San Pedro Korean Friendship Bell May 3, 2014

Fantastic view of the ocean and San Pedro.

El Matador

It's been too long since I've been out landscape painting and after a month of trying to coordinate with friends, I succeeded in luring my friend Nick Schumaker (http://nicholasschumaker.blogspot.com) out to El Matador. I have to admit that the weather only seemed ideal. Bright and beautiful, but windy and sandy. You can see the grains of sand that got into the paint when you click on it. I had to empty sand out of my wallet later too. I ended up having to work really quickly as my paint was drying on my brush and my palette kept drying out as well. To top it off, there must have been a record number of model shoots and selfi shoots that day passing through with camera crews and onlookers. There was even a guy with a metal detector. It's not just in the movies folks. But as you can see, the magic lives on. I'm pretty happy with this painting and after having been to El Matador so many times, what were the odds of finding a new and unique place to paint? Here's a recap of some of the El Matador paintings I've done over the years:

Landscape paintings in New Jersey.

 

I just got back from a trip to the east coast to visit my RISD peeps. I went all over the place in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Connecticut, and New Jersey. While I was in New Jersey, I was lucky enough to get some landscape painting in. I haven't been consistently landscape painting in a while, and it was slow going at first, but I'm pretty happy with the way these came out.

Vasquez Rocks 11_11_12

 First time to Vasquez in over a year.

Sept 30, 2012 Channel Island Harbor, Oxnard

Been awhile since I did a boat painting.

Landscape Paintings, August and September 2012

Lake Balboa, Van Nuys

Lake Balboa, Van Nuys

Balboa Park, near the golf course

Balboa Park, Van Nuys

VA Memorial, Santa Monica.

Still finding the sketchbook paper a little trick...

Apr 15, 2012 Paradise Cove

I felt a little creaky on Sunday, but I still managed to pull this out. A good warm up for next week.

040112_Azusa Waterfalls.

Been a month since the last outing.

02_27_12 Morris Reservoir

Feb 19, 2012 Malibu Creek Park.

02_12_12 Stunt Road

Jan 29, 2012 El Matador: The Return

El Matador is a place of mystery and wonder. Why is every painting there good? Inquiring minds want to know.

Dec 29, 2011 Morgan Hill.

My last painting of 2011.

Dec 18, 2011 Swtizer Falls.

We didn't make it to the falls, but the vista was amazing and the lighting was crazy. So crazy, that it changed every couple minutes. These paintings are pretty small. I was hoping that I could keep up with the light, but a combination of sunset and settling fog just made it impossible.

Dec 11, 2011 Lower Arroyo Seco.

Lower Arroyo Seco. Actually, it's right on the other side of Hahmongna Park.

12_04_11 Chantry Flats, Arcadia.

This one's a little quicker than the usual. Maybe an hour. The sun is setting earlier these days and I didn't get started 'till late afternoon. My fingers were frozen by the time I left.

11_27_11 Lake Balboa.

I've missed the last month due to rain and holidays and laziness, but here's the latest entry. Lake Balboa looks amazing at sunset. Something about the light in Fall.

Unfinished Storybook Project.

Back in 2009 I was lucky enough to be offered a job illustrating an amazing children's book story about a wandering dog whose free spirited nature lands him in all kinds of trouble. Unfortunately I ended up leaving the project, but I still look at these as some of the best traditional media illustrations I've ever created. They're all about 90% done. I was looking at some fantastic illustrators like Carter Goodrich, Shaun Tan, David Catrow, Bill Sienkiewicz, Timothy Basil Ering, and Omar Rayyan. I really like their mixed media apporach. It seemed to add a lot of vibrancy and life to things. I also liked that in a lot of ways, you could see the original sketch maintained with the used of linework. I tried a new method drawing a layout sketch in colored pencil, painting in watercolor washeds first and then acrylic in a series of washes to build up harder darks. Then I pulled out areas with colored pencils to create color vibration or add texture. Instead, it frequently made me tighten and refine the paintings even further, but coloristically and texturally I definitely saw an improvement.

10_30_11 Malibu Creek Park

For those of you who don't know, if there comes a time where I have to choose between a beautiful vista and an awesome bench -- bench every time.

10_23_11 Hahamongna Park

Plus the warmup thumbnail.