Ah Italia!

Had a great trip to Italy. Milano, Bergamo, Padua, Verona, Venezia, Burano, Cagliari, Bosa, Alghero, Pietrasanta, Monterosso. Painted my heart out and that's the best part:

The Place I Missed Before

Hard to believe that in 42 years here I had never visited the SF Botanical Gardens in GG Park. What a beautiful space in a crowded city.

Today's weather was drop dead gorgeous there. Good company.

Painted this one Ceracolor ditty. Last painting here before Italy.

On Point

Not my best nor my best scan, but we had fun today painting at Point Richmond. Spectacular wide views all over, but difficult to pin down compositions.

DIY pochade in action at Golden Gate Bridget

We were out to see the Monet exhibit at the Legion of Honor in SF today, then painting overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge. New DIY pochade fully completed and in action. Works like a charm! Can't say as much for my painting, though. Ceracolors on tinted Bockingford paper (from England). I never seem to do that well with the GG Bridge. Ah well....

My DIY Pochade

My love of tinkering and my painting have come together in my little DIY pochade box for plein air work.

I have an expensive larger Guerrilla Painter box that I use for my main acrylic work outdoors. In this case I wanted something smaller, simpler and far less expensive for use with my Ceracolors.

Enter a local simpatico cigar store (yes, the do still exist and they all sell empty boxes to hobbyists), 3 boxes, some ordinary hardware, stuff from around the house, some simple tools - and I have a masterpiece!

Take a look at this:

Not red redwoods

Painting in the deep forest at Purissima Creek Redwoods today with the gang (or at least those who found the right place!) Gorgeous day, so-so painting. But Nancy can't complain that it's all green and brown this time.

Carmel & Monterey

Got a couple of decent paintings in this weekend, while attending a work conference in Monterey. One is of Carmel Mission, the other a fanciful one of a Monterey cypress and scene.
Mission is acrylic 9x12; tree is Ceracolor 3x5.

Going Dutch

Great morning painting at the Queen Wilhelmina Windmill and Tulip Garden in Golden Gate Park.

Mussel Rock Beach

Had a great time painting with the group today in Pacifica. Foggy to start, but warm and then clearing. We had 25 painters all line up in a long row on the cliffs.

A giggle

So the Burlingame Plein Air Painters were out in force to paint the tall ships docked at Redwood City Harbor. Great day of painting.

Mine was a laugh.

I realized afterwards that I had inadvertently painted a complete illusion. Since I paint sitting down, I was peering first over, then under and sometimes through the fence at the end of a pier. Not the best way to view the subject. The end result was that I fooled myself into seeing more deck layers of the two ships than actually existed, while I thought I was painting what I "saw"!

What a joke.

Rained out again

We got effectively rained out of our outing in Golden Gate Park at the windmill. A couple made it between the showers, but not me. I met some others in San Mateo's Central Park and did a 10 minute ink sketch in the Japanese Garden instead. Then it drizzled!

On a Mission

Burlingame Plein Air Painters on another mission mission yesterday. Warm sunshine, good company, great subject: San Rafael Arcangel mission in Marin County. The lovely building I believe is actually the newer structure, while the smaller plain building on the right is the original mission itself.

Great day on the coast!

Bright sunshine, unseasonably warm after all, and wildflowers everywhere. Great views too. Lots of painters out this time.
Not thrilled with the scans below, as they are not accurate, but the painting (acrylic) and the quick sketch both were pleasing to do.

Tonalist experiment

Wanted to try something different using Ceracolors. Not bad, though not exactly what I had planned.

Trying to paint portraits again

Used to do them, but got out of the habit. Now into landscapes and architecturals, plus occasional still life.

So pushing myself to try to paint daily (hadn't happened), I went for a portrait from a poor web photo of Richard and Sandy. Working in Ceracolors, water-soluble cold wax paint, which would have been excellent for the glazing, except I neglected to use enough medium, instead of white.

Came out reasonably well, though clearly not a perfect likeness. BTW, both the scanner and the cell phone camera have serious biases. They capture tooth and texture far too much (more than you would see) and have a tendency to color shifting/bias, as well as sort of posterizing, rather than smooth transitions between edges.

Anyway, not the worst I've done:

Old County Courthouse on a Winter Day

Started off as bitter cold as last year, as we set up to paint around the Old County Courthouse in Redwood City. But the day warmed up considerably and so did my painting. Finally dropped the tedious pseudo-realism and am back to my normal expressionist/impressionist styles. Got two today, both acrylics, one big, one small.

Brrrrr Pillar Point Painting

Got colder today, after a warmer start, at Pillar Point. Lots of painters braving December. At least we missed the big Maverick's contest, so we were able to paint.

Waxing fruitful

Another Ceracolor experiment in cold water=soluble wax paint today. This time on canvas board. Can't say that I like tooth for my paintings, though, because I have a tendency to paint thinly, which doesn't fill out the "holes" in the weave properly. But the painting was a reasonable still life anyway.

Good Day, Mediocre Painting

Tried for a more expressionist view of Woodside Store and less brown than reality on purpose. Good day painting with the group, but not my favorite work of art.

Painting Pacifica Pier

Burlingame Plein Air Painters out again the day after Thanksgiving to paint Pacifica Pier in the overcast weather. Really big waves, misty monochrome atmospheric effects. Fun! I got two: a 9"x12" acrylic and a 5"x8" Ceracolor.