Fall colors, winter's approach

Just off Highway 395 on the way to Mammoth Lakes a creek with ice at its edges sparkled in the cool, morning sun. Cattle scattered as they heard me approach. The vegetation, in autumn colors, was inviting to the eye, but overgrown. In my painting I cleared out some of the thicket to expose more of the water and distant horizon. I further editorialized using color and shape: rich colors contrasting with muted ones; warm contrasting with cool; flowing shapes contrasting with angular, all of it to express my sense of the place and the planet's power to feed our soul.

Chapel Light

Chapel Light, pastel, 16 x 22

The chapel at St. Jude Hospital in Fullerton, CA is one of 12 painting subjects chosen to describe this fifty-two year old community health care resource. Other scenes depicted include: Maternity, Infusion Center, Mobile Clinic, Critical Care, and Centers for Rehabilitation and Wellness.

Plans are underway for the artwork's public display. Chapel Light will be the first of the St. Jude paintings to appear in an exhibition of my work, beginning November 4, 2009 through January 6, 2010 at Cerritos Library, 18025 Bloomfield Avenue, Cerritos, CA. For more information on this exhibit please contact: 562-916-1389.

More exhibits are planned and these will be listed on my website on the Profile page under Shows.

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Drawing the line; what is and isn't there

This past spring I had the pleasure of reunited with two friends, sisters I've known since junior high school. Cathi Carvalho & Cindy Lucus dropped by my studio and I must say I'm always impressed and intrigued by novices who show a keen technical interest in my work. On a hunch I invited them to go out painting with me and, sure enough, they agreed without hesitation.

So late in the summer we found a free day to drive into the Santa Monica Mountains to paint out of doors (en plein air, if you prefer that artist’s term.) It was a warm, clear day and after setting up three easels next to one another and the other necessary artist's materials, we got down to 'lessons.'

First, I shared some general information, distilling what I could of my thirty-some years of experience into a message useful for my friends, hoping to help them clear some of the first hurdles every beginner must jump. Among the 'basics' we talked about prior to stepping up to paint was the value of sketching.

Drawing, like all art-making, is an exploratory process too valuable to be ignored and rushed past (though too often it is). Not wanting to bore my friends I kept my little 'lecture' short. Then I began a pastel painting to demonstrate how I worked the medium and how they might want to approach their own easels and blank painting surfaces.

The gals jumped right in and I was quite impressed with their determination and good spirits in the face of a challenging unknown. If anything bothered me about the day it was that I should have talked more about sketching, about the rewards of this creative lubricant for the mind's gears. The following day I decided to share an email with Cathi & Cindy to add some thoughts about the process of drawing and painting and including the artwork below to help illustrate my commentary.

Cindy and Cathy agreed to let me share their experience in this blog.

The six small sketches above are not the same subject as the one rendered in the pastel painting below, however the subjects are similar and this similarity helps emphasize the role that line can play in effectively defining form and imparting the artist’s expressive intention, or ‘voice.’ Note in the sketches how a single line can outline form; how several lines can effectively describe a surface's contour and texture; how an accumulation of lines can describe the values of, say, a cast shadow; or denote the local color of an object, like a red apple.

Created years ago the sketches are evocative works because of their notative brevity. With so little there to actually see a demand is placed upon the viewer to become involved and, in effect, complete the image themselves.

The pastel painting engages for similar reasons as artist's materials and methods (technique) combining with the artist's temperament to provoke a response. Burned, Brushed and Polished was created as a workshop demonstration back in the mid-90’s and the action and controlled furry of the line-work builds upon the 'story' assembled that day.

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Vulcan's Harvest

Vulcan's Harvest was painted at least a year ago, maybe longer. I thought I wrote about it in a previous blog, but a quick review tells me otherwise, so I’ll take the time now. The subject is one of nine long-extinct volcanoes located near San Luis Obispo, California. These features back some 23 million years and stretch for miles up to and including the volcanic plug that is Morro Rock, Morro Bay. In my scene, nearby farmland provides a quiet, pleasing foil for this reminder of a more explosive past.

I painted on Wallis Museum pastel paper and stained a mottled umber hue, my aim in the painting was to convey the clean, humid air that one encounters along the coast in the summer months as the marine layer burns off. The other obvious desire was to describe the dramatic terrain. However, it is a little element that provides the final nod of my approval, the rolls of baled hay that dot the fields, like giant game-pieces on a some grand board game.

(Note: some paintings just don't get an accurate representation in this blog format. This painting is one of them. On this blog the colors appear drained of richness, so I will place the painting among the images on the homepage. There the painting should fair better. On the homepage you will likely have to refresh your browser to scroll through to find Vulcan's Harvest.)

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Warm Marleen

This acrylic portrait is one in a series of Starbucks subjects. Marleen is behind the counter many mornings with an attractive smile for everyone.

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Jumbled mosaic

Borax Flats, pastel, 18 x 25

The drive north on Hwy 395 along the eastern spine of the California remains a rich, creative vein for me as a landscape painter. One can't help focus on the austere Basin and range environment with its broad vistas, big skies, and long horizons. In this austere scene a lone shrub-like tree has great evocative powers. Add a dynamic, mosaic-like jumble of stylized desert vegetation, the desert basin stretching behind and distant mountains and I feel a half-century melt away. I'm a child again, small yet aware of some bigger picture.

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Reflections

Travis pastel 17" x 11"

This painting is one from a new series of drawings and paintings featuring people at a local Starbucks. In the portrait I convey Travis' whimsical spirit by composing his pale, Irish complexion, sandwiched between the contrasting colors of red hair and teal-green apron. His gaze may be obscured by the reflections in his horn-rimmed glasses, but the character at work behind them is clear.

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