Posted in Berkeley, Drawing, Ink, Life in general, Moleskine, Other artists, Painting, Pen and Ink, People, Sketchbook Pages, Watercolor on November 28, 2007 | 12 Comments »
Purple ink and watercolor in small Moleskine watercolor notebook (Larger)
I love overhearing snippets of other people’s conversations and how they flavor my sketches in cafes. I’ve drawn and scribbled overheard conversations at Peet’s Coffee’s 4th Street shop in Berkeley before. When I saw Pete Scully’s fantastic sketches with conversation snippets I thought I’d try it [...]
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Oil on panel, 6″x8″ (Larger)
(painted on top of a small plein air landscape that didn’t work)
At my favorite little produce market, Colusa Foods in Kensington, I asked one of the expert produce guys which fruits were good right now. He recommended Satsuma tangerines and Persimmons. I’d never eaten either of these fruits and decided to [...]
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Oil on Canvas Panel, 12″x9″ (Larger)
On November 3 I went to Viansa Winery in Sonoma County with my plein air painting group. It’s a beautiful estate in the wine country with wonderful views in every direction. I painted the first layer of this painting on site and then today at home I painted another [...]
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Oil on canvas panel, 12×9″ (Larger)
A couple weeks ago there was a team of surveyors on my street, measuring the block. I’d always wondered what they saw when they looked through their surveyor thingees on tripods. I asked them what they were doing, and whether I could look through their device to see what it [...]
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Posted in Art theory, Landscape, Oil Painting, Other artists, Outdoors/Landscape, Painting, Portrait, tagged , artist videos, how-to videos, Painting, painting video on November 21, 2007 | 11 Comments »
I’ve been renting videos from SmartFlix.com on oil painting landscapes, portraits, and plein air painting and have enjoyed watching most of them, and so has Fiona, pictured above. SmartFlix.com is a website where you can rent videos on any kind of artistic endeavor or just about any other “how-to” — from welding to [...]
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The Watercolor Flower Artist’s Bible: An essential reference for the practicing artist (link to Amazon for more info)
Last December I received an invitation from an editor at Quarto Publishing in London to submit photos of my watercolor flower paintings for publication in an upcoming book. At first I ignored the message because I assumed it [...]
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Posted in Cats, Life in general, Painting, Sketchbook Pages, Still Life, Watercolor, tagged Bananas, blindness, cats Furminator, Drawing, sketchbook, Watercolor on November 16, 2007 | 7 Comments »
Watercolor on Arches Cold-Pressed paper in 5.5 x 7.5 sketchbook
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After working half the day I decided to finally vacuum my house since I was feeling sleepy and not particular creative and the house and studio sorely needed cleaning. I’ve been contentedly choosing painting over housecleaning for too long, and the cat hair was piling up. [...]
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Oil on canvas panel, 8×6″
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I think I’m finally making a little progress with my oil painting. I’m starting to understand about color temperature and how to make transparent darks (which you absolutely have to protect just like the white of the paper in watercolor). I couldn’t figure out how to get the little highlights on [...]
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Oil on 12×9 panel
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First a disclaimer: There’s more Elio than Jana in this painting. I started this painting and really liked where it was going, with a decent composition and nice fressh, bright colors, but asked for help when my path wouldn’t stop looking like a waterfall. My wonderful teacher, Elio Camacho, has been hesitant [...]
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Oil on panel, 9×12″
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This is a portrait of my son and his grandfather, Don, from a photo taken 30 years ago. I started working on this painting a few days before he died two weeks ago. Although he was afraid of dying he had tremendous acceptance, from years of regular meditation. Visiting him was a [...]
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Watercolor on Arches hot pressed paper in sketchbook, 5.5 x 7.5″
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This week’s Everyday Matters challenge is to draw something square. I searched my house and office and found nothing square until I started thinking about time.Then I remembered this kitchen timer that I’m going to use to make the timed paintings I wrote about [...]
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Posted in Sketchbook Pages on November 6, 2007 | 3 Comments »
I’m just painting non-stop, both plein air and in the studio trying to finish a challenging 3-person portrait of 3-generations of men in my family but none of the paintings are quite ready for posting. The good news is that I’ve made some huge breakthroughs in my learning and as soon as I finish the [...]
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Oil painting on panel, 9″x12″
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Last Sunday in my plein air oil painting class I painted this scene on this panel but it pretty much looked like dark mud so I worked on it some more today. I like to keep going with a painting until I either succeed, push it as far as it can [...]
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