Landscape Painting_Descanso Gardens 03

Nothin' but palette knife. One of my best paintings I think. The culmination of hard work, sweat, tears, odorless mineral spirits, and divine intervention. I've definitely found working with the palette knife forces you to always mix with a lot of paint, so I didn't run out of my colors too early and I was able to mix minute variations into them and with a combination of scraping down the canvas and piling it on thickly was able to get a real range of thickness. Not a bad composition, but I wish I'd fit the tops of the palms in there. Next time.

Landscape Painting_Griffith Park Observatory

Griffith Park Observatory. Our last class tackling deep deep atmospheric perspective and city complications. Ironically, I don't know if any of us actually painted the Observatory.

Landscape Painting_Descanso Gardens 02

Near the California Desert garden.

A return to Descanso Gardens, this time with color. A kid said my colors were so colorful and that my trees were nice and squishy.

Landscape Painting_Malibu Creek Park

Not bad, but I got lazy with the foreground. I like the top 2/3 best.

I worked on a gessoed panel here. Without the tooth of a canvas on board, the paint slides around a lot and streakyness becomes a challenge. One more challenge than I would have cared for.

One of my best paintings for this whole summer. I was able to keep some of the original mark making and a little of the washes but get a some thickness and hit my edges. Sweet!

Landscape Painting_Caltech

Caltech. Really nice environment and a lot of little pockets of varying landscapes to paint.

Landscape Painting_Chinatown

Having dealt with multiple changing scenery the previous day, I chose a balcony up high that was unlikely to change drastically. I did it a little later in the afternoon than I would have cared for, so I had to work a little quicker than usual, but it still came out alright. The architecture and supercolors are a lot of fun to paint.
Chinatown! Our first foray into architecture. I spent an hour in the shade before my protective shadow of "cool" receded and I cooked for the rest of the day. However, the heat wasn't as bad as all of the cars passing through, parking, the stores opening and setting up shop, etc.

Landscape Painting_Vasquez Rocks

We spent a Saturday at Vasquez Rocks, a popular movie and tv show location. I recognize them from Star Trek, both the new and the old, but their unique formations can be seen in countless movies, especially westerns. There was a scifi set for some production nearby while we were there.

Landscape Painting_Point Dume

Zuma didn't really appeal to me so I drove on past to Point Dume for some cliff action. There was a lot of rock climbers all over and then someone got trapped on the other side or something and my setup area was overrun with fire trucks and ambulances, so I hiked up the rocks with all my junk and painted the other side from a viewing port.

Landscape Painting_Simi Valley

The hills off Yosemite Drive in Simi Valley. When every hill is dead grass, it is both boring and challenging to create space. Not my best. How 'bout that tree in the lower left!?

Landscape Painting_El Matador

El Matador - a cold day in an otherwise hot summer. Our first foray into color. Fortunately, it was overcast, desaturating an already limited palette landscape. Unfortunately, I felt like I didn't need sunscreen then and so I was totally burnt on one side of my body (I was up against the beach cliff ). Is it better to be evenly burnt or one-sided burnt?

Landscape Painting_Eaton Canyon

Running out of patience, I did not get the depth that wanted.

A view from the riverbed.

Eaton Canyon. Sooooo hot that day.

Landscape Painting_Descanso Gardens

For those of you who don't know or have never been, there's a mini railroad for kids that runs through Descanso Gardens. That's the tracks. Although, there's usually about 4-5 adults to each kid...

Descanso Gardens above the Bodi House. Still monochromatic. A coyote walked by me during this painting --- yikes!

Landscape Painting_Topanga State Park

Topanga State Park (full tonal range, monochromatic)

Topanga State Park (5 tones, monochromatic)

Topanga State Park (5 tones, monochromatic)

Topanga State Park (5 tones, monochromatic)

So I just finished a landscape painting class with the talented Leighton Hickman, bearded oil painting genius. We began in June and sweated it out on Saturdays all the way through yesterday, culminating in a trip to the Griffith Park Observatory. Here's three months of work, comin' up!