Show ends Sunday September 26

Well the HB art show ends this Sunday but there is still a little time to get to the Huntington Beach Art Center on Main St. to see the show. I think the doors close at 5 or 6 tomorrow. I thought there were some good paintings at the show this year. Art is a good thing. It is amazing that we as humans create art. And we do it well. From amazing paintings to symphonies to some hot guitar licks. The above painting is a sketch from my sketch book. I was in Long Beach about 3 months ago and I took took a picture of this old rustic tug boat. So I painted it. It is not a bad sketch, but I have been thinking that if I do a painting of it, I need to introduce a strong composition that will tell a story. I saw a painting by Maurice Logan at the Irvine Museum of some boats in a salt flat. It looked like it was somewhere in the San Francisco bay area during the 30's. He paints abstractly and seemingly messy, but it worked. It evoked a feeling. His watercolors were excellent.

HB Art Show Results

Well The show opened to the Public Last Friday, September 18. I didn't win any prize money. It seems like they gave most of the prizes to oil painters. One thing I have learned is that you can't let the results of one judge influence your worth as an artist. In my opinion, the judging seemed arbitrary and a matter of personal taste. The paintings that won are not all what I thought were the best paintings. Maybe life is like that. The race doesn't always go to the fastest. So there you go. The good news is that I did sell one painting so far, the one of the water tower with the red flowers draping down the fence (see Day 14 below). So that was a real boost to me. Also all the hard work exercised my artistic muscles. All and all it is a good show. So there is still time to come on down to the Huntington Beach Art Center on Main Street and see some good paintings. The above picture is the artist standing next to his entries.

HB Plein Aire Report

The Huntington Beach Plein Aire show opens Friday, September 18, 2009 6:00 – 9:00 pm at the HB Art Center Gallery. The Art Center is located at 538 Main Street in old downtown Huntington Beach. All are welcome! I will be there opening night, so come and visit. In my hurry to get my painting to the HB Art Center Gallery yesterday, I forgot to take pictures of two paintings. One was a completion of the Newland House as seen in "Day 2", the other was a painting of an old corner grocery store with a figure walking in it. If you want to see the other two come to the opening this friday night. Above is my version of the Huntington Beach Pier and the front gate to the water tower house. Although "Front Gate" painting is not in the show, it is not in the show it is still for sale. Enjoy. (to see a larger version of a particular painting, try double clicking on one.)

Day 14

Well I got so busy I didn't keep up my blog. I painted a total 7 paintings in a two week period. My strategy was to go on location and paint and then finish the painting at home. I actually wished i would have finished the paintings on location by doing them faster with less detail. What was good about this competition is that I feel I strengthened my artistic visual muscles. Well anyways here is this painting of a historical house in HB. It originally was a water tower but then it was converted to a house mid 20th century. I met the owner whose family has owned the house for 50 years. It actually is a col place. The green on the left side of the painting represents a 100 year old avacado tree. I actually did two paintings. The one with all the red in the middle of the painting is the one I entered in the show. Which one do you like?

HB Plein Aire DAY 2

My second day at painting. I went to the Newland house, an historic old house in Huntington Beach. Newland was friends of the Irvines who owned most of Orange county back in the day. Maybe real estate is the best investment in the long haul. I got there at 10:00am, picked a place in the shade, and started my preliminary sketches. By 11:00am I was starting to paint. I am trying to do better compositions in my work but when you paint a big house and a tree there isn't much left. So I am not finished with this yet. I plan to put in some more trees lightly in the background. Finish the foreground house and then maybe work on the sky. I don't want to over work it. I once read that a master artist knows when to quit. I wonder if that could also be applied to other areas of our lives. Sometimes, maybe, we don't want to over work a situation.

HB Plein Aire Competition

Huntington Beach has for the last 5 years hosted a "plein aire" competition. I am participating for my third year. En plein air is a French expression which means "in the open air", and is particularly used to describe the act of painting outdoors. When I was in high school we called it "Painting on Location". But with the advent of millions of wineries in California and the popularity of Italian cooking shows that term just doesn't cut it anymore. Plein Aire painting, as romantic as it sounds, is really more like camping. You are outside in the elements and if you want to do it right you have lot's of equipment. You have to be organized and you have to be prepared. Today I was outside painting for three hours. I set up my easle and camp stool and worked hard. I got too much sun, so I drank a lot of water, which I had packed, and then I had to pee. Since you are in "plein aire" you must search for a "camode". I found mine in a nearby Burger King. I rudely ran past two asian ladys and flung open the door of the restaurant to get to the bathroom. They thought I was being polite, so they said thank you. They didn't realize I was jumping ahead of them in desperation. I got to the bathroom, unzipped my shorts and my shorts fell down. Somewhere in plein aire my button to my shorts had popped off. So holding my shorts up I dashed to my car and ran home and changed. I forgot the "ten essentials". I need to add safety pins to my ever growing list of supplies. Anyway, the painting above I did two days ago for the competition. Stay tuned...

Venice Beach

Well the art show in Santa Monica was a debacle. It actually was in Venice Beach. For those of you who don't know, Venice Beach is a kind of world renown side show. It wasn't an art show it was a street fair. Our booth was across from a DirectTV booth. My friend Loren and I showed up at 6:00 am. It was overcast, no one was there except homeless people starting to get up and rouse about. It seemed like there was thousands of people, but they were their for the show and not to buy art. I sold two boxes of cards though, and I did this painting of the Venice street scene.

Northern California

They say you can never go home. I gave it a go anyways and went to Sonoma County where I grew up. Things are different. But I did do a bit of painting. Here is a sample. This is a quick watercolor sketch of Foppiano Winery, Healdsburg. I did the painting because I am going to be in an art show in Santa Monica the 15 & 16 of August. Stay tuned to my blog and I will give you the details next time...