Coca-Cola Santa in Watercolor

The day after Thanksgiving my job is to hang the Christmas lights but before getting started today I was compelled to do a watercolor version of Coca-Cola Santa.  You can view the original here.

Coca-Cola Santa

In the 1930's Coca-Cola hired Haddon Sunblom to develop advertising images of Santa.  For inspiration he turned to Clement Clark Moore's popular poem "Twas the Night Before Christmas" which portrayed Santa as a warm, jolly, and plump Santa.  Between the 1930's and 1960's Sunblom created a series of oil paintings some of which have been exhibited in famous museums such as the Louvre.  Below is a drawing I did of one of these vintage Santa paintings.

Anders Zorn

One of my favorite painters is the Swedish master Anders Zorn.  So I was thrilled to have the chance to see some of his most famous works yesterday at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco yesterday. I loved how his portraiture really seemed to capture the character of his subjects.  Zorn's watercolor composition and technique draw the viewer into the scene and his paintings of Swedish village life are filled with movement and energy.  He also was inspired by Rembrandt to create some beautiful etchings.  I made an attempt to copy his watercolor painting, Reveille, boulevard Clichy in ink.  I struggled to render the form and keep the values balanced.

Ribera's Saint Paul

I sketched this copy of a painting of Saint Paul by the master Spanish painter Jusepe de Ribero.  The original painting does an amazing job at capturing the intelligence and wisdom of Saint Paul.

Mother and Child In A Boat

I admired this painting by Mary Cassatt titled a Mother and Child In A Boat because it captured the beauty of a sublime and tender moment between a parent and their child.  These are the kinds of moments parents cherish forever but are all too easy to forget.  Below is my attempt at a copy in watercolor.

Just in time for Halloween

About a month ago I was inspired to do a still life with a Fall theme when I was looking through the produce at the grocery store.  So I purchased a pumpkin and a couple of gourds.  That same evening I was flipping through a book of Dutch paintings and found a still life with a skull painted by Peter Claesz in 1630.  As I was arranging my composition for the still life I thought it would be cool to include the skull from the Peter Claesz painting to give it a bit of a Halloween theme.  So I could capture the cast shadows of the skull on the gourds I used a head of lettuce where I was going to add the skull.  Here is a photo of the arrangement, a sketch of the composition, and the final oil painting.

Overlooking the South Bay from Edgewood Park

I was hiking on Saturday at Edgewood Park and decided to sketch some oak trees while taking a break to look out over the Bay.  I also took a picture for reference which I used to do this watercolor painting.  I focused on the oak trees off center and to the right as my subject.