Ellis Creek in May

iPad painting, 10" x 14"

This digital painting was done from a photo I had taken in May at Ellis Creek here in Petaluma.  Such a variety of colors and shapes, it was hard to simplify it all.  

Chinese Acrobats

acrylic on canvas, 12" x 36"

This started out as a still life of a stalk of yellow gladiolas in a green vase.  I wasn't happy with it, so I took the bottle out of the picture and gave it an abstract background.  As I looked at it, I started to see these little figures like the Chinese acrobats I'd see on the Ed Sullivan Show back in the '60s.  I'll admit, I was in a peculiar mood when I painted this today.

Zen Barn

acrylic on canvas, 12" x 24"

This was done from a drive-by shooting yesterday near the little town of Bodega, as this barn is situated such that there is no place to paint it on site from this angle.  My trusty camera captured it, though, and I set the time at either dusk or dawn -- could be either, from the pink horizon.  

Hicks Valley Horses

acrylic on canvas, 12" x 24"

I used a reference photo I had taken last summer on Hicks Valley Road, in the countryside west of Petaluma.  The paint horse in the foreground had risen up out of the landscape like a blossom in the desert.  I spent two hours working on it with a palette knife, then took a lunch break.  But now, after stepping away, I feel that if I go back in there, the painting may change radically, and perhaps not for the better.  As it stands, the landscape is simplified and abstracted, and in harmony with itself, something I can only achieve working alla prima, which is to say completing a painting in one session.  The way I mix colors varies from session to session, and so a reworking of one area can result in a pasted-on look, which causes a chain reaction throughout, and then you're cooked, and the painting is DOA. Still, I may not be able to resist toying with this one later, even though I feel it has a bit of life in its current, unfinished state.  In a nutshell, I am not ashamed to walk away from this one as is.

Tibetan Terrain

iPad painting, 10" x 14"

Done from a photo I found online that reminded me of a Tibetan hillside, I loved the color the light made of the distant hills, offset by a shaft of light turning the mustard field a neon green.   

Loma Alta in the Clouds

acrylic on canvas, 16" x 20"

This was done as a value study from a photo of Loma Alta, a mountainous region near Santa Barbara (if I'm not mistaken -- I've never been there), prompted by my recent efforts at abstracted landscapes.  Done with a palette knife, I didn't spend too much time on it, but I like the overall effect.

Halong Bay

oil on hardboard panel, 5" x 7"

For this little palette knife painting, I used a photo reference.  Although Ha Long Bay is in Vietnam, this scene reminds me of my time in China in 2013, floating down the Yulong River on a bamboo raft, surrounded by these monolithic karsts.  The haunting echo of birdsong off the karsts lends a dreamy, otherworldly feeling to the scene.  This will be my 22nd painting as a result of that trip, and I feel I have at least 4 more Asian paintings in me yet to come.

Trailblazers

acrylic on canvas, 12" x 36"

This is another painting done mostly without a visual reference.  I cheated a little bit in looking at cow shapes online, but the landscape itself is imaginary, as far as I know.  This painting has gone through a lot of changes since its inception, due to the challenges it presented with the palette I had chosen, the colors of the shadow areas, and the scale and color values of the cows, trees and hills at various distances in shadow or light, all without a visual reference to work from.  My goal was not to create a realistic scene.  I wanted an overall feeling of warmth and space, a late afternoon on a hot day when it's just starting to cool off and the cows are on the move.  Who knows where they're headed?  

Chileno Valley in Summer

oil on canvas, 12" x 16"

This is a palette knife painting I did from a photo I had taken along Chileno Valley Road, just west of Petaluma.  There were already globs of dried paint on the canvas before I started, having gessoed over a previous painting that hadn't gone well.  The added texture did not get in the way here; in fact, I think it rather enhances this scene, giving it a rough textural effect.

Color Study II

iPad painting, 14" x 10"

This is a riff on Color Study, a variation of another iPad abstracted landscape I did some months ago. I see traces of Ellis Creek here, a favorite haunt of mine.

Green Umbrella with Sonoma Hills

iPad painting, 10" x 14"

Another umbrella sketch while on a walk with my dog.  I like painting outdoor umbrellas on my iPad because I can generally finish them in 10-15 minutes, which is about all I get before my dog gets bored and starts to wander off.

Hill Town

oil on canvas, 6" x 8"

Here's another abstracted landscape from my imagination.  I just wanted to paint some geometric shapes, but of course it evolved into something somewhat recognizable.  I only had about an hour's time to do it, and knew that once I stopped, I would not be able to come back to it and pick up where I left off, because I would have changed by then, just as sure as the cloud patterns drifting by, never to look exactly the same again.  Once the moment has passed with these things, I find it's best to move on.

Pink Peony by the Pond

oil on canvas panel, 12" x 12"

This palette knife painting was done on site, next to the koi pond at my friends' ranch, and I was going to work on it a bit more in the studio, but couldn't get to it yesterday and won't be able to today, which means the paint will have dried in the areas I was hoping to work.  So, here it is in all its raw glory.

Plum Trees at Covelo Ranch

iPad painting, 10" x 14"

Another plum tree painting, this one from Covelo Ranch.  The blossoms have fallen and the leaves take on either a purplish or reddish glow, depending on the light.  I just love the color of plum trees.

Green Field Study

oil on hardboard panel, 8" x 10"

A quick color study in further exploration of abstracted landscapes, again using only a palette knife.

Of Glads and Ghosts

acrylic on canvas, 36" x 12"

This still life was a way to use up the leftover paint on my palette from "Flora."  You can see all the same colors in this one.  For some reason, I saw a halo of light around the bottle, so I painted it.

No Enemies

acrylic on canvas, 8" x 10"

This was done as a form of relief from a larger painting I've been slaving over for the past three days.  Sometimes, there's just not enough paint.  I sketched it in and got to a point where I could go on with it forever or leave it in its raw form.  I left it at that.

Wistful

acrylic on canvas, 20" x 20"

Here's another painting from my imagination, working without a visual reference.  I saw myself lying in a hammock with a canopy of white wisteria drooping above me.  This one gets a time out, since I'm not sure I'm done with it quite yet.  Time will tell.

Ellis Creek Trail

iPad painting, 10" x 14"

This is a sketch I did while on a walk with the pups yesterday at Ellis Creek in Petaluma, just after a light rain.  This area, a nature reserve, is astoundingly beautiful, with all kinds of birdlife on view.  Swans, Canadian geese, stilts, and blue and white herons are all common sightings.  I'm hoping to carve out a few hours some day soon to do a plein air painting.

Sweet '16

acrylic on canvas, 20" x 20"

This is another effort to work without a visual reference.  My only plan was to stick to a certain limited palette (ivory black, Prussian blue, alizarin crimson, cad yellow light, and white) and the plant world.  I've always loved the underside of flowers, especially when they are backlit and get this deep glow emanating from the center.  It's a perspective that's kind of hard to capture without a camera, so I relied on memory and imagination.  The idea was to do something floral that looked like it would smell divine.  These giant buds turned out rather peony-like and, now that we're finally moving into spring, sweet! -- hence the title.