My Newest Stuff

Just Passing Through, 2008. oil on canvas 24 x 20 sold

I love the big clouds that somtimes roll through the valley every spring. In this piece really wanted to push how big the clouds feel sometimes, so I turned the canvas sideways (at least for me) made the horizon very low to emphasize the vastness of the sky.

Enjoy.

This painting is part of The Central Valley Landscape Show at First Street Gallery during the month of June. The Reception is on June 6th from 6-8 PM. Stop by if you are in the area.

I don't understand

Golden Twilight, 2008. oil on canvas, 28 x 34. sold.

It feels strange sometimes when a painting comes together. I often struggle to make a painting work when I try new ideas. When I finished this painting, my wife commented, "You've been trying to paint yellow clouds for ten years, I think you finally got it right." And I thought back and I think she's right. It was 1997 when I first painted some strange looking yellow clouds in one of my paintings that prompted someone who was in my studio to say, "Is that piece done?" Not words any artist wants to hear. I've been fiddling with yellow clouds ever since, and not very successfully. I can't tell you why they started to work now. I guess persistence does pays off.

This painting is for the Central Valley Landscape show at First Street Gallery in June.

Where does the time go?

Winter Clouds, 2008. oil on panel 8 x 10 sold

It has been a crazy few weeks, and everything seems to be happening all at once. This year, I am trying to be more prepared and not wait until the last minute so I already getting ready for a group landscape show (a show that I am also organizing) at First Street Gallery this coming June. I think that I am almost ready for that show. Maybe one more painting, I think...

This little painting was something I did when I was working on another larger painting for the show. What was unusual for me with this piece is not only the painting which is a winter scene, but the frame which is a very ornate in a deep earth reddish color and at least three or four inches wide. (Sorry, I didn't take a picture of the frame.) I usually use a simple modern floater frame for all my work, so this frame was a huge departure for me. I found the frame in the back of one of my galleries, and they let me take it and see what I could paint for it. I'd never done anything like that before, and it was kinda fun probably because it worked.

Let's count the ways

Autumn Evening, 2008. oil on panel 8 x 10 sold

How many different colors can a sunset be? I enjoy exploring the possibilities. (I think they might be endless.) This is yet another small painting from the first of the year. I'm currently working on some larger pices that I will post soon.

I didn't paint that

A Little Big Red, 2007. oil on panel 7 x 8



Well, okay I did paint it, but what I mean is that you can not control how other people perceive or look at art. While my work in general is fairly polarizing (people either love it or hate it), I recently started a series of red cloud paintings that are particularly divisive. I mean people either really love them (like they can't help it but to buy them) or they think that I'm painting the end of the world, like in a nuclear holocaust. Two unrelated people actually said that to me. They figure the paintings must come from a very dark place in my mind and they find them very disturbing.



I can assure you that the latter is wholly untrue and the former is a little strange (not that I mind selling my work). What causes viewers to react so strongly? I just thought that a big red cloud could make an interesting painting and the color interaction could be powerful.



I guess I was right.

Classic combinations

Dusk, 2008. oil on panel 7 x 8


Another small painting that from the first of the year. I was playing with the purple/green combination....two colors that I think were made to go together.



Enjoy.

Another summer day

Afternoon Squares, 2008. oil on panel, 8 x 8

Here is yet another summer afternoon painting.

I never tire of playing with closely related visual ideas. I think it was Richard Diebenkorn who said it was only when he set up a very limited set of rules within his work that he found the freedom to try radically different ideas within those set of rules.

I keep playing with the elements of valley summer afternoons. How can I push it around, bend it, morph it, but not break the rules that I have set for myself? It's a great game to play.

This is one such painting, and it was effortless to paint. The composition and color just came together without a second thought. If only they were all this easy.