Post Studio Sessions

Tomorrow is the big day for Tiny Show reception. I have to admit a tinge of anxiety has mixed itself in with my excitement. I've been pretty good about balancing my schedule between studio and outdoor work, but recently I've gone outside a little more to mellow out. This update is a sort of review of the results, for better or worse.

Berkeley Aquatic park - I want to blame the relentless mosquitoes for the poor drawing of the tree, but instead, I'll blame the tree for being a poor model... take that, tree!

This is actually a little older, two weeks or so. The percentage of accuracy here is also about zilch, but I was more interested in experimentation with composition. I wonder why I'm starting this update off with two bad sketches... ?

I recently joined an online community called Sketchcrawl, which gathers artists around the world together to sketch on location from spot to spot. They held their 16th worldwide crawl this past Sunday. I met up with the San Francisco group, and found myself a couple new friends to sketch with.

We sketched around the Ferry Building in SF. Not exactly my choice of subject matter, but it was such a beautiful day that it didn't matter.

Homeless sleeper, and Eduardo, one of the new friends I met that day.

I wanted to paint with the Early Birds on Wednesday, but as I approached the parking lot way up on Grizzly Peak, I realized I left my panels back home. By the time I got back home it was too late to go back up, so I painted this view of my neighbor's house and their awesomely tall trees. Not sure if they're cypress or acacias. Two crows perched themselves at the very top of the highest tree as I was painting that area, so they're in there too.

"Two Crows" 5x7 Oil on Clayboard

I'm moving back into oils after a month's break. I tried them out on the clayboards I've been plugging on my blog. One noticeable trait is the clay just sucks the oil out of the pigment, which dries up what you put down pretty quickly. This has its share of pros and cons, but so far I'm liking the effect.

Yesterday, I crossed the Richmond bridge for a day trip along the north bay. I started off in the Marin Headlands which sits just beside the Golden Gate Bridge. It's another former military installment like the one in Pt. Molate I painted not too long ago. I returned to a spot I've been wanting to paint, a building sitting alone in a field with cypresses and a large hill behind it, only to find a few new things had been added to the scene. Piles of dirt, haystacks, and a green tarped fence. Eck. I decided to paint it anyway, but I may have to resort to a studio painting to get exactly what I wanted initially.

"Headlands Morning" 5x7 Oil on Clayboard

As soon as I parked and brought my equipment out, a lone coyote began following me.... very closely. I shooed her off a couple times, but quickly learned that she's been pretty much desensitized to people, as I'm sure a good number of tourists have been feeding her. I couldn't be bothered to constantly scare her away, so she simply sat next to me while I painted. She eventually realized I was just as hungry as she was.

I have to admit, the experience kinda fulfilled a youthful dream of mine to relive something out of Dances With Wolves (my brothers and I even had a hamster named Two Socks). Coyotes are much smaller than wolves though (but noticeably larger than hamsters), and my dog didn't care to dance so much.

Sorely tempted to paint this one.

The sad bit here is the Animal Protection Agency is forced to kill wild animals when they become too desensitized. I hope this one learns to hang out in smarter places than the side of the road and the likes of me.

I drove up north afterwards to Novato to meet my climbing/painting buddy, Jimmy. He showed me some photos a couple weeks ago of an old air control tower that's been gutted and set for restoration. It's only a matter of time before it's no longer ugly and decrepit, so we knew we had to paint it fast! Unfortunately, we got started with only an hour of light left, so that one will have to wait for a second session before I show it here. I did squeeze in a quick gouache sketch just before we met up.

That's it for now. Expect a recap on tomorrow's show soon!