More Gulls

I started this picture at the same time I started the previous Gull painting.  This one took just a bit longer.

I was really concerned about painting this because the picture I started with was really dark, and I don't typically  like to paint that dark.  I tried to keep it dark on the bottom, but lighten as you look up.

After drawing this picture, I started by painting the grey wings and then the driftwood.  Lots of coats of paint on the wood. Then the rocks and water behind.   Finally, beak and legs/feet.

I like the way it turned out.  It reminds me of my home.  Lots of overcast days keeping the bright colors down and greying everything, and plenty of sea gulls everywhere.

Driftwood Christmas Tree Centerpiece

I had at one point in time, seen, on Etsy, these cool driftwood Christmas trees.  I thought to myself, I could make those.  I live near the ocean, and have an ample supply of driftwood.  All I need to do is collect the right pieces. and find a way to put them together.  How hard can it be.

Fast forward 2 years and I have my first one.  Its not that I couldn't have done it.  Having made this first one, I have found it to be just as I thought it would be.  I just hadn't had the time 2 years ago, and by the time I got back to it, I'd forgotten about this little project, and my stack of driftwood relegated to a back corner of the garage never to be seen again.

Well, this weekend I found the wood, and constructed my first Christmas Tree centerpiece.  Its just the right size to sit at the center of your holiday table, and looks nice enough it could sit out all season.  The biggest problem I had was trying to balance all the pieces so that the piece would be stable and sit flat.  Once I got that accomplished, all went smoothly.  

Event though it is only May, I might have to build a bunch of these, and have them ready for sale when the holiday season comes rolling around.  

Thanks for taking a look.  Hope you enjoyed seeing this little project.

Camping, VW Style

SOLD!

Yes, Yes, Yes, I know I have painted this picture before.  I originally saw the photo that this was taken from and thought of my neighbors Jim and Karen.  They have a VW very similar to this, and go camping once a month or so.  The first rendition of this was OK, but that was the problem with it.  It was just OK.  There was nothing special about it at all.  This one is far and away better. Im working hard to allow the paint to mix on the paper instead of in the palette and I think I accomplished that.

I started this painting by putting down a light wash of yellow and green.  It covered everything except the person sitting at the picnic table and the posts.  After looking at it I panicked.  I needed to have the roof of the camper white.  I put a second layer on everything except the van and the person and the posts.  Still the roofline looked yellow.  I painted the van.  Still the roof looked yellow.  Everything looked yellow.  I painted the trees. Suddenly, not everything looked yellow.  The van actually stood out away from the background.  and there was a clear break between the hills in the distance and the camping space.  The trees worked great to break up the picture and give it the depth it needed.

After painting the posts, the picnic table and the person, I looked again.  Not too bad.  I might actually be getting the hang of this.  I put the shadows on, and the grass around the posts and that's a wrap.  I like the way it look.  The mostly brownish grass is exactly what we have out here.  It really looks like this could be a campsite on the central coast.

I'm hoping to see Jim and Karen this weekend so I can give this to them.  Hope they like it.  Hope you all enjoy it.  I had fun painting it.

How Now Brown....Door?

Ive painted other doors before, and will paint plenty in the future, I am sure,  but this may be the one where I look back and say that I have kind of changed techniques.  I started by drawing a very (well, at least fairly) good representation of a wooden door in a stone wall.  I didn't draw any of the stones in the wall, but drew everything else.  I had plans to do what I always do, which is to paint this little bit, then move the paper, paint another little bit, then repeat, repeat, repeat until I have what I think is a finished painting.  Well, after I started the door that way, I took a little different turn.  Everything after the wood was done free form and in rapid succession.  While the coloring is a little less than imaginative, I think it made for some really nice bits to the painting.

Painting with the strict way I would have painted in the past, this painting would have taken me an hour or more,  but since I painted the brown of the door, this took me no more than 10 minutes.

For me, the stone really stands out,   I could have used a bit more color, but they really seem to stand out, and the door does look like it is set back just a bit in the jam.

Hope you like it.

Another Old Truck

THIS PAINTING SOLD

Another old truck. And surprise, its the same one as before.  The previous one is gone, off to someone else to look after it and I liked it so much I had to have one of my own.  Thus, this second painting of it.  I did a few things differently on this one.

First, i tried to make the hill on the right hand side a little more mottled.  It looks like there is some texture to it now.  Additionally I made it a little bluer.  It really makes it look like it recedes off in the distance.  I also tried to put in another level of weeds around the truck.  I thought this would really make it look like the back is way back and the front much closer.  I don't know how successful that was, but I don't think it takes away from the picture either.

The truck is mostly the same.  As I learned to paint shadows, I learned that they should be a blue grey and laid over top of the underlying color.  I 'm not sure that that really makes for the best shadow areas. on this one, I tried to just put in a little darker more intense coloring in the corners so it looks like a bit of a shadow but nothing too harsh.  Looking at it, I probably could have been even more aggressive with the color.

All in all, I am really proud of this one.  I think it is at least as good as the first one.  If anyone wants to buy, I'll sell.  Just send an email and we can talk terms.

Camping, VW Style

From the moment I saw this picture I thought of my neighbors.  They are quite old, and only live in California half of the year, but while they are here they do a fair bit of camping.  They have a brown VW Vanagon in their garage, and about every other weekend they get away for a little camping.   I don't really know if theirs is a pop up or not.

I painted this picture to give to them when they make it back to the Golden State.  But now that I am looking at it, I'll never be able to give it to them in this state.  I seem to ha ve forgotten to put shadows on this painting.  Shadows are always the last thing that you add, and oops....  Well, it wont take to too long.  It really is amazing how much interest a few shadow lines will put into a painting.

Well, I hope you all enjoy it, I'm off to add sahadows.

Old Truck in a Field

SOLD!

This was a great picture to paint.  I lived doing it.  The picture I took it from was really dark, and I wasn't sure I would be able to lighten it up and still keep the same look.  I think I did a pretty good job.

Well, I tried to make the colors of the truck and the grasses in front of it brighter and more intense that those at the top.  That pulled the truck foreword in the picture.  It really does look like the field in the top right hand corder is a long way off.  Also, I tried the trick with the ground in between the rows of vines and the vines themselves.  They are darker the closer you get to the bottom of the picture, indicating that they are closer to you.

The chrome was a challenge.  How do you paint old rusty chrome.  Well, the answer for me was not too.  I merely made the chrome stilghtly different colors away from what I thought would be the most reflective part.  So between the top of the hood and the diamond in the middle of the grill, the chrome is brightest (again, allowing that to seem further toward the viewer).  As the chrome goes back from there, it gets darker, and of course as it goes down it gets darker.  If you look closely, you can see different colors in the chrome.

I tried to paint the body of the truck in different sections as they would have been put together.  The door, the cab, the bonnet, the fenders, the grill, each got painted at different times.  I was hoping they would come out slightly different colors to make it seem as though the paint is oxidizing at slightly different rates.  You will have be the judge.

My favorite part of this painting is the big dark front wheel.  It turned out great.  The color, the shadow, even the hub.  I love it.

Hope you all enjoy viewing this as much as

random weekend sketching

These are just some pictures that I painted over the weekend.  The top of a chair with a red box on it.





The lamp hanging in the corner of the living room.



These are some of the plants growing in my front yard.  Not sure what all of them are called.

 These are some of the plants growing in my front yard.  Not sure what all of them are called.







This is the tree from across the street.

This is the lamp from the dining room.

Got Fish?

This came out a little redder that I had originally intended, but I still think it is a really great painting.  If you have never been, you need to go. Giovanni's is an institution in Morro Bay.  Great fresh seafood, and there is alway a line for fish tacos.

Play Structure

So last Saturday I took the kids to the park.  If you've never been to Del Mar Park, they have this huge play structure.  The kids love to climb it and slide down the giant green slide.  Well, this Saturday there were a lot of kids there, and good ole dad didn't have to climb and play with them nearly as much, allowing me the opportunity to draw for a bit.  It really took about an hour to draw this, but I think it was worth it.

I didn't paint it until I got home.  Once at home, D got in the tub and Olivia helped me paint.  I would paint a tiny little section, and Olivia would ask, "Can I see it, dad?"  After I would show it to her she would say something like, "You're doing great, dad." or "I'ts really looking good, dad."  She really is amazing for only being 3.  Oh, and it took me a long time to paint it.

Hope you enjoy it.

A Little Urban Sketching

Yesteday and today I decided to do a little urban sketching.  I suppose that is the new term for painting plein air.  Urban sketching sounds a bit less hoity toity.  I have been walking around campus trying to find places to sit in the shade and paint.  The shade part was crucial for me, and as I found out, was also the limiting factor in what I paint.  It turns out that nearly all the benches on campus are in direct sunlight at noon.  Who would have figured.  Anyway, in my hikes around campus, I found 3 places to paint.  They all seemed to fit onto one sheet, but the sheet is bigger than my scanner.  The first picture, Bench on Dexter Lawn, is actually on the bottom of the sheet.  You can see part of the Building 52 Plaza in the top right.

This is the picture that is above it.  This is Building 52 Plaza.  Or at least part of it.  I don't think I got this quite right, but you get the idea that it is a bench with mulch around it, and (absent detail) brick walkway in front of it.  I assume you all can tell it has a tree behind the bench?

This third picture is actually the first one I did.  I wanted to get the little taco stand next to this, on the left side of the tan building, but i didn't have a clear view from the bench I was on, so this got chosen by default.  Some different types of bushes and shrubs with a few rocks, and a wooden wall behind, just in front of the building.  I'm extremely happy with the way this turned out, I often have trouble working in different colors of greens.  The fact that you can see 4 distinct colors of green and a little shading in each is, for me, a triumph.

Lets Revisit This Clock

This clock currently for sale.  Contact Michael for details.

I think this turned out great.   A nice frame on the diamond plate sets it off just enough.  The clock could be turned to stand on its short side too.  Keeps great time with a quartz movement.

Bench and Brick Wall

Plein air painting at lunch today. Had to walk across campus to meet friends, find a place to sit, then paint, pack up, and back to work all in an hour. As you might assume, I picked a topic that I though I would be able to finish given the time constraints. The place we chose was in a bricked in courtyard.  It didn't afford the most fantastic views, but it did allow us to sit in the shade. 

The plants in the area while green, didn't afford me a real pop of color to offset the green.  So I chose a little different tact.  This afforded me the opportunity to work on perspective lines and trying to keep things square.  I think I might have been able to make the grey cement of the ground a little more angled to the right, but since I had to work quickly, I didn't have that much time to double-check my work.  I still think this little painting work out nicely.   Enjoy.

Monday Lunch

Two pictures today at lunch.  They are part of my effort to paint a little more quickly.  From blank paper to two finished paintings in under 1 hour.  I think that is not too bad.

The top picture i think is a little better than the bottom.  I'm trying to work on perspective.  Not all the lines are exactly right on the picture, but I'm getting there.

On the bottom picture, i started painting and then thought to myself, the whole picture is awfully grey.  Then I had to figure out what to do to remedy it.  I don't know that this is my best effort.

Expect to see more doorways posted here.  I've tried to paint some before, and feel like I need to paint some more now.  Probably will be working on it for the next week or so.

Another Wall Sculpture

 After the success of my last wooden wall sculptures, I decided to make another one.  This one, as you can see, is less rigid, and has much more interesting edges.  I think it really came out good.  It's gonna hang in my office until it sells, and if it doesn't sell, I'll be glad its here.