Finished?

(Edit)
Turns out I wasn't finished. A kind soul from the internet pointed out that I had spelled Charlie Chaplin's name incorrectly. Here is the corrected version.

I started this painting 3 months ago. Due to schedule and a few problem areas in the painting, it has taken me til now to get it finished. 

Aim of Art

The author Joseph Conrad said the aim of art is to snatch from the remorseless rush of time, a passing phase of life, and hold the rescued fragment before all eyes in the light of a sincere mood. That thought describes much of what my painting is about.

It also explains why many artists like myself are not drawn to traditionally pretty or picturesque subject matter.

It is more interesting to find beauty in unexpected or mundane places.

Put light on almost any subject and you can find some fragment of beauty to snatch from the rush of time.

Getting Back To Painting

I am finally starting some larger paintings. For 2 years I have been so wrapped up with the book I was illustrating, along with teaching, that all I have had time and energy for is small plein aires. It is always hard to get back into it. I find all kinds of resistance. I start asking myself, is it really worth the time? Aren't there more worthy pusuits? Is this going to be worth the investment? It's a terrible and unproductive way to feel. I finally slug through and start with small steps. I go through sketches and photos and make more sketches. Finally, something starts to emerge. I would like to pick up this painting at that stage and share my process with you as I progress.

This is a photo I shot in LA back in 2013. I've worked with it a few times feeling like there is something there but, until now, never got the juice going.

                                     

After doing these sketches, I felt there were some possibilities. I then did a small 4 x 5 color sketch.

I liked what was happening but was still feeling a little iffy. I finally decided to do a section of it as a study, although a relatively large study that would stand on it's own.

So this is one of the 2 paintings I am working on. It is 22" x 28". This is the first pass. When doing a larger painting I usually do quite a bit of changing, scraping out, glazing, repainting all of which gives a lot of texture and depth. So over the next few weeks, I will show the progress and talk about process to the final painting.

Here it is in a little bit earlier stage.

I will be posting my progress in the coming weeks.
Happy New Year.

PM…not AM

For a few years now, I have been teaching a painting class where we go into the city and paint on location. It's always been a very fun class. And it's always been in the morning. This February I will be teaching it again, however, it will be in the afternoon. I thought I knew downtown Phoenix pretty well but this has forced me to find new places. More accurately, it has helped me to see old places in a new way. That's what happened with this painting. I've seen this church a hundred times before but never this way. I did this last Saturday afternoon looking west on Monroe. I think it is one of the locations we'll go to.

Paintings at SFA

Beginning this week, I have 11 new paintings showing at Scottsdale Fine Art. Most of them are small pieces done on location, including some of the bungalow paintings I have previously posted on this site. There is one larger painting, an 18 x 24 of Gordon's Grocery Store. Come by and take a look if you get a chance. They will be up until 15 Mar.

Another Corner Building.

This is another older building, it is across the street from Gordon's. It was once a dull brown color but then was painted this bright yellow a few years ago. Good move for me as it gave me something more interesting to paint. The rich color of the stucco is enhanced by the warm light reflecting up into it. One of the things I like about painting in the city is the mundane manmade objects that become really interesting elements to paint. Anything, once you throw a light on it, is interesting to paint. In this case, the post, the traffic light and the one-way arrow all become interesting elements and create a fun companion to the palm tree.

Quick Pastel Sketch

This is a view of the Westward Ho from 2nd Avenue in downtown Phoenix. It is quick demo done for my City Painting class.

Gordon's Market

When I first moved here to Arizona, I began roaming around town searching for places to paint. It seemed a little harder to find what I wanted than it was in LA where I moved from. But then I came across Gordon's. It was a little neighborhood grocery store on Roosevelt and Third Avenue. It has long since been remodeled and turned into some kind of school. This little study, 6x8, was done from a Kodachrome (may you rest in peace) slide I took 30 years ago.

Here is another painting I did a few years ago.

The Color of Brown

Last week I posted a plein air painting I did of this building in Phoenix. I wasn't overly happy with it but I felt there was potential. Here is a second version that I did in the studio. I cropped in closer and gave more thought to the color of the building. I like the compression of space that happens when you paint a small part of a distant view.

Here is last weeks version.

Backlighting = Shapes

A small study based on a photo in Phoenix. As I've mentioned before, backlighting often provides strong / dark light patterns and shapes to work with.

Mesa Churches

Practice, Practice …

This past weekend I participated in the quickdraw in Scottsdale's Fall For The Arts Festival. Main street was blocked off and 30 artists filled the street, each creating a piece of art in 2 hours. I wanted to paint this theater from a photo and sketches I had done over in LA earlier this year. I knew it would be a little ambitious to finish a painting this involved so I did a practice version a few days before the event. Sure enough, it took me 4 hours to complete the painting. I did it again and got it down to a little over 3 hours. After 4 more repeated paintings (so 6! altogether), I was able to get it down to 2 hours. Painting the same painting 6 times in a row may not sound very creative, however, I found it to be instructive. It taught me how to better simplify and economize - making every stroke count. When I did the painting on Saturday, I finished in time, not by feverishly throwing paint around, but by making decisions (both rationally and intuitively) about every color I mixed and every stroke I made. It turned out rather well. 

This version is the 6th practice piece.

Little Acrylic Study, 6"x 6"

Intensity/neutrality

This is a little 6x8 painting based on a photo I took a few years ago in San Francisco. Aside from the point of view and the interesting shapes of darks and lights, I was interested in the neutrality of most of the color with just a few accents of intensity.

Harvest Moon over New York

My friend Brad Teare, art director at the Friend magazine (he's also an accomplished painter with a good blog) asked me to do a cover for their October issue. He said they wanted something that looked a little more urban than their usual pastoral settings. Also, that I might include something about the season.

The Friend is a publication of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (of which I am a member). For their covers, they assign an illustrator a month and let him or her come up with five or so ideas and they choose which one they want. It's not real often that I get that kind latitude. Thanks Brad!

Here is one of the reference photos I took of my grandkids.

Yellow

I find I paint a lot of yellow things. I should probably write about that sometime. For now, here is a little sketch I did from a photo I took in San Francisco a few years ago.