Donald Neff Weblog

The 2nd Annual Plein Air Convention was held in Monterey, CA this year. I missed the first convention last year in Las Vegas, but since Monterey is only 90 minutes from my home, certainly couldn’t miss this one! I registered for the convention quite awhile ago, but then a month ago they added me to [...]

I was invited to do a demo at the Millbrae Arts Association in Millbrae California last night. I demoed for them several years ago a snow scene along the Truckee River near Lake Tahoe. They asked me to do a water scene, so I decided to paint the Merced River in Yosemite Valley with Sentinel [...]

Prologue: As mentioned in my previous blog, I originally intended to write one blog entry a day during last weeks workshop with Marc Hanson at Scottsdale Artists’ School, but for some reason could not upload pictures to my weblog from my laptop. For those who follow me on Facebook, I was able to upload some [...]

First off, that is not my painting. I have always admired Marc Hanson’s work from afar. I have never met him, nor seen any of his paintings in real life and have only seen his work on the Internet. What draws me to his art is his magical ability to make a seemingly mundane, common, [...]

Some may remember late last year I was working on a large painting of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park and posting the work as it developed. (You can scroll back through this weblog and see the posts I made as the painting progressed.) I was close to finished, so stopped working on it for [...]

Continued work yesterday and today. I put in the rest of the valley floor, with the lower right very roughly painted as much of it will be covered with foreground trees. I continued to work on the foreground, and also all over the painting, making minor adjustments, adding some scattered clouds and other details. Normally [...]

I am still recovering from a sick spell, but spent more time today working on El Capitan than I have any day yet. At this stage, the painting becomes more fun as the highlights are starting to develop and the painting is taking on a finished look. You can probably tell from the photos below [...]

Normally I would be finished with this painting by now, but other projects, activities, and several days of being under the weather have slowed me down. Today I finally got back to painting since mid last week. I am still working mainly top to bottom, but since the entire painting was dry, went back over [...]

More photos as the painting progresses. I didn’t work on it a much yesterday, but continued today, although I am painting on it only 2-4 hours a day. I have put in most of El Capitan itself and the surrounding cliffs. The top half of the painting is 2/3 done. Once most of it is [...]

I am continuing to work on the El Capitan large painting. The sky and distant hills are about 75% complete. I generally work an area until it is about 2/3 to 3/4 complete until the entire painting is covered. Many times I don’t have to go back or add to a particular area, but once [...]