Laguna Beach Heisler Park Finished

Finally getting around to posting the finished piece Laguna Beach Heisler Park.  I really enjoyed using the colors of the 'golden hour' - which is right before sunset.  I used a combination of four photos of this particular vantage point and created my own colors for what I imagined the scene would look like at the golden hour.

Skyler's Art Show

I'm so silly-proud to announce that my son-in-law won the Best of Show award this spring with his fabulous sculpture entitled Unlock Movement.  It was a six foot tall clay, metal wire and wood sculpture that just blew the judges away.  His sculpture teacher told me that the voting was unanimous and no-contest. Here are a couple of his other works that were in the show as well. The long woman is cast aluminum and the close up of one massive wall sculpture is from a piece entitled Female Collision, done in raku fired clay.  It is so maddening that such a talented artist can not make a living with his art.  The challenge is to keep finding a way to create while supporting his family and going to school full time.  In a perfect world this man would be studying in Italy full time, but wouldn't we all??

Laguna Beach Heisler Park

Starting a beach scene from reference photos my son and daughter in law sent me. Using the ala prima method, but am going to spread it out over a couple of sessions because I still have to do my day job. This is session one.

Sowa Studio

I attended a great Ala Prima workshop in portland oregon in late January with Thomas Jefferson Kitts. The location was Kat Sowa's fantastic studio in north portland beneath the St. Johns Bridge. Good old Oregon, very "Twilight" like....Her studio is every artist's dream.

Notan

A notan is a black and white composition study using in this case, five values. The idea is to clump things into five value masses and compose those masses into interesting abstract shapes with lost edges, hard edges and descriptive brush work. Ala Prima means to do a complete painting in one session, with no sketching, or 'cat licking' of the canvas. You premix your five paint values on your palette and apply the paint with confident strokes. Thomas said " A confident stroke is more important than being right." The method of applying paint communicates to the viewer. Then, since it was not the end of the day and I had more time, I added more details and took it to a finished level. Thomas listened to my detailed plan of attack and said to me "stop overthinking everything!"

My color Ala Prima

Here is my ala prima still life. About three and half hours total time.

thomas' notan