Monday, January 19, 2015

Pink Tulips

acrylic on canvas, 12" x 12"

Another flower painting, just fooling around with color here.

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Shollenberger Pond

acrylic on canvas panel, 8" x 16"

This is a studio redo of a plein air painting that never got off the ground, and I like it much better now.

Sunday, January 11, 2015

Shollenberger Swans

iPad painting, 10" x 14"

This was done from memory, after a visit to Shollenberger Wetlands on a magical day of swan sightings.  I am left handed, but I did this one with my right hand while lying half asleep in bed on my left side.

Thursday, January 8, 2015

White Rose

oil on canvas, 8" x 8"

This is my first oil painting in a year of working almost exclusively with acrylics.  It's like starting over again, but I'll get the hang of it again.

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Green Hills

acrylic on canvas, 20" x 20"

This is the third and final painting in a series of abstracted landscapes I'm calling Yellow-Red-Green.

Sunday, January 4, 2015

Bouncie and Rose at RCA Beach

acrylic on canvas, 10" x 10"

A portrait of Rose and her extraordinary Katrina rescue dog Bouncie, who passed away in 2014.  I took the photo of this in too-dim light, so the image is not very good.  Will try to get a better one and update it soon.

Thursday, December 18, 2014

City Park in Summer


acrylic on canvas, 36" x 48"

This is a work in progress, a work of imagination, and the largest I've attempted to date.  We'll see how it goes from here.

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Saturday, November 29, 2014

Birds in Paradise

acrylic on canvas, 30" x 36"

This is the last painting in my "Goleta" series.  It is by far the largest plein air painting I have done to date.  There is something freeing about painting large canvases outdoors, so long as the weather cooperates, which it did on this occasion.  

Friday, November 28, 2014

mm

acrylic on canvas paper, 9" x 12"

This started as an exercise in grays, since the reference for it was a black and white photo.  Naturally, one thing led to another, and there you go.

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Shollenberger Wetlands


acrylic on canvas, 16" x 20"

Painted from a photo I had taken of the wetlands at Shollenberg Park, I wanted to capture the beautiful neutral color of the water.  It had this pearl-like glow the day I saw it.

Saturday, November 15, 2014

Goleta Slough, Eastern View

acrylic on linen-mounted gatorfoam, 24" x 12"

Another plein air painting from the Santa Barbara area that was finished in the studio.

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Goleta Beach

acrylic on canvas, 12" x 24"

Another plein air painting from my trip south a few weeks ago, this one also finished in the studio.

Thursday, November 6, 2014

Goleta Slough

acrylic on linen mounted on gatorboard, 12" x 16"

I recently spent a few days painting at Goleta Beach, just north of Santa Barbara, with Marcia Burtt, hoping to glean a few pearls of wisdom from an absolute master.  In the two plus days I had with her, I started five paintings and finished none.  This was my last effort, the result of a two-hour session on the morning of my return home.  I worked on it for another two hours in the studio, until I was done with it and the next unfinished painting called out to me.  More to come.

Sunday, October 26, 2014

A Prayer for Christine


acrylic on canvas panel, 9" x 12"
NFS

This was painted while my housemate and friend Christine was having breast reconstruction surgery after breast cancer.  It is going to live with her now, and I am very pleased.

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

BJ on Blue Bed

iPad painting, 10" x 14"

A little sketch of a beautiful and very tired feral cat who adopted us at Waldruhe Heights back in 2006.  BJ stood for Bonzo Junior, Roy's dog, and also Betty Jo, a dear friend of his.

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Nicasio Reservoir

acrylic on canvasboard, 12" x 16"

This was done from a photo I took at a spot that was not amenable to onsite painting.

Friday, October 10, 2014

Guilin

acrylic on canvas, 16" x 20"

Yet another painting in my China series.  I used a very limited palette of only 4 colors for this one, trying to create atmosphere and depth in the background.

Sunday, October 5, 2014

Porch View, Rose and Tony's Place

acrylic on gessoboard, 12" x 12"

This is a plein air sketch I did the other day at Rose and Tony's house in rural Petaluma after a storm blew through the area.

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Above the Fog at Dawn

acrylic on masonite panel, 16" x 20"

This was to be the underpainting of a scene looking down at Nicasio Valley on a cold, foggy morning, but I'm finished with it for now.

Thursday, September 25, 2014

Lower Nelligan Road

acrylic on canvas, 16" x 20"

Nelligan Road is a gorgeous road outside the town of Glen Ellen, Sonoma County.  Roy and I lived at the end of the 4-mile-long road, and I gawked at this scene daily.

Monday, September 22, 2014

Me and My Shadow

oil on hardboard panel, 12" x 9"

I was just playing around with this study from a found photo of someone else's painting -- whose I have no idea, but was drawn to the purple sky at first.  Sky can be any color imaginable -- in fact, the sky's the limit!

Sunday, September 21, 2014

Bougainvillea Pond at Haidao Island

acrylic on canvas, 16" x 20"

Another in my China series, this painting no longer exists, except for the rock formations in the foreground.  I worked on this a few months ago and was not happy with it but vowed to rework it.  I thought I would post it just for the record.

Saturday, September 20, 2014

Potala Palace

acrylic on canvas, 12" x 24"

China and Tibet just won't leave me alone, so here is another in that series, a quick painting sketch of the Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet.

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

View from the Cheese Factory

oil on hardboard panel, 12" x 9"

I'm cheating a bit with this one, which I did around this time last year at the Cheese Factory in Marin.

Saturday, September 13, 2014

Wolfy

acrylic on canvas, 12" x 12"

This painting started as an abstract, but of course I couldn't leave well enough alone, and before I knew it, I was channeling Wolf Kahn.  This time I had the sense to leave well enough alone.  

Update, 1/7/2018:  Extensive additional information on Wolf Kahn and his work can also be found at www.artsy.net.

Thursday, August 14, 2014

Thursday, August 7, 2014

D and 10th Street, Petaluma

iPad painting, 14" and 10"

The back view of a large house on the corner of D and 10th Streets in Petaluma.

Saturday, August 2, 2014

Bolinas Lagoon

acrylic on MDF panel, 12" x 16"

This is a plein air painting I did the other day from the roadside just outside the town of Bolinas, looking across the lagoon to the wilderness beyond.  It is a spot I will return to again because it is a scene of such staggering beauty.