a creative day

It was a long fun day yesterday. First in the morning I played a cameo in a video John Kilduff made for Lets Paint TV, the Captain Creativity Video Challenge! I played a very off-model Vincent van Gogh. aahaha!

Then in the afternoon I was over for a while at my friend Rod's house and his grandson and I drew a few maps of Los Angeles, I think this one turned out nice. (note map not to scale)

The in the evening I was live painting at the Garter in Venice. One of the artists brought a friend who dressed in a cool outfit for us to paint! We all painted on the patio out front which was nice and could mingle with the patrons and hear the great D.J. which made for a good environment. oil on canvas, 36 by 24

travel town

Todays paint out for the Digital Landscape class was to Travel Town in Griffith Park to photograph and draw and paint all the cool trains they have there. I painted this new piece on top of this past one that I was not really excited about. But it's really fun to work a new piece on top of a failure because it's a challenge to overtake the old painting. oil on canvas, 15 by 30

teaching painting at the Hive

I led a small group of students in a private, four hour painting class at the Hive gallery last Sunday. They were all beginners, my favorites to teach! I started off with an intro lecture for an hour and then we had a model for three hours of painting. They really enjoyed it and were impressed with their work, especially since some of them had never painting before ever! The first day was, naturally, monochrome and here was my demo that I painted along with them. If anyone in the Los Angeles area reading this blog is interested in a painting class led by yours truly, contact me at the e-mail at the top of the page and we'll schedule a time for the next class. oil on canvas, 16 by 12

Santa Monica Pier

I went out with John Kilduff yesterday to paint the Santa Monica Pier. I think I'm still wishing I was in Big Sur and Monterey! I'm in a show opening Saturday at Bleicher Golightly gallery about landscape; On Thursday they're having a speaker come talk about the history of the pier so the owner wanted some of my paintings of the pier... I already submitted one small one, so I thought I'd do a big one before the opening! You can see the pier from the gallery which is kinda cool. The big tent on the left is the Cirque du Soleil. oil on canvas, 2 by 4 feet.

UPDATE! Here is the little painting I did of the pier during the interesting talk about it's history. Since it was so fresh in my mind, it's a little version done from memory, oil on canvas, 12 by 16

painting the California Coast

I drove up the coast for four days with Grace, heading for Monterey and painting along the way. It was PERFECT weather and I managed to get three good paintings out of it. The first one is of Morro Bay, then the next day it was Big Sur, and the last day, Fisherman's Wharf in Monterey. Also here is a composite of three camera phone pictures that I posted live to facebook! That's kinda cool. I wish they let artists paint at Hearst Castle because that place is awesome! Oil on canvas, 12 by 24, 22 by 28, and 18 by 36.

p.s. there is a good blog post on the painting lecture for the San Fernando Valley Art Club. Click here to see it!

painting lecture and demo

I gave a talk and demo at the San Fernando Valley Art Club last week. I was postponing putting up a post in the hopes I'd get some better photos and clips than the one I got, but it might take a little longer than I thought. I'll update with better pics if I get them. It was a 45 minute talk about light, paint, and painting the effect of light, and then a 45 minute portrait demo from a random audience member who won a raffle drawing. They filmed the entire talk and demo and they said they will send me a copy when it's edited. It went really well, and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. In fact today at the art supply store, a woman stopped me and said she was at the talk and she thought is was great! Fun and educational. The photo flashed out the painting, and the video clip is before the talk panning the audience... update, I got some great pics e-mailed to me today, so I'm adding a couple of my faves from that bunch. Thank you Sharon from the SFVAC!

erotic art school

Last night I was in a one day show called the Erotic Art School. It might turn into a regular event, I'm not sure, but it was fun. There was art on the walls, and artists making art live too! A mixed crowd of art lovers, artists, and beautiful models in fetish outfits as muse for everyone in attendance. Here's three paintings and a drawing I did. Also a video (sorry it's sideways but I forgot to hold the camera horizontal) that gives a little feel for the event. oil on canvas, 20 by 16 and 12 by 9