Month: May 2009

Today was the main event for the Carmel Art Festival. Judging was in the morning, a silent auction in the afternoon, awards ceremony at 5, and live auction at 6. After a leisurely brunch, I hung around the show while Josie went shopping in downtown Carmel. It was a good show. For the first time, you could bid for paintings online. All the paintings in the show can be found here.

Below is one of my paintings, followed by a few shots of my ‘panel’–

I ran into Eric Rhoads, publisher of Fine Art Connoisseur. Here is a photo of him taking a photo of Brian Blood, this years first place winner in the festival–

A live band played–

Live sculpting —

The awards ceremony–

All-in-all, it was a great show. I had been expecting slow sales, due to the economy, but paintings seemed to be selling at a brisk pace!

Today was the second full day of painting for the festival, and two paintings had to be completed, framed and delivered by 8 o’clock this evening. I had two paintings from the day before, both good enough to put in the show. Today, I was going to concentrate on Point Lobos in the morning and if I got another good painting, spend the afternoon touching up and framing.

After hiking the North Trail at Point Lobos, I found my spot painting Bluefish Cove. I had painted this several times before from different vantage points and light. It was fogged in, which is what I wanted as I wanted the far rocks of the cove to appear as ghosts in the distance.

Here is the scene and my easel set up–

The painting turned out fairly well, another possibility for the show. Hiking back to the car, I ran across several other Carmel Art Festival participants, including Alfredo Tofanelli shown below–

I spent the afternoon touching up the two paintings I would enter and framing them, in time to drop off at the show. The pressure was off, so time to relax!

Today was the first full day of painting for the Carmel Art Festival. During the competition, you have two days to paint and present two finished and framed paintings for auction. I headed out at the crack of dawn back to Point Soberanes, where I had been the evening before. It was a little foggy, but lifting and I was hoping to catch the light just right. Well, I did, and it was perfect! The fog was just breaking and the morning sun was spotlighting just where I wanted! Below are a couple shots of what I was painting.

I painted this spot for the first Carmel Art Festival–

This was the scene I wanted to paint this morning —

My easel set up on Point Soberanes —

After almost completing the panorama, it was time to head to a different spot. I drove around a little, and ran into Michael Bagdonas and Robert Sandidge painting the same scene by the side of the road–

My easel set up along the beautiful California coastline for another painting. The peninsula you see in the distance was where I had been painting earlier this morning–

I had completed two paintings today, with a little touchup, both keepers for the show.

We drove to Carmel this afternoon to participate in the Carmel Art Festival. I am writing this several days later as I did not have good internet access while at the hotel. My wife, Josie accompanied me for the entire festival this time and it was my fourth year participating. After checking into the Portola Plaza Hotel in downtown Monterey, I was off to get my canvas stamped, and maybe paint a little.

I ended up hiking out on Point Soberanes in Garrapata State Park to start a painting I had been planning for the afternoon of tomorrow, but wanted to get a head start. It was quite windy, and everything was blowing around, including my cap right into a clump of poison oak! It was impossible to paint in the high winds as my canvas board was jumping around like a jumping bean no matter which way I moved the easel. It was starting to get late, so just packed it in for the day. Below are a couple shots of my aborted attempt.