Crocker Auction

Etude, 8 x 6 inches, oil on linen

I am so "not with it" this year when it comes to the business of art. I had to put everything on hold for the past several months, and I find I'm not even doing the small promotional things that should be automatic, the little things that don't even take any effort. Completely unprofessional.

It's easy to blame the economy (although that's no excuse) but I know that's not the case for me. It's my current environment at home. It's been rather chaotic for a while now and I can't focus on my tasks. I envy multi-taskers!

Anyway, I am in the process of trying to simplify my life once again so that I can evenutally concentrate on my work. I decided that there's no other way but to just take care of one thing at a time and not add on new commitments. Fortunately, I rather like each of the tasks and commitments that I have on my long list, so it isn't torturous, but just the fact that I can only do little bit of anything at a time is frustrating.

One of these commitments is the annual Crocker Museum Auction. Last year, my painting got a lot of action and did extremely well. This year's auction is happening next weekend (?) with a big fancy gala dinner. I won't be attending that, but I did go to the preview party yesterday. I have a good size landscape painting in the auction, of which I had a photo but now the file's messed up. Sorry I can't share the image with you.

The above painting is the second piece I have in the Crocker auction, and it's a separate part of the same event. The small works are sold in a silent auction and proceeds go to the museum's new expansion project.

It seemed that the preview party was not as well attended as last year - probably a sign of the times. But it was still fun and abuzz with enthusiasm. I saw a lot of my friends there, met some new collectors and artists, and generally had a nice time. I do enjoy this kind of networking. Or maybe it was the wine!

So that's one more thing off my list. Next up is my Tahoe workshop. I'm getting pretty excited about this. I have a few new ideas I'd like to try. Every time I do a workshop, I try to make improvements in the material I'm presenting. Or how I am presenting them. I would hate to feel like my workshops have become a routine. That would be really boring for me.

Well, that was a whole lot of rambling about nothing, wasn't it. I guess that's what happens when I lack focus. OK, back to ...work?

The Next Demo Booklet

I'm working on a new demo booklet for my next workshop, which will take place up in Lake Tahoe next month.

I like the idea of including these full color demo books as a part of my plein air workshops. I make a new book every time I do a workshop, because I have repeat students and I don't want to give them the same old thing each time. Besides, it keeps me on my toes and it's fun to do demos on new subject matter, too.

Because we will be up in Tahoe, I wanted to paint something from the area; making sure it's relevant. The workshop isn't going to be specifically on how to paint water, but I'm sure we'll have plenty of opportunities to explore that aspect of the landscape.





The booklet isn't about water either. It's more of a general process from start to finish, with a bit of an emphasis on the start of the painting, and also tips on integrating figures into a landscape painting (there are a couple of figures near the right edge of the painting).

As I said, I am making this booklet specifically for my upcoming workshop. As with Almost Spring, I may make it available to everyone later, but I haven't decided on that yet. I have to see the final product first so I'm not making any promises :-)

If you're new to my blog and are interested in the previous booklet, please check out this post.
And you can purchase it here.

Color Coordinated Parking Spot

Matching Umbrellas, 9 x 12 inches, oil on linen

I've known people who like to wear clothes that "go with" their cars. I wonder if they get excited when they find a parking spot that also match their cars? It made me stop and take a photo.

My plein-air mobile is a black Toyota 4Runner, and it's dirty and messy and has paint smudges on the interior. My clothes definitely match my car.

Coupla Oldies

Look what I found in my old hard drive! These are several years old. Did I mention I was an illustrator before? Actually, my illustrations looked nothing like this. For the most part, I did gritty, newsy, gloomy-doomy photo collage thing for New York Times, Washington Post, Rolling Stone, SI... and moody book jackets for moody novels.

Between deadlines, I was trying to develop a separate portfolio for the children's book market, and that's what these are from. I never got around to finishing the portfolio because I got too involved in painting. But one of these days, I'd like to go back and finish these and may be do a few children's books. It's just seems like something I want to do for my kids, ya know? Although by the time I get around to it they'd be grown ups - haha.




Both of these are oils on illustration board, about 18 x 18 inches. The cat is a recurring character in my sketchbook - he's actually Mooner, my faithful sidekick for 18 years who went to kitty heaven last year. But he lives on in these paintings :-)

The Olive Grove - Almost Finished

I think this big painting is nearing completion. I've been adjusting edges and adding more definitive detail strokes here and there. I keep having to remind myself that it's an Impressionist painting. If I let my mind wonder I start rendering the forms too much and it gets too realistic, ruining the overall mood. I step back every few minutes, notice where I went too realistic, scrape that area, and paint over again. I've repeating that process endlessly, it seems.

Doing this painting has helped me with my other pieces enormously. Specifically with the cityscapes where accurate drawing always gets in the way of expression, I've been able to step out of the realism box with greater success lately, and that's all due to the relentless need to consider the abstract aspect of each and every stroke on the big painting.

So what now? More adjustments. The darkest darks look too spotty in this photo, but that's because it's wet. When dry, I'm betting that it'll lighten up a bit and will not be so patchy looking. I am going to add more complementary notes in sea of blue green, and integrate some of the upper trunk edges into the surrounding shapes. May be a few more grassy patches in the foreground.

I think that'll do it!

Two Steps Forward, Three Steps Back

Untitled - WIP 20 x 16 inches, oil on linen

I've been working on a bunch of projects, but I haven't much to show for it. I'm just spinnin' my wheels, is what I'm doin'!

The top image is a cityscape I'm working on for my fall show. I'm working toward a "homerun shot" of the City; a big, panoramic atmospheric thing. But I don't want to do that without some studies first, so this is just one of them. As usual, I'm starting small and working larger as I get more acquainted with the handling of various visual problems.

On this particular piece, I'm interested in high key shadows. Specifically, I want to see how far I can push the violet in the shadows before it starts looking... too pretty. I want to stay with the old looking muted palette for the most part, but keying up the shadows tempts me to push the saturation also. I don't want a "colorful" painting, but I want a sense of hazy sunny day. I'm looking for a balancing point.

This painting is still wet, but once it's dry, I am adding a bunch of telephone wires running across the street. Afterall, it is San Francisco.


Now for yet another set back. I don't know if I'm just getting clumsy with age, or I pissed off an art god for some reason, but I just can't seem to avoid stupid and costly mistakes lately. See, I did a larger canvas of the St. Paul Hotel painting, right? Took me several weeks to do this 18 x 36 and I finally finished it. I had it resting on the floor, against my easel. I wanted to compare it to my earlier, smaller version (12 x 24) side by side, so I grabbed the smaller piece, which is on a 1/4 inch panel. The panel promptly slipped out of my hand, bounced off the cement floor, and the corner of it went right through the finished large piece.

Unf*ckingbelievable.

I can of course patch it, but I really can't sell a patched painting, so... what. 20 or 30 hours of work down the drain in a blink of an eye. It just made me sick, yaknowwhati'msayin? I just threw my hands in the air and left the studio for a few days.

I'm redoing the painting. I actually wanted to do another version (a more muted palette) anyway, so the incident kind of forced me to get that going, which is good. But now I have to paint faster and faster or I won't have enough pieces for my show! Ugh.

On Location

It's been chilly and wet lately, so my paintings are having a hard time drying. Which means I don't have anything new to share on my this here blog, so I thought I'd dig up some "on location" shots. Not surprisingly , I found very few shots of me, but I also found some of my friends with whom I paint from time to time. I've linked their names to their websites, so you can go check out some of their beautiful work. You may see some work done on same locations. You may even see some paintings of the same motifs. I think it's really interesting to see how each artist handles the same motif differently, don't you?

Above pic is of me painting on the sidewalk in the town of Carmel. Lots of tourists in that town, which makes for an interesting challenge, because you often have to paint and talk at the same time. You get questions like, "What are you doing? Painting?"




This is me working on the bluffs of the American River. I live walking distance from this spot....not that I ever walk here.



Not all spectators are people. These guys are noisy critics, too. As you can see, this is a different easel than the one in the first shots. This one is an Open Box M. A very compact and handy system. Not cheap though. I like it, but I haven't used it much lately because I've outgrown the size (10 x 12) and haven't been able to bring myself to shell out the dough to buy a bigger one.

At the bottom of the picture, you see just the top of a wooden box? That's a 9 x 12 panel carrier by Easy-L.


Bryan Taylor, Paul Kratter, and Kevin Courter trying not to get run over by cars. A bunch of us were painting here and the owner came out and shooed us away. We weren't on her property, but she didn't like us "stealing the image" of her farm. Go figure.




Tim Horn painting the barn.



Terri Ford. Just off of Oakville Grade in Napa. Some of us worked, the rest sat around and had a beer. Guess which camp I was in?




Rob Sandidge painting in Telluride. An SUV with a hatchback is an integral part of many a plein-air painter's gear. Besides hauling stuff, and going off road, it provides shelter from rain and sun. Rob's easel is a funky Russian thing. I think he got it in Russia.





Sometimes you can't drive to your destination so you rely on other means of transportation. This is Ray and Peggi kayaking tandem on the Cosumnes River. Actually, we weren't painting this day. Just scouting and shooting reference photos.


Randy Sexton. Same day. I thought it'd be cool to have a custom fit pochade box on one of these kayaks, but I dunno. Maybe the boat would move too much. Maybe that wouldn't be so bad... at least you wouldn't get too tight with your painting!





Up in the Sierras. Kevin Courter, Greg LaRock, and Clark Mitchell analyzing the light ...or may be just waiting for dinner. Probably both.





Bill Cone sketching. Standing to the left is Paul Kratter.



Here's Paul again, at the crack of dawn. Chilly but worth it. I mean look at this view!?



At times, we have to risk our lives for our art. Wading through icy glacier water with 35 lbs strapped to our backs? No problem. We do this, like, every day. This is Clark Mitchell and Kim Lordier. They both paint in pastels. I wonder if their gear is heavier than us oil painters?



Sharon Calahan on the left, Kim on the right. Gorgeous views of Lake Ediza up in the Sierras. Their paintings turned out fantastic, too.




Me again. On the shores of Lake Natoma. This year, I'm not going anywhere for plein air events - didn't apply to any of them. Kind of a bummer, but hey, nothin I can do about it now because all the deadlines are past. I am looking forward to going up to Tahoe in about a month to do a three day workshop, though. It should be glorious in June!