Monday, May 30, 2016

Nature journaling at Academy of Sciences

Spent a nice afternoon with my daughter Marcella nature journaling with a group of naturalists and John Muir Laws.



Saturday, April 30, 2016

Montara Beach

Enjoyed a beautiful day hiking near Montara Beach.  Before the hike I did a couple of seascape sketches.  I'm trying to work on rendering waves and tides.  Definitely challenging but I'm convinced if I really observe and practice I'll eventually get the hang of it

Sunday, April 24, 2016

Learning from the Masters 1

There is so much to be learned from the masters.  Rodin when sketching his models his eyes never left the model.  He understood human anatomy and he wanted each and every line to flow from his eyes to his hands to the paper.  Sargent when painting watercolors was most interested in how light played off of objects and forms.

Sunday, April 17, 2016

Portola Vineyards

I spent a beautiful day Plein air painting with a group of artists that meet regularly.  Today enjoyed the sun, scenery, and wine of Portola Vineyards.  Here is an 8x10 oil painting after about 4 hours of work.

Saturday, April 16, 2016

Classic Greek male torso

it was a beautiful day in California today so after my morning jog, a little work, and some lunch I headed down to the Stanford Cantor museum to hang out in the Rodin garden and read a book.  After a while I went into the museum where I enjoyed a display of Souix Native American drawings that told the story of the Battle at Little Bighorn (Custer's Last Stand).  Then I stumbled onto a sculptor of a classic Greek male torso circa 50 B.C. and decided to sketch it.  Here is my sketch.

Sunday, April 3, 2016

Salsa dancers 1

I have taking some Salsa dancing lessons off and on and admire those couples that turn, spin, and step with such rhythmic beauty.  Here is a sketch were I first did a gesture drawing and then refined it with some line and form.

Saturday, April 2, 2016

Antenna

It's been about a year since I did my last plein air painting.  I met up with the Burlingame Plein Air Painters Meetup group at Princeton Harbor in Half Moon Bay to exercise my artistic abilities and get some fresh air.  Here is the result of a few hours dabbling with my oil paints.  A few people walking by complimented me on the painting and as I was packing up my supplies one couple offered to buy my painting.  Maybe I'm not so bad after all.  Anyway, I do it more for fun than anything else.  If I had more time I would have worked out the values and forms a bit more.

Saturday, January 2, 2016

More figures

It's been awhile since I did some figure drawing so I was feeling a bit rusty.  My daughter Marcie was in town who is an excellent artist so I invited her to join me.  Here are a few of the 20 minute poses I sketched.  Hope to do many more in 2016.