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.

The end. We were caravanning back thru the windy Kern river gulley and finally stopped to clamber down the ravine to the cold river, already hazing over, a little bit of fog creeping in and getting really cold and dark. It was speed painting 101 as we hurriedly slapped paint on canvases. This is supposed to be black water surrounding rock but dammit, we just lost the light. A plein aire artist's dismay--gorgeous scenery, but landscape turning into no contrast, no light picture. Oh well-- we tried.

I am trying to get a feeling of perspective here, and even tho not done, you can still get a sense of inspiration, a freshness, and if we had had more light, this one had lots of promise.

Laura Wambgans was on fire searching for her sycamores to paint along the river. Laura, I will chase light with you any day. (see her entry on her blog on the right)

Sunday morning: better rested and centered. We went to a small iced over lake to paint the surrounding mountains. No real memorable piece was painted by me, but the experience was invaluable and thoroughly inspiring and enjoyable. It was the process that is going to catapult me into a better painter. At least, for now these paintings do not have enough brushstroke variation or design...at least not yet...!

The bottom one was the "I ran out of time" painting.

WEEKEND PAINT OUT: Four of us artists went to R ranch this last weekend. This is past Bakersfield, past the Kern river to a southern Sequoia forest. This is the first painting done in a creek bed. It is the warm up for the weekend.

During the last 2 years at Disney, I did a lot of watercolor figure in Bob Kato's class, and you can see the watercolor influence with this washed out acrylic on canvas paper.

Finished!

Another quick 2 1/2" x 3 1/2" ACEO card. The redlandscape and these redwoods will be available to purchase on ebay starting this weekend.

This was painted this morning near McBean and Magic Mountain Parkway on the trail above the wash. I had not picked up the paints in a while, so it was pure fun. This was done with the Santa Clarita Artists Association paint outs.

SOLD!
These all sold off ebay in 7 days. I eventually painted a bright red background for the crow and the front portrait of Frankenstein with purplish hues (not the profile) was a small ACEO card, 3 1/2" by 2 1/2" small. I never posted this one because if was so similar to the larger front portrait done in blue-ish hues.

Finished! Happy Thanksgiving!

3 1/2" by 2 1/2" ACEO card, acrylic on canvas. I glazed it so that the finishing paint would randomly skitter across the surface, since some of it lost it's spontaneous appearance. Painting on canvas makes the paint seem even, sometimes too even, and when I glaze, it ads unpredictibility to the canvas, changing the texture forever. I always hold my breath during this stage because getting an even texture will be lost forever.

UPDATE:
Almost finished. Gorgeous.

Taking a break from freelance: Starting a quick ACEO card for ebay. After working on tight drawings for a commercial toy company, I needed to get "rough" on a small quick sketch painting. I've put this one on a more textured canvas and am dabbing earth colors on. I will get back to the animae ACEO cards when I have more time, just needed to loosen up. I am actually working on this one right now!

More ACEO cards: These next pieces are acrylic on a finer weave of canvas paper and will let me achieve better detail than the larger weave I have been using. I usually work on several pieces at the same time. It does tend to cut down time and I get a flow. Unfortunately and fortunately, I am signed up for several freelance jobs this upcoming month with several clients. I will continue to work on these when I can.

The two sketches are based on the book: "The Last Unicorn" by Peter S. Beagle. I thought since I have been drawing unicorns lately, it was a natural progression to remember the only really good unicorn story I read when I was a kid. I loved the animated cartoon by Rankin and Bass which was drawn by Japanese artists and back then the "Animae" look was exotic. The sketch of the girl, of course, is the semi-tragic Lady Amalthea, who was once a unicorn, and as a human, feels pangs of love and complex emotions of a human girl, then becomes a unicorn again, changed forever.

Working on a small ACEO card for ebay...I took one of the unicorn drawings from below and stretched it in photoshop to fit the 2.5x3.5 inch frame. This is not done yet. I have also put an irredescent gold on it.

I did a real quick concept page for a t-shirt designer who asked for a pink carousel unicorn.

Laura Wambsgans

This is the latest plein aire painting from Laura Wambsgans blog. She uses oils and she has been very patient and kind while encouraging me as an artist. Thanks Laura! Can't wait to paint again next month! If anyone wants to join us, please check out the Santa Clarita Artists Association paint outs.

Lombardi's Ranch 48 hours ago

I painted this on Saturday with the Santa Clarita Artists Association. We meet once a month and paint plein aire. This was a real challenge, since very quickly it became as busy as Disneyland, hot, lots of wind, and hundreds of people pushing into my space, nearly knocking me over to show their kids that "the artist is painting a picture." The hardest part? It was like painting in the middle of a buffalo stampede, so I really had to focus and ignore the public. I did this in about a hour and a half to 2 hours.

Correction: We just saw on the news that Lombardi's did not burn in the fires!

Quick Crow: Acrylic on canvas paper.

More cool and warm colors...

Gearing up for Halloween: Normally I paint in warm earthtones, so this time, for the fall I am painting in cool tones. This painting will be available at Ebay soon.