretty steep entry fee. The prize money was enticing though, so it was worth the trip down to SoCal.

Day One:

Quick Draw

There were probably a good 40 artists painting from 2 models in the front lawn of the San Clemente Art Center where the Quick Draw took place. It started off as a cloudy hazy afternoon and by the time the bell was rung, it was a warm sunny day. I took a shot of the painting midway through.

I used the leaves in the foliage around here to create interesting negative shapes around her, and also lead to the focal point. Here is the finished painting:

I received an Honorable Mention award for the painting. I believe I was the only one who got an award for a portrait painting.

Day 2:

No painting that day. I went to the Getty Center to check out the Jean-Leon Gerome exhibition. No photos were allowed, as in any exhibition on loan, so here are some shots of the other things in the museum.

Day 3:

Day 3 started out with a trip to the Huntington Library and Gardens. It was quite the amazing place! The gardens were a delight to explore, and the art collection was fantastic! I took a lot of photos there, and I plan on using a lot of them in future works of art.

The portrait gallery full of Gainsborough’s was breathtaking! I could have just sat in that one room for hours!

Being charged with inspiration, I went out to the first plein air painting of the week. I went up Highway 1, by the Ole Hanson Beach Club. The sun was setting, and I was painting almost directly into the light. I had to wear sunglasses to paint this one. Unfortunately this is the only picture I have of it right now:

Day 3:

I went to the Irvine Museum on Tuesday. It was recommended to me by Alfredo Tofanelli that I check it out maximum inspiration. He was very very right! Amazing early California Impressionists filled this gallery, which was the size of a decent gallery. Looking at how they paint makes me realize how much I need to go to get to their level, because I’m sooooo far away still… The way they vary the hues while keeping the values the same is dazzling. You can’t see it with these meager jpegs. You have to look at them in person…

Beautiful cloud studies by Paul Grimm, an artist I had never seen before…

Elmer Wachtel

One of my favorite paintings there… A must-see-in-person…

Being extremely inspired I went and painted 2 new paintings out there:

I also went back and finished the painting from the day before. I wasn’t satisfied with the refinement of the piece, plus there were some parts that needed detail, like the buildings on the left.

Day 4:

I painted in Malibu Canyon isntead of San Clemente. This wasn’t for the official paint-out, more for the experience of painting out there. There was no place really to park and get any reference of the canyon, so I had to find a trail which was not quite as spectacular. I practiced simplicity in this piece. It took about the same amount of time to do as the first one in after the Irvine Museum visit, even though there are a lot less strokes. I think the color relationships in the foreground like the shadow is the most successful part of this piece.

Day 5:

I ended up starting really late this day. I went to the Pasadena Museum of California Art to check out the California Art Club Gold Medal Show. A lot of very strong work there, even though the overall quality was varied. If you go to their site you can check out the art on display.

This was a rush job. The composition is weak and the trees are too unresolved, but there are some decent things going on the piece. There’s a good sense of atmosphere going on, at least.

Day 6:

I painted a couple of pieces that day. I painted a hotel on the beach which I forgot to get a picture of, but is on display at the San Clemente Art Association Gallery. In between the two paintings, I checked out the Randy Higbee Gallery in Costa Mesa. He has a lot of good frames for very cheap. Go to kingofframe.com if you want to see what he offers. I went back to San Clemente and went up to the hills to capture this scene. I feel like I could have exaggerated the planes a bit more to get a better sense of distance.

Day 7:

I barely got my 2 pieces turned in on time, couldn’t have done it without Al and Carole! After we got our pieces turned in we went out to Dan McCaw’s studio. Dan was gracious enough to spend the whole afternoon showing his work and talking to us about his philosophies on art and creativity, as well as his own lifelong-struggle to find his own voice. His work must be experienced in-person to get the full effect.

Here he is showing off his sketchbooks. They are amazing!

He even treated us to lunch across the street! What a guy! A few members of our party went away with a piece or two from the studio that they purchased. Very cool, very inspiring but in a much different way than the museums were… I felt very fortunate to experience the company of an artist at his level in a casual way and not at a lecture hall. Check his blog out at http://danmccaw.wordpress.com.

We went over to the CAC Gold Medal show because they hadn’t seen it yet. Once we got back to San Clemente, the pieces were done being judged and so were up for display. Pretty solid work overall. Al and Carole both did some awesome pieces. I walked away with the 4th and 2nd place award for the pieces I don’t have good pictures of(figures, right? 4th place was the beach scene). We went out for drinks and delicious dessert afterwards, a perfect way to cap off a great week had by all….

Tonight I am doing something a little different.  I’m posting up a painting of mine which I don’t like and am going to try and explain what I don’t like about it and how I would change it.

This is a painting that I worked on two separate days, 1.5 hours each, approximately.  The thing I like the most about this view is the two clusters of trees opposite of each other.  I don’t much like the foreground mound very much, but I do sort of like the mustard plants in the foreground.

The two main problems I have with the piece are the lack of separation between the middle ground and the background, and the awkward shape shooting off of the cluster of eucalyptus trees in the middle ground.  Also, there is an overall flatness characterized by a lack of atmospheric depth.

Here’s what it looks like after some Photoshoppage:

I added a bluish glaze to the entire background and also added some violet tones to the shadows in the eucalyptus.  It sits that way further back in space. I also darkened the mound and resolved the shadow pattern to make it more 3-dimensional.  I added some orange and violet to the light side of the eucalyptus cluster just to separate them some from the hills in the background.

I didn’t like how the line of the shadow ends in the bottom right corner either so I tweaked that up with the distort tool…

This view has potential, but I will have to find a more interesting foreground to go with the parts that interest me the most before I attempt a proper painting of this view.

A humble tree study I did on the same day.

I’ve got a few oldies and some newies too… This first one was painted in Auburn. It has a pretty cool looking courthouse in the middle of town that I painted as the afternoon was coming to a close…

This second painting I might have posted before, but I have never scanned it, I don’t think.  I painted it last October during my “Fantastic Titanic Art Week” aka Capitol Plein Air Festival.  This was for the Quick Draw event.

I painted this last week at the Sebastopol Monday afternoon painting session.  The lighting there is just horrible, but it kinda forces me to do things I wouldn’t normally do, such as inventing color combos, inventing backgrounds, etc.  It’s made me pretty good at painting a portrait fairly quickly, since I rarely show up on time…

I painted this last week in one of my favorite areas of Santa Rosa.  I like the color.  It was painted at a time I don’t normally paint because the light and color changes so quickly.  What you have to do in this situation is anticipate what is going to come next and adjust your painting accordingly…

I got a couple of these pads of OLD HOLLAND CANVAS PAD (10 SHEETS) 6X8″ which I am loving.  They feel great on your brush and they are a very good surface for quick studies.  I painted this guy in about a half hour.  I did a few more on these which I will post once they dry.

More figure drawings… Hmmm what should I do with all these drawings I’m stacking up?

My newest piece in the “Hip Hop” series… I will be showing a bunch of these in the LYRI-CAL show in Santa Rosa the 22nd of May. They look really good together! I am stoked to show them together.

A few of these landscapes I will be putting these in the Fish Tales Show in Christopher Queen Gallery this Sunday. I know it’s a bit out of the way, but if you are going to the beach or the river that day, why not make a little stop? Get some wine, some cheese, cake and whatnot. Check out the auction, it was a lot of fun last time.

These are some more figure drawing studies that I’ve been doing at the Wednesday night session. I’m planning on doing some video tutorials trying to explain what I do and what I’m thinking when I draw. Figure I can help some people with it.

May 2nd:Christopher Queen Gallery Presents: Fish Tales
May 7th: THE MAJORITY PRESENTS: KALEIDOSCOPE Santa Rosa’s MONTHLY Art Show! every first friday of the month
May 22: Reprezent Clothing Presents LYRI_CAL