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!

Still Life In the Cape Cod Style

Elaine, a landscape student of mine actually inspire this painting last week. She is working very hard in my Friday landscape class trying to achieve a different painting style. She really loves color and is determined to get more color in her landscapes. She has been reading "Painting The Impressionist Landscape" by Lois Griffel which is all about using color to express light. The book promotes the principles and techniques that were developed by American impressionist Charles Hawthorne, founder of the Cape Cod School of Art. She gave me the book to read so that I could help her achieve her new goal. And I did read it here and there but decided if I was going to help her understand these principles maybe I should give it a try. So I created this 12" x 16" oil painting on a linen panel. Sad to report these peonies literally died in the sun for this painting. (Thanks Maylei). This style of painting was not as easy as it looks. It takes a lot of mental planning, underpainting and really being observant about cool and warm light... and yes still working with values. It was a challenge. I'll have to read more and try to do more.

Malibu Creek Reflections

This is the finish of a 12"x 16" oil painting I did as a demonstration for my Friday Landscape Class at Malibu Creek. The week before last we started with a sky that had some fairly big clouds which are my favorite. So alot of what I did in the painting that week I pretty much left it alone. The second week I mostly worked on the lower part of the painting cause the wind was blowing fairly hard. That of course meant that the reflections were extremely subtle. You had to be patience and wait for the calm in order to observe the reflections and then paint them in. Although I really like this composition I was really drawn to this location because of the reflections.

Evening in San Pedro, Memorial Day 2011

It's been a while since I just went out and painted for me. Most of my landscape classes I teach almost always involve trees and building which I enjoy but this subject matter is a little more challenging. So on Memorial Day I thought why not travel over to San Pedro to see what things I could find to paint. I started this painting around 5pm and the light was good. As time went on the light and the color really got exciting. My goal in painting is to have a focus and to try to balance the other areas that are not my focus as peripheral vision. I try to remember to let the viewer participate and not try to explain everything. This painting is a 11"x 14".

Well here we are back at Malibu Creek on yet another foggy Friday morning. I was really trying to capture the feeling of the morning not necessarily trying to do an accurate portrait. I guess you could say I was looking for a little more poetry in the painting. This is 11" x 14" oil painting on an linen panel

Third Bridge at Malibu Lagoon

This was my second time at Malibu Lagoon and there are so many great areas to paint. I decide to do this view as my Friday morning demo with my landscape class. I was trying to explain about the importance of simple composition, shape and value. This little fellow was painted on a 8"x 10" canvas panel.

Malibu Creek Morning

I teach a landscape painting class for Kline Academy every Friday morning somewhere in the Los Angeles area. This oil painting, a 12" x 16" on linen panel, was painted as a demo for my class. 80% of this painting was done on location the rest was finished at home.Generally folks don't like painting on foggy or overcast days but this place was exceptional.