What I did on my summer vacation

Looking East off Highway 6, 11" x 14" oil on linen

Bishop California. What a terrific place to paint and wander. In years past I've always traveled through this sleepy town on my way to Mammoth or other parts North thinking I'm really not missing much. Boy was I wrong. This summer my good painting pal and generous friend Joe Mancuso invited me along for a three day painting trip. Needless to say it was memorable. The good thing was...Joe knows Bishop. When he was a kid Joe and his family spent many summer in the area and because of that we were able to preplanned our painting locations. We visited almost all the painting areas first and decided which would be morning painting and which would be good evening locations. The painting above is one of three pieces I'll be posting. Stay tuned. More to come.

Will Rogers' Blacksmith Barn

Over the past few weeks my Friday landscape class has been painting at Will Rogers' State Park here in LA. The weather has been perfect in so many ways. Rogers' State Park is a good place to paint but like many locations one needs to slooow down and pay attention to the elements in order to find the right composition. I'm not just talking about usual trees and fences. I'm actually looking for the abstract qualities. I'm looking for the verticals and horizontals, big and small shapes, light and shadow, scale and patterns. These are the elements I search for because I've learned these are the keys to creating a good painting. My class and I have scoured these grounds both North and South looking for just the right composition and yet sometimes you overlook the most obvious things. I must have walked by this composition five or six times but never really saw it. You need to look at things from all angles and really slooow down. That was my lesson in this painting.

4th of July Weekend

I thought I would post some paintings I finished over the 4th of July weekend. I like most artist have a ton of unfinished paintings that I keep promising I will finish someday. As someone once said there are many days of the week on the calendar but "someday" is not one of them. So having some time over the 4th I thought OK it time.

When I begin to work on this sort of painting the one thing I notice is that the emotional connection has changed. It now feels a little mechanical. Generally I will only return to a painting if I feel I already have a good start and good reference. My other consideration is to try not over use my reference material. How do I know when I'm finished? I know I'm finished when I feel I've said enough in the painting to keep folks interested but not bored. My goal is to simplified enough information to let the viewers participate. Not all passages in a painting need to be explained. OK enough said.

Starting from the top the paintings are "Desert Bloom" 5x7, "Malibu Creek Bridge", 5x7 and "Still Life Drama" 14x11.

Enjoy!