The landscape painting was done this Saturday. The rain went away for a little while and I joined the Santa Clarita Artists Association at Olga's in Newhall. Not great, but I painted anyway. Lately I've sort of hit a bit of melancholia. To make matters worse, I've strained my back, a new experience for me as I have resorted to popping advils--but it did not stop me from meeting with Laura Wambsgans and the group.

Olga has a steer, yes a steer in her backyard. I did something i never have tried before--sketching the brute with acrylics.

I retooled this tiger. Gave her a darker background and a better silohuette.

This is dedicated to Tatiana the tiger at the SF Zoo, who, enraged, leaped over her enclosure, alledgedly, and killed one of her harrassers and severely mauled 2 others. I've been to the SF Zoo and have witnessed children and their parents alike taunting the lions in the lion house while their keepers fed them. Can you imagine being taunted every time you ate a meal and you could not do anything about it? Poor Tatiana probably thought as she leapt over her wall-"Why the hell did I not try this sooner?"

My daughter's first grade teacher gave me a gift for x-mas for volunteering every Friday morning in her class. I asked Sienna what Mrs. Adachi likes and she said beagles. So I painted the puppy, however uninspired it was. Then to loosen up, I did the Nosey Beagle, really taking care to place certain brush strokes just so. I was done in about 30 minutes. I like the rough looseness of it. This year I'm going to take the hyper-jump to oils; acrylics just are not giving me the performance I am looking for.

Some things I worked on while in the Bay Area for the holidays. These are unfinished.



After many, many studies, I came up with this rough. This is for Gum or Mints.


Backlight tiger: I was experimenting with opaque and tranculent paints. I loaded it on a little thick on the tiger's face and left one coat of cad orange on the rump. I still need to clean up the stripes, but probably will not do much after that.


Papa at 17. Greg's Dad, Jim Zamlich was a great athlete in his youth. He has been wanting me to paint this picture for years. I just need to finish up a few things on this painting and then I am done.