sam's town

Here's a painting I'm working on based on a few photos I took in Las Vegas... This is Sam's Town Hotel and Casino off the strip. My ultimate goal is to keep the physical energy up in the painting and the color feeling "real" while working from photography which has major limitations for me when it comes to "interesting-ness" and color. Somehow I want to paint more blatantly expressionistic when I'm working from a relatively dull source image like a photograph. I'm trying to capture the black blacks, jarring contrast and saturated colors inside a casino. oil on linen, 40 by 28

vegas

I was in Las Vegas for the Memorial Day weekend and wanted to make sure to get some urban landscape painting in. Vegas is a crazy town and not necessarily 'plein air' friendly but I was determined. So here's a couple works made on the spot, both looking up and down Fremont Street. I also took lots of photos and want to see what I can do with those 'in studio'. oil on canvas, 30 by 24 and 20 by 16

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good in bed

another day, another new painting over another past failure. When you paint a lemon, make lemonade! I was on Let's Paint TV this morning and for some reason "La Maja Desnuda" came up... so here's a take at Goya's masterpiece. oil on canvas, 18 by 36

Let's Paint jogging in Malibu!

hustler

I felt like painting something but I didn't feel like going out today. So I stayed home and threw this together, painted over an old failed canvas... It may turn out to be an underpainting for more future painting, but at the moment, I like it. oil on canvas, 40 by 30

updated May 26th, 2009

life drawing at the hive

Yesterday, and every other Sunday, is life drawing at the Hive Gallery from 5 to 7pm for $10. Yuki is in charge of the booking and she's doing a great job getting people with cool costumes and attitude. Here's Debra Haden from Feminine Oddities doing her thing for us yesterday... 3, 10, and 15 minute poses

live painting

Thursday and Friday I was painting 20 minute portraits at the Hive and at Altadena Junction. There were good crowds and lots of people will to sit and be part of the action. Here's how they came out... oil on canvas, 12 by 9

paradise cove

John Kilduff and I went to Paradise Cove in Malibu today after Lets Paint TV. What a beautiful place and a perfect day! Here's what I came up with, and also a shot of the scene with Kilduff in action. oil on linen, 24 by 48

family portraits

I was down in San Diego for Mother's Day and did a couple portraits, one of my sister Cayli (who is an avid knitting blogger, check her blog here ) and one of her son Sean. I think I got a better likeness of my sister who was quite still, I think Sean was into sitting for a painting for about 2 minutes and then he was a moving target! lol, he's awesome. oil on canvas, 12 by 9 and 14 by 11

point dume

I went out with John Kilduff for some landscape painting at the same place that was too windy a couple days ago. Much calmer and somewhat overcast, which I hope helps Santa Barbara. A police officer stopped and chatted to us for a bit, nice guy! He said he's an amateur photographer so he got a shot of us painting with the view in the background. He said he'd e-mail it to me, I hope so! So here's a view of Point Dume in Malibu, oil on canvas, 36 by 18

7th and Broadway

Here's another urban life drawing. I started it May 2nd and finished it today. This is the opposite corner from the previous drawing, looking toward Clifton's. sharpie and wite-out on paper, 18 by 12

malibu canyon

I went out with John Kilduff after Let's Paint TV today to paint some landscape 'en plein air' as we do. It was REALLY windy out today! We first went to the beach to paint Point Dume, but it was impossible to paint out there, so we backtracked to this spot overlooking Malibu Canyon Road. oil on canvas, 24 by 36

life drawing at the Hive

Life drawing is back on at the Hive, every other Sunday from 5 to 7pm. Here are a few assorted 3 and 5 minutes poses...

portaits at the hive

I still have fun painting these 20 minute portraits at the Hive openings and such. I think that it's because everyone is different. Friends and strangers all sat and posed and helped make it fun for me and anyon at the show how wanted to watch the painting process. So here are four more attempts at getting a nice juicy likeness.

drawing downtown

I met a friend at the Hive yesterday for some plein air urban landscape. I felt like drawing rather than painting so here's what I ended up with, it was a fun exploration to see how much of the scene I could fit on my paper. It was an interesting day, being May 1st. When we started it seemed like another day downtown, but by the time we finished a couple hours later, the marches were getting quite big and lots of streets closed off. So here's the corner of 7th and Broadway. sharpie on paper, 16 by 11