Sharing what my experience are in the art community

Trying To Keep It Simple.

7/10/2012 11:33:20 PM | 1 Comment

Hello Everyone,

I am trying to keep my life as simple as I can,...at least as simple as I can in a digital world. I am now blogging directly from my website for the very first time. I am hoping this will be a smoother blogging experience. Why I haven't done this before is beyond me. I have tried blogging on other art websites, but they just wear me down. I either lose the text, the images are either too small or too big, and many times the template is just confusing. Often when folk are trying to read the blog they cannot sign on or they cannot see the images. It is just incredibly frustrating! You know what I mean.

Hopefully, this will be simpler for you and for me.

Over this last year, I have been painting and teaching painting in locations thoughout Southern California. Some of these locations are as diverse as Terranea in Rancho Palo Verdes to King Gillette in Malibu to Andreas Canyon in Palm Springs. Yes, my car is tired. In fact, just today, I took my van into the shop 'cause it is literally not hitting on all cylinders. Anyway, I thought it was time to update my art blog. It is time to put some of my art on Internet and let you know I am still painting--still creating even though I haven't been very good about communicating.

Below you will find samplings of paintings I have completed this year, mostly while teaching. I started some paintings on location and completed them in the studio. Other painting were started and finished on location. Many of these paintings were created as class demo for anyone to watch. Unfortunately, not many people did. However, one exception did occur last week. In my Friday landscape class, Elaine, a student and friend, positioned herself and easel slightly behind me while I painted Malibu Lagoon. She later said it had been very beneficial for her to watch me paint and create shapes, colors and strokes on the canvas. I always try to encourage everyone to do this. Watching a professional artist paint, whether it's in person or on video, will always help because the instructor will do things differently and usually with some sort of strategy in mind. Sorta like cards or chess. You always want to think at least "one or two strokes" ahead in order to achieve the desired effect.