I am off to Yosemite Park tomorrow for a couple days of painting. As usual, I received a special coupon where I stay one night free for every night paid. It should be great as a large storm front just passed through and there should be plenty of sun and snow. Last year I went around this time and ran into Scott Burdick. If I can post to the blog during the trip, I will, but otherwise will post when I get back. Below is a painting I did last year.
Quimby Road runs a couple blocks by my home, in San Jose, CA, zig-zags straight up the eastern foothills of Silicon Valley, offers spectacular views of Silicon Valley, then goes over the central foothills, joins Mt. Hamilton Road, eventually San Antonio Road, and finally you can get to central California, or the San Joaquin Valley.
I have often loved driving this road. Many think California is ‘so crowded’, but in minutes I can be up this road and never know there is a huge metropolis nearby…which is very typical of the San Francisco Bay area. From almost anywhere, within minutes, you can leave the city behind.
I have driven my motorcycle and/or car over much of this area. Today, the Amgen Tour of California came over some of these back roads I have traveled on many occasions on my Harley. I watched a few minutes of it live today, and recognized much of the road and vistas.
Today had a pretty gloomy forecast, but it turned wonderful. Big cumulus clouds hung over the entire area. I had been wanting to paint a particular scene on Quimby Road, maybe 3 miles up from my house, so went up and did it. The weather was a little brisk, but felt great. I wanted to do a late afternoon work, to catch the falling sun.
When I got there, three Turkey Buzzards were doing quick work on some road kill right by where I wanted to paint. I tried to tread gently, but all but one scared away. The others soared overhead while I painted, and occasionally I heard a whoosh as they swooped by…duh…maybe they didn’t want me there!
What a glorious scene! With the sun back lighting the huge cumulus clouds, and casting a warm glow in the urban setting below, you couldn’t get much better than that.
I spent about 90 minutes on the 12×16. I especially wanted to capture the valley and the waining sun. Below are a few shots of the day. Once again, I’ll post a better picture of the painting at a later date. I wished I would have taken a picture of the Turkey Buzzards hanging around nearby…maybe next time.
Below is the scene when I started–
I waited until the clouds cast the exact shadow I wanted in the foreground to take this picture:
Below is my easel with a partially done painting
An article came across the news wires the other day about the growth of digital art, it’s acceptance, and growing prices. Thomas Kostigen writes:
But the agent of change may be the product of change itself: Virtual art is becoming big business, with artworks created online fetching thousands of dollars, and pixel space selling for millions.
You can find the article here. I am not going to comment on the merits of this form of art, but rather answer a question many of my friends have often asked me.
First a little background. For years I worked in the computer industry, starting around 1969 when the only computers were huge mainframes tucked away in large corporate vaults processing vast amounts of data. In the early 90’s, I started my own company and we made Macintosh and PC/Windows software. All those years I painted on the side. So the question leads to:
“Why don’t you do digital or computer art? It would be so natural since you are a computer guy”
Yes, it might be natural, but I need balance! Everyone needs or should have balance in their life! I worked so many years in the “virtual world”, aka typing on a keyboard, that working with something tactile was always an outlet. Producing old and traditional paintings was a counterpoint to producing new and cutting edge software. The local newspaper wrote an article about me several years ago and entitled it “From High Tech to High Touch”. They nailed it just right! You can read the entire article here.
Another case in point is my Harley-Davidson motorcycle which I purchased after retiring from the computer business some years ago. It has been lots of fun just getting my hands greasy changing the oil, doing maintenance, etc.
Well, I always like to include some form of graphic in my blog entries, so here is another miniature of Yosemite in the series I am currently working on.
Thought I would post a better picture of the painting I did a couple days ago of Coyote Creek.
After I got home, I didn’t really have to touch it up much…it looked ok to me as-is. Anybody have an opinion?
Due to one of my gallery’s urging, I have been painting a series of Yosemite Valley…mainly small and miniatures. They are fun to do as I have not painted the valley recently. I think the last time was a plein air trip about a year ago you can read about here. I still am planning on enlarging some of those plein air paintings into bigger studio paintings. Below are a couple of the recent paintings:
“Walls of Granite” * 9×12 * Oil on Board
“Sentinel over the Merced” * 7×5 * Oil on board
Yosemite Miniatures Read More »
Coyote Creek flows through much of Santa Clara Valley (AKA Silicon Valley). At 60 miles long, it is the longest creek in the county & is probably more the size of a river much of the year.
The Los Gatos plein air group was painting at a location along the creek about 5 miles south of San Jose. After several weeks of rain and clouds, it was a clear, but brisk day, so I joined them.
I got a little late start, but arrived around 10 am and a number were already out painting. I set up along the bank and started the painting. It was certainly brisk and windy!! At times, I had to hold onto some of my items to keep them from blowing away.
I finished a painting in a little over an hour. It was an 8×10, and I think turned out quite well…definitely a keeper. Below are some photos from the trip.
Below is Nick White and right behind him my easel.
Below is a quick snapshot of my painting near completion. Some may notice, I replaced the lake in the background with a green field. I thought the lake would detract too much from my center of interest, which is the creek as it goes around the bend.
Painting Coyote Creek Read More »
Readers of my blog may recall a recent visit to Big Sandy, Texas and my donating a painting to a church there. You can read about it here. Anyway, the church building is complete, the painting is framed, and now hanging. Thought some of you might like to see it…
Today is the fifth anniversary of my Weblog!! I started the weblog on a trip to Ouray Colorado, Tuesday January 14, 2003 when I had a one man show at the Ago Gallery there. It was the middle of winter, freezing cold…in fact so cold they were having the annual “Ouray Ice Festival” at the time. Below is a photo composite of the Dallas Divide near Ouray.
For the first four years, I just ‘rolled my own’ blog, not using standard weblog software. The reason at the time was I wanted it completely integrated in my web site. I switched to WordPress software in January of 2007, to get extra features such as RSS feeds, blog searching, etc. which would have been pretty hard to ‘program’ in my own website. This may lead some people to believe my blog is only a year old, but it really is five.
You can read my first weblog entry here. and the last on the old software here.
You can always get to the old log entries by following the Old Archives links in the right hand column of this page.
Just returned from doing a demo at the Menlo Art League in Menlo Park, California. I had been invited to do the demo quite awhile ago, and tonight was the night.
Been debating on whether to paint a California seascape or a Lake Tahoe scene. Just before New Years, James Harold Galleries called, said they were selling, and wanted more of my works…see this blog post. So, that made my decision…paint Tahoe!!
It was a small, but good crowd, maybe 20 total showed including a handful from the Peninsula Outdoor Painters, whom I paint with occasionally on location. They had learned about it either indirectly, or directly from one of my emails….yes, emails work sometimes!!
I had about 90 minutes to work on the painting. As usual, I blocked in the basic painting prior to the event. When I demo, I try to use a fairly large panel so the audience can readily see it, usually a 16×20 (as this time), a hard canvas to cover in the allotted time, but I go for it and see what happens.
It went smoothly, but with the positioning of lights in the room and where my easel was set, I had a little trouble with matching the color on my palette with what I wanted on the canvas…not unusual in an outdoor environment!!
I got the painting about 60% complete, as I wanted to jump around to various parts to show my technique and how to do in certain areas.
Josie took the below photos.
Menlo Art League Demonstration Read More »
For those of you who have not heard of this website, be sure and check it out. The Plein Air Scene is a ‘must’ bookmark for any plein air artist, or any other artist for that matter. Of particular interest to me is the listings of current art shows, upcoming events, paint-outs, and galleries in California. Of course this post is a little self serving as Sarah Beserra, publisher of the website, just put one of my paintings on the home page!
The Plein Air Scene Read More »
