Paintings for the Salinas Gallery

Last month I signed up with a co-op gallery in old town Salinas through a friend of a friend. It's right by the Steinbeck center, so it gets some pretty decent foot traffic. They liked my work a lot so they're pretty much letting me do anything I want within reason. They particularly liked the "comfy chair" painting, so I decided to do a series of paintings with a similar theme. For the past few weeks I've been tirelessly painting to create something to sell.

This'll be really good for me because it'll really, truly force me to paint a lot more AND it'll teach me to be able to part with my paintings, which has always been hard for me - particularly because I haven't been very prolific. I'm also going to work on the speed of my painting, which may seem like a bit of a trite concern, but I really think I'll benefit greatly from that. From here on I'm going to be very experimental with my paintings. Right now I'm working on some much looser work, making extensive use of the pallette knife, which creates some pretty cool effects once you get comfortable with it.

These 3 paintings are what I've come up with. Let me know what you all think.

Plein Aire Landscape Studies in Oil

I've been so busy with work for the past month and a half that I've barely had time to eat and sleep, much less update my blog. In any case, I finally have time to do it now.

Over the past few months I've been doing some plein aire landscapes in oil. I've wanted to improve my skill with landscapes (and my skill with painting in general) and I think this is an effective way to do that. It forces me to be quick and astute in my observations. It's amazing how quickly the light changes and what a challenge it is to struggle to get something done before the landscape looks completely different from how it looked at the beginning of the painting. Landscapes are also an issue with me because there are so many tiny overlapping elements (thousands of leaves, branches and such) that you absolutely have to become skilled with "suggesting" the detail rather than explicitly rendering it. I've always been stronger with explicit rendering than with suggestion and I think that's kept me from reaching my full potential. I'm not quite where I want to be with these paintings, but I'm hoping to get much better over time with these exercises.

Hally in a Parisian Cafe

We were in a Parisian Cafe recovering from walking all day when Hally got inspired to take some funky photos. Once we got home I thought I'd turn one of them into a painting (oil on canvas).

Comfy Chair

An oil painting of Hally while she's lounging in the living room, reading a magazine.

Sunset in Cozumel

Here's a quick little oil painting I did from a nice sunset photo I took in Cozumel.

The Hill Folk

Why is it that it's always rednecks that meet up with aliens? Couldn't that be dangerous?

Battle at Sea

I've been creating some visdev paintings on various themes. This one is of a battle at sea. I tried to create drama with moody lighting, a tumultuous ocean, and frantic characters struggling to fight while they're under attack.