fall 2013 paintings

Here are five of my most recent paintings. Four of them were done for my class with Ron Pratt, and one was my own idea. The class is a lot of fun and I'm learning to work with a lot of techniques and subjects that I wouldn't have tried on my own. Maybe the most important thing I got from the class was to go ahead and buy some better stuff -- paper, brushes and paints. But maybe just as important is watching how Ron approaches a painting. He asks the class to gather around and watch as he demonstrates how he paints an assignment, and in five minutes or so he shows us the start of a great painting. Then we all try it, but of course, ours look no way near as good as his. We do this several more times during the class as he demonstrates how he adds more to his painting.
 
Another great thing about the class is that it brings together a group of about 15 people, all interested in painting, who can look around and see what each is doing with the assignment, and learn from what they see. Although we are all trying to paint the same scene, we come up with an amazing variety of styles, and they all look pretty good. It is a fun group and we have a good time.

Our first assignment was a scene with a lot of fall color, and a demonstration of how to use masking fluid. Ron's photo was a group of birches. We masked out the tree trunks to keep them white, and then painted the background color

 The next assignment was a painting for a holiday card. We were free to choose any subject that we wanted. Maureen thought it would be nice to have some horses, and maybe a little cabin in the woods. I looked through Google Images until I found several likely ideas, and then settled on a painting by Dwayne Brech.

Then Ron had us do a painting from a photo of Lover's Point in Pacific Grove. I jumped the gun on his demonstration and went ahead and painted the sky and water. He did a wet-on-wet wash with lots of sunset pink, and then blotted out clouds with kleenix. It looked great, but I already done my sky, so I stuck with it.

The last class assignment was a street scene of Lahaina, again from one of Ron's photos. I think everyone felt a bit overwhelmed by the complexity of the scene. We weren't supposed to make an exact copy of the scene, just use it as a guide to get the proper perspective. But I kind of liked all of the busy stuff in the photo, and I stuck pretty close to it.


























I also did some painting at home, and I especially like one of them. In October, Maureen and I spent a few days at a friend's cabin near Big Sur. It was built in the 60's on a little creek in a redwood forest, and it has an interesting design—sort of a modified A-frame, and is heated by a wood stove. It was a cold week, and we kept the fire going most of the time we were there. I wanted to show the warmth of the fire and the quiet of the place.

Who needs another blog?

Some time ago, I started a blog just to see how it works and it turned into "East Bay Trails Revisited", which is my recent hiking activity on local trails.  I find it fun to share stuff about hiking, but I am interested about many other things, and a couple of them involve visual images. I've been an amateur photographer for about 60 years now, and I still enjoy making a good photograph. About 25 years ago, I also did watercolor paintings for a few years and then kind of let it die out. Then, last spring, I took a class that got me going again, and I've been painting a lot lately. I thought it might be nice to create another blog to share some of my photos and paintings, and maybe some thoughts about what inspired them.

So, who needs another blog? Probably no one, but on the other hand, who knows what other people might find interesting. I'll just put this out there and see.