National Watercolor Society Paint-Out

This Saturday is the National Watercolor Society Paint-Out  at artist Rirkrit Tiravanija's water pavilion in Van Nuys as part of The Los Angeles Biennial Current: LA Water, a citywide summer event held at various locations.

The paint-out is open to all NWS artists as well as anyone who wants to participate.
When:
Saturday August 6, 2016 from 2:00 pm to 10:30 pm

Where:
Sepulveda Basin, 6300 Lake Balboa Hiking Trail, Los Angeles , Ca 91422

I will be there painting away the day along with the site co-ordinator Juliana Lujan from Tiravanija Studio.
Come on out and join us for some plein-air painting or just to see artists at work.
Hope to see you there!

You can read more about this cultural event here.

Thanks go out to Rirkrit Tiravanija and his studio from all of us at The National Watercolor Society for his invitation to this unique Public Art Challenge.

Mid-show Night at the Muck

"Scrubber"

"Steel Bundles"

"Colored Tanks"

“Scrubber”
"Steel Bundles"
"Colored Tanks"
watercolor on paper, 2016
6” x 8” (15.24cm x 20.32cm)

Here are my other 3 paintings I have in the NWS Plein Air Exhibition and sale at the Muckenthaler Cultural Center. Today, Thursday March 3rd from 7:30 - 9:00 pm the Muckenthaler is hosting a mid-show gallery tour.
Several artists including myself will be there doing demo's and/or talking about our work. It will be a perfect night to attend if you can make it.

These 3 are the most orderly of my six. Part of that reason is the view I choose and the way I presented them, straight on and compositionally horizontal. Industrial subjects often are chaotic but even when so I can usually find the view that is less chaotic.
When the subject is busy as in "Colored Tanks ", with so much going on in the painted surfaces the straight on view as well as simplification helps make a better painting.

My other 3 in the show are made up of more angles and diagonals compositionally, which I usually favor, but they are simpler to begin with so they needed the perspective views to keep them more interesting.

“Scrubber”
We see these attached to every industrial building. Seen in endless configurations these kinds of machinery are called scrubbers. They clean or scrub the air inside the warehouses, factories and industrial plants. Very similar to my power pole series there is a lot going on with them. With their boxy structures, angles, valves, pipes, wires and ducts it’s their forms that attract me. Sometimes oddly proportioned, gangly in appearance, rusted, worn and weathered they can take on an anthropomorphic character and are irresistible to me so I must paint them.

"Steel Bundles"
Bundles of steel girders, wood haphazardly stacked on top and overlooked by most. I find these kinds of repeating forms a great subject to paint, especially when the stacks are not perfectly arranged. In the simplest form they represent the industrious and hard working as well as both organization and chaos.

“Colored Tanks”

Industrial subjects have more color than most realize. The colorful palette of hues can range from the more earthy to the bright and highly saturated. Then they take on the rich patina of the time worn and sun faded. This one had the two sides of its gates painted at different times and in two different reds. The blues tanks too were faded, its paint water stained in various degrees. I waited for a full sunny day to paint these to accentuate the lively palette.434,435,436

My Work at The Muck

"Storage Yard Sun"

"Railroad Crossing"

"Powder Magazine"

"Storage Yard Sun"
For Sale at DailyPaintWorks, click here

"Railroad Crossing"

"Powder Magazine"
For Sale at DailyPaintWorks, click here
all watercolor on paper, 2016
6" x 8" (15.24cm x 20.32cm)

Here's three of the six paintings I have hanging at the Muckenthaler Cultural Center.
All were painted for the NWS plein air show, an exhibition and sale. The bottom two I painted just prior to the show opening.

Most often I am already familiar with the site and at different times of day. I walk the location, choose a view and proceed to do small, quick but careful studies of complicated subjects, capturing both my perceptions and an honest depiction of any information I see as important. These studies, done in a near journalistic fashion, allow me to get familiar with the subject and later serve to inform my studio work. Through later editing I am able to present my thoughts and views on the subject.

"Storage Yard Sun"
Another of my Storage Yard Series, an all encompassing term for the many industrial sites that I paint that don’t fit any category like refineries or warehouses. This particular day the sun was bright and was bouncing reflected light into the shadows giving the scene an animated quality. I set out to capture that before the light could change and even played it up a bit to give it some life.

"Railroad Crossing"
I often paint railroad locomotives, bridges etc but I also find a certain fascination with the common everyday railroad tracks, crossings and signals. I liked this particular view for the tracks splitting in two directions and had this site in the back of my mind for some time. I knew I wanted to paint it either in the early morning or afternoon to take advantage of the shadows to provide darks for the composition, finally deciding on the afternoon.

"Powder Magazine"
Easily overlooked, what looks like an unassuming little stone and brick building is actually a Civil War era powder magazine built in 1862 for Camp Drum in Wilmington CA. It’s odd to see in the middle of a residential neighborhood down near the LA Harbor since we don’t associate the Civil War with the west coast.
I have driven past it for years and finally needed to get it down in paint. With this study, as well as some others, I plan to develop it into a larger studio painting.431,432,433