Holiday Sketches

Flaming Sycamore, 12 x 9 inches, oil on linen

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you had a great holiday. I spent my Christmas and New Years with family and friends down in Southern California. A busy and gluttonous week, but I did manage to sneak out a few times to do a little sketching, which helped me to maintain my sanity during this hectic season :-)

I did the top painting and the following one in Eaton Canyon in Pasadena / Arcadia. There were a lot of hikers (trying to burn off the Christmas dinner calories, no doubt) but I was off the trail and nobody bothered me. Very pleasant and relaxing to be just painting trees without worrying about particularly doing a good job. I like how they turned out, nonetheless.

Winter Sycamore, 9 x 12 inches, oil on linen

Although I was only about 50 ft away from the parking lot, it was very quiet and peaceful. I really appreciated the solitude. If I had a stiff cup o' joe with me, it would have been perfect.

Stadium, 12 x 16 inches, oil on linen

Later in the week, my buddy Rob and I went to Elysian Park to paint. Elysian is a huge park overlooking the Dodger Stadium, and the view is absolutely spectacular. It overlooks all of L.A., actually, and pretty much has awesome views in any direction. When I was attending art school in Pasadena, I wasn't at all interested in painting en plein air, so I really had no idea there were places like this. Rob knows all the good painting spots, so I was happy to have him show me around.

The day was clear, and we could almost see all the way to the Pacific Ocean. That's pretty incredible visibility considering this is L.A. I decided to paint the stadium. Because of where the sun was, I could get some hazy atmosphere, and the unique structure allowed me to paint something readily identifiable without fussing with details.

I was fiddling around with thumbnail sketches and got all excited when I stumbled upon this composition. I love that it's abstract and sort of reminiscent of the Bay Area Figurative style. The big empty parking lot gave me a nice passive area to juxtapose against the smaller and more active area. Throw in some dynamic lines and a few notes of color, and voila! A perfect balance between the abstract and the representational. (I use the term perfect very loosely here–just patting myself on the back for a small achievement. Humor me.)

Overlooking Glendale, 16 x 12 inches, oil on linen

After a lunch of meat and beer, we did another painting. Not far from the earlier spot, but facing the other direction. There were many great looking eucalyptus trees there just waiting to be painted, but most of them required my standing in the full sun. Even in December, the California sun can be really bright and hot, so I try to work in the open shade whenever I can.

I found a nice shady spot under a giant oak tree, and painted this eucalyptus. As with the earlier painting, I was trying to work loosely, looking for an abstract painting in the representational.

Patio, 9 x 12 inches, oil on linen

We stayed with our relatives in Pasadena, and this is their patio. The fact is, you don't have to go far to find something to paint. It's nice to get away sometimes, but if I'm just looking for something to paint, I don't need to load the car and drive around looking for a perfect composition. Sometimes it's right under your nose – not that I consider this a perfect composition, but you know what I mean.

Here I am painting on the sidewalk in front of their house.

Here's the painting on my Open Box M. This is my "small" plein air set up. With three passengers, luggage, Christmas gifts and baby gear, I had to limit what I could pack in my 4Runner. I almost didn't have room for my panel carrier. I think I'm going to figure out a way to lighten my load even more this year. (Including my gut, which increased in size considerably this year)

Pasadena House, 9 x 12 inches, oil on linen

Here's the sketch. I need to spend a little bit more time cleaning up some edges, but I'm pretty happy with it.

Here's to an artful new year!!