Spring

I did this quick watercolor painting after finishing some much needed spring cleaning in my art studio. Last week was my birthday and my anniversary and this week I'm starting a new job!

Works in Progress

Rain and Pencil

I recently began using pencil for my under drawing instead of colored pencil. I've found myself gravitating toward a more subtle color palette than I use with my colored pencil paintings. I like it and I think I will continue using pencil and seeing what takes shape. The reason I started using pencil is because I recently purchased the most amazing mechanical pencil I've ever used, it's a Koh-I-Noor Mephisto Profi pencil, and I really cannot put it down. The advantage of colored pencil is that the Prismacolor col-erase pencils melt into the watercolor. The lady in the first painting is wearing a Jean Yu triangle bra. After several weeks of sunshine rain has returned to northern California. I don't mind, I get more work done on rainy days.

Leaves and Pencil

This is a study for a larger painting. Lately I have been using two (warm/cool) sets of primary colors and a color called neutral tint.

Alexander McQueen

It's hard to believe a year has passed since the death of Alexander McQueen. Both of these pen and ink drawings were done on Legion Iyo handmade Japanese rice paper. February 11, 2010.

Paculla Annia

Recently I decided to try to using pencil to compose my under drawing. Usually I draw on watercolor paper using Prismacolor erasable color pencils. When I paint over the lines they melt into the paint.

Something about light gray pencil line makes the whole painting feel lighter, which I find really satisfying. I've been painting with two sets of primary color palettes and black. For some reason I find this easier to do with oil paints as opposed to watercolor.

Paculla Annia was an Italian priestess. She led the Bacchus cult and threw wild parties.

Post-Impressionist Masterpieces

Yesterday I went to San Francisco to the de Young Museum to see an exhibition called Van Gogh, Gaugin, Cezanne and Beyond: Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the Musee D’Orsay. I’ve been waiting to see this exhibition since it was announced over a year and a half ago. There were paintings from Claude Monet, John Singer Sargent, Pablo Picasso, Odilon Redon, Pierre Bonnard, Auguste Renoir, Édouard Vuillard, and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. I was blown away, my heart raced, and I was completely speechless.
I admire many artists working today, but the masters treated painting as a craft and that idea is fading. Nothing bothers me more than looking at a great painting and being able to recognize paint colors that were used out of the tube, no mixing of different pigments. Worse than that is photoshopping your art to mislead the viewer into believing they are seeing something that was really painted. For me, loving painting means trying to learn more, always studying. There is always more to learn. I am going to see this exhibition again before it closes.

La Carmencita
John Singer Sargent
1890