The trees are in bloom in San Francisco! I think we had a false Spring, lots of warm weather the past few weeks, but the rains have returned. I went to Stowe Lake again in Golden Gate Park with the intention of painting the Cherry blossoms and the Golden Gate Peace Pavilion, a building I’ve … Read more
I like to paint cityscapes to practice learning to abstract scenes and focus on big shapes. This was one such exercise. There are just a couple of big shapes and values here: the sky, distant hills, buildings in light and the trees. Once I blocked in the buildings, I added lines here and there to … Read more
I’ve painted the same spot “en plein air” several times, so I’ve now begun to tackle some larger paintings in the studio. This isn’t essential, but I think it helps. Bird Rock from Rodeo Beach, Oil on Linen, 12×16 SOLD I took snap shots of the painting in progress to show you my start-to-finish process. … Read more
The weather in the Bay Area continues to be fantastic, although with all sunshine and no rain, we’ll pay for it this summer with drought. I was able to meet John Deckert (here’s his post for the day), who–as a local–was able to find me in this out of the way spot. Brent Jensen wasn’t … Read more
I was able to complete two paintings yesterday at Rodeo Beach, a new favorite painting spot in Marin County. I’m going out again today with Brent Jensen. The weather is even better than yesterday! Sorry to those artists reading this in the cold in the rest of country 🙁 Bird Rock, Oil on Linen, 8×10 … Read more
I painted the both works below on Sunday–the first plein air, the second in my studio. I suppose it’s fair to say it would be difficult for anyone to identify these as coming from the same artist. This is part of my “split personality”: In the studio, I find it easy to be more inventive … Read more
I took snap shots of this painting in progress, and stitched them together to make a YouTube video (using iPhoto and iMovie). These are useful to others interested in my process, but they’re also good reference for me. I often times over-work a painting. I think perhaps it may have made sense to stop this … Read more
Yesterday was an absolutely perfect day to paint. The light could not have been clearer. It was an orange-yellow, which made the most perfect blue-violet shadows (shadow colors are generally complementary to the color of light). This is the type of light/shadow that clearly inspired the French impressionists. In fact, while painting, I was reminded … Read more
The small town of Ojai is (pronounced /?o?ha?/) is a city in Ventura County, California. The city was founded as Nordhoff, until the time leading up to World War I, when anti-German sentiment was high. Ojai is a Chumash word meaning “Valley of the Moon”. It should be called “Valley of the Stars”, because Ojai … Read more
Just a reminder, my 1/2 price Holiday Sale is ending January 5th. There are more than 100 works available in my online store currently, starting as low as $50, free shipping! This is another study of clouds. I’m working on increasing the volume/weight of clouds, trying to render them much as you would a still … Read more