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Carmel Art Festival Day 1

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I am writing this in Carmel, but cannot post it to my weblog as the wifi Internet connection here at my motel seems to be intermittant. So, I will have to post it when I return home after the festival.

I drove down today to participate in the Carmel Art Festival. This is my second year in the show. What basically happens is you have two days to paint two paintings to offer up to an auction process. Although Carmel is only about 90 minutes from my home, I always stay somewhere in the Carmel area. I don’t want to bother with spending 3 hours on the road each day, rather devoting all my focus to the work at hand.

I meandered on my drive down, taking some back roads around Elkhorn Slough to look for places to paint.

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Elkhorn Slough

I arrived in Carmel midday, and drove down past the town further south on the Pacific Coast Highway to see how the fog was rolling. In this part of California, it is hard to judge where the fog might be from day to day and even hour to hour. Later on, I checked into the motel, the same place I stayed last year, Munras Lodge.

For these plein air competitions, you have to have the back of your canvas (or whatever you are painting on) certified before the contest. They usually stamp it with a date, and put a little sticker on it. This is to ensure no one walks in with a painting they didn’t really paint on location for the show. After getting the canvas stamped I decided to go down to Pt Lobos State Preserve where I planned on doing at least one painting. It was clear, and I hadn’t seen Pt Lobos without fog in quite awhile. I encountered Paul Kratter, another participant, already out painting. He was painting the exact scene I had planned on painting the next day!

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A couple shots of Paul Kratter painting Pt Lobos.

I hiked around and found some other potential spots to do the next day.

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This might make a good painting!

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Prepping for the Carmel Art Festival

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The Carmel Plein Air show is next week, so I decided to take a trip there to paint and look for places to paint. When you do a plein air show, preparation is key. When you have two days to come up with two great paintings, you better have a plan! I usually plan 3-4 works to do, and then decide which ones to actually paint based on the weather at the time. This time of year, Carmel weather is very unpredictable. It can be sunny one moment, shrouded in fog the next, and maybe even start raining.

The night before, the forecast for the Carmel area was morning fog clearing during the day. It was clear in San Jose when I took off on the Harley around 6:30 AM. I wanted to be at Point Lobos State Preserve when it opened at 9:00. When I got within 10 miles of the ocean, the fog was just thick as can be. Driving through Carmel, and down the Big Sur coastline, it was the same. I stopped at Pt Lobos for about an hour, took a short hike, and the fog was still thick. So, I decided to head back to Carmel, have some breakfast and see if the fog would lift. It didn’t.

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Along the North Shore Trail at Point Lobos

Time to go gallery hopping in Carmel!! I visited a number of my favorite galleries, and during that time, walked into an unfamiliar gallery which I found out had been open for about 6 months. One thing led to another, it it looks fairly certain I will start showing my work there very soon. I won’t mention the gallery name, or when my works might be on display until we get things settled.

The fog was starting to lift slightly, so, time to head to Big Sur. I got to Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park, and it was nice and clear, so checked out the river, then headed back up to Pt Lobos for the second time. Still foggy! Oh well, I’ll do a painting anyway! So, I hiked the North Shore Trail a ways, and did a small 8×10.

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The scene and my painting at Point Lobos.

It took me about an hour, finishing around 5:00 and the fog never lifted. I was hoping to catch a nice sunset, but it just wasn’t going to happen today. So, I loaded up the Harley and headed home. It turned out to be a drab day, but I will have to be prepared if we get two drab days when we have to paint next week for the festival.

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Best of America Oil Artists and Artisans

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I just got an email from Kennedy Publishing that they are now taking pre-orders for this new book. I had known for some time I would be featured in this publication, but this is the first time I have received anything about it actually coming out. I am also going to be featured in their book “Best of California”, the publication date unknown to me. For more information, go to their web site, http://www.bestofartists.com/.

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Lake Tahoe Delivery

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I just returned from a short trip to Lake Tahoe. My primary purpose was to deliver paintings to a new gallery which will start showing my work. I delivered 14 paintings to the Galerie Noir in the Montbleu Resort at Stateline, Nevada on the south shore of Lake Tahoe. The gallery is quite interesting as they have a free jazz concert several nights a week right in the gallery.

I am now showing at two galleries at the lake, the north shore gallery being James-Harold in Tahoe City. I also dropped off a few new works at the James-Harold Gallery, and on the way home, they called and said one had sold already!

I didn’t do any painting this trip, but did take lots of pictures, one shown below which might make a study for a good painting.

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Ray’s Ranch

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Ray’s Ranch is a turn-of-the-century small ranch with barns, corrals and horses situated right in the outskirts of Los Gatos. The Los Gatos Plein Air Group was painting there, it was a beautiful day, so time to load up the Harley and head over. It is only about 30 minutes from the house, traffic across Silicon Valley (AKA Santa Clara Valley) wasn’t bad, and I arrived there about 9. There were already half a dozen painters out, and by the time noon rolled around about a dozen were busily painting. Below are a few shots of the area.

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Corrals and barns.

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Some of the group painting.

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My first painting of one of the barns sitting on the easel.

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Kevin Kasik, a new inductee into the “Motorcycle Plein Air Artists Society of America”

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A quick little study of the same barn, but a little more intimate.

I took more (and probably better) pictures, but for some reason they didn’t take with my little ‘wearable’ camera.

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Joseph Grant County Park

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We had a short winter storm come through last night which brought rain and colder temperatures. I like going out and painting right after these storms, > as it is the best time in this area to catch some big cumulus clouds and clear air. I originally thought about heading towards the coast, but got a late start, so just headed up the hill behind my house to Joseph Grant County Park. I had not painted this area in quite awhile even though it is less than 20 minutes drive.

The drive up Quimby Road was spectacular as usual. You can see all of San Jose, the Silicon Valley and most of the way up the San Francisco Penninsula on a good day. Dotted along the road are old farmhouses, barns, and myriad of farm animals.

I did an 11×14 painting at Grant Lake. The clouds were wonderful and I made it mainly a cloud scape. As the clouds drifted in and out, the light would dance through the hills making it an ever changing scene. The painting turned out good, a keeper. Below are some photos.

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Grant Lake when I arrived.

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My easel and the lake when I was about finished.

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The painting on the easel. I will post a better picture of the painting when I get around to photographing it better.

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A Little Seascape

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I did this little 6×8 seascape about a week ago, set it out to dry, and yesterday my son Justin saw it, and said, “Dad, that is a nice little painting”. He turned 18 this week. I think he has a good eye….anyway here it is—

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Monday Plein Air Paintings from Garrapata

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Here are a couple better shots of the two paintings I did Monday in Garrapata State Park south of Carmel. Both are 12×16 Oil on panel.

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Los Gatos Art Association DEMO Final Painting

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Thought I would post the final painting from the Los Gatos Demo I did last Saturday. I spent a little over an hour finishing it. I might touch it up a bit more in the coming weeks, but it is about 98% done.

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Truckee Snow * 16×20 * Oil on board

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Big Sur

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We had been having spring like weather, plus it had been awhile since I had painted the Big Sur area, and taken the Harley out on a painting trip, so decided to do both today.
I left around 7:30 when the sun was just starting to peek over the hills and mountains behind the house. I love the early morning motorcycle rides when the air is cool, and the sun is dappling the landscape with color.

After passing through Monterey and Carmel, I arrived at one of my favorite painting spots, Garrapata State Park around 9:00. I had done quite a few paintings here, including the one which won “Best in Oils” last year at the Carmel Art Festival. The California marine layer, aka fog, was hanging just offshore, so I drove around for a few minutes to see where I wanted to paint first. I ended up at one of my favorite parts of Garrapata, gate 8, and started in. Below is a shot of the Harley parked alongside Hwy 1, south of Carmel.

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My first painting was a 12×16 of Sobranes Point with the fog starting to drift in. As I was painting, the fog would drift in and out. The focal point of the painting, however was the foreground bluff which stayed bathed in the morning sunlight the entire time. At times, the entire point would envelope in fog. Below is a picture of my easel, plus a quick shot on the easel of the painting. It’s not a very good shot of the painting, and I will post a better one at a later date.

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It was getting toward noon, so I hopped on the Harley and headed into Carmel for lunch. A restaurant I frequently stop at during trips to Carmel is Cafe Stravaganza. It is tucked in a little corner south of the main town in the Crossroads Shopping Center at the corner of Hwy 1 and Rio Road. Some years ago, a local friend who owned a store nearby said Doris Day, the famous movie star and singer, used to eat there as it is close to an animal hospital (Doris Day is an avid animal and pet activist). If you like Mediterranean food, I would recommend it. Plus it is not too pricey, at least compared to most Carmel restaurants!

After lunch, it was back down the coast to do another painting. I stopped at gate 2 in Garrapata, and found another view of Sobranes Point, except further away. The fog was really rolling in and out and covering most of the point, plus much of the ocean. I love trying to paint the moodiness of the fog and this painting became a study in gray. Once again, the focal point was a close by bluff which the sun was illuminating against the steely gray of the background fog.

Below is a shot of the painting location.

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My easel while painting.

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The final painting, once again a quick snapshot on the easel. I will post a better one at a later date.

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I finished this painting around 3 in the afternoon. By that time, I was almost completely enveloped in fog. My back was starting to get a little sore, so I decided to call it a day. I hopped on the Harley, drove down the coast to Bixby Creek Bridge, and it was really socked in, so headed back north towards Carmel. Passing Carmel, Monterey, Castroville (the Artichoke Center of the World), then Gilroy (Garlic Capital of the World), and finally San Jose, I arrived home.

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