... and a couple more digital comps

Digital Sketch-city3
Digital Sketch-industrial1
digital, iPad Brushes app

Still comping with the old iPad. Playing with tonal values in the skyscraper and flat values in the industrial.510,511

Three digital comps

Digital Sketch-hill

Digital Sketch-city1

Digital Sketch-city2

Digital Sketch-hill
Digital Sketch-city1
Digital Sketch-city2
digital, iPad Brushes app

Here are 3 more digital value comps. I am frustrated with the resolution of the these. I am not sure if it is the Brushes app, which is the second version, or my old iPad. What has happened is the resolution just went kaput! I noticed it while doing these and became annoyed that they now have those jagged edges especially noticeable in the diagonals and smaller details. So disappointed!
It only shows up in the second Brushes version and not the first version which I still have.
Yep, I need new tools.

Other than that I enjoyed doing these three. They seemed to just fall out of me onto the digital 'canvas'.
The hill is based on a local hill here in San Pedro but done from memory and modified. The two cityscapes were done from my imagination.507,508,509

New Work Cityscape at Laguna Art-A-Fair

"Old LA 1"    SOLD
oil on board, 2016
6" x 8" (15.24cm x 20.32cm)

You can always find the mix of the old and the modern in the city.
It is endlessly fascinating, richly layered and textured from time.

I left out quite a bit from the actual location, which was far busier, like wires, clutter on the left sidewalk and a huge railroad crossing signal in the background. Instead I focused more on the vertical strip compressed between the power pole and building with all the intricacies of the fire escape, the hint of the yellow sign, the AC unit hanging from the side of the building, the stop light and pedestrian crossing light and especially the strip of sunlight piercing the buildings shadows. That was where all real visual action took place.

The freeway, multitude of yellow poles and fencing, signs, streetlight and utility poles, antennae and left side buildings have a similar intricacy and although laid out across two-thirds of the composition are dwarfed in scale by the entire right third of the painting.
I played down the whole left side slightly while the deep shadow, high contrast, harder razor-like edges gave the right side the punch it needed to describe the compression of time I was seeing crammed into such a small area of the scene.452

Accepted into "Splash 17 : Inspiring Subjects" !

"E 4th St, Bridge"

I just received the great news that my painting "E 4th St. Bridge", which I mentioned earlier here on my blog, has been accepted into "Splash 17: Inspiring Subjects", the annual watercolor book published by North Light Books.
As follower's of my blog already know I am always inspired by industrial subjects and my city of Los Angeles. All cities have their own great landmarks and little treasures and I love seeking out the ones in my own. I have seen paintings of the 4th St. Bridge before but I hope that by focusing on the section that splits to E 4th Place I caught a unique view that has not been painted too often. I loved this view for its dramatic composition.

Since I have been super busy preparing for this summer's Art-A-Fair and with so many other projects happening all at once this kind of news is a boost to my weary bones, sore back and tired eyes. Exactly the shot I needed right now!
From the way things have been going so far it looks like 2015 will be a high watermark year for me, even with our extreme drought!  ; ).

Digital Value Study

"Street Corner"
digital, Brushes app

Busy, not a lot to post so here is a was-supposed-to-be-quick digital value study.

More from the Brushes app which is still frustrating me, sometimes with what I can't do, so this one is a little uneven. I am going back and forth between cursing the medium and just trying to get down what I do know how to do. Damn.
I just want to be able to do location studies for paintings. Maybe I'll have to wait for a better app which means a newer iPad. My iPad 1 won't update any further and I can't download much in the way of newer apps.298

E 4th St. Bridge

"E 4th St. Bridge"
watercolor on paper, 2013
10" x 15" (25.4cm x 38.1cm)

Happy New Year!

I recently submitted this painting for Splash 17, the annual book on watercolor.

The solid but well aged E 4th St. Bridge near downtown Los Angeles, a concrete arch bridge built in 1930.

This section is referred to as the 4th St. Bridge split, where it splits south to E 4th Place. It is on the western side of the Los Angeles River and viewed from under E 4th Place.

Often when I paint an older structure I show it as it is today. Here I anchored it in the present by adding the orange fluorescent traffic cone and post.294

Summer Fog

"17th St. Fog"
oil on panel, 2014
7.25" x 9.25" (18.415cm x 23.495cm)

Here is my painting that will be featured at 
Segil Fine Art Gallery in Monrovia California for the "Home, Sweet Home" Show 
(Note: As of this posting the show dates listed here on my blog are correct and have not been updated on their website). 

Opening reception is Saturday, July 26th, from 5:00 - 7:00 pm.
The show opens to the public on Saturday, July 19th.

This is a gothic farmhouse style home in my neighborhood and I have had my eye on it for a while now. This show's theme was the perfect excuse to finally get around to painting it.
But rather than do a straightforward blue sky painting I decided to add the incoming coastal fog. This is a common sight along the coast in the summer and looks like this on those bright sunny days when the marine layer is stirring about.

It rolls in, partially burning off, lingers around and does a good job of suppressing the blazing summer heat, especially when there is no real breeze to help keep it cool.287

Villa Riviera Backside

"Villa Riviera Backside"
oil on panel, 2013
6" x 4" (15.24cm x 10.16cm)
For sale at DAILY PAINTWORKS
Direct link to painting here

The fascinating Villa Riviera in Long Beach California.
I have painted this building a couple times already and always had plans to get back to it. I still don't have clear in my head what exactly I want to do with it or how to portray it. Doing these smaller studies will help me see and decide before doing a larger version.263

12/30/13 I've added this update below:
Two other paintings of Villa Riviera here and here.

*This one gave me fits when I photographed it. I will have to reshoot and repost the image.
**12/29/13 I've updated a more accurate image.

Press Telegram #2 - Pile

"Press Telegram #2 (Pile)"
watercolor on paper, 2013
5.5" x 7.5" (13.79cm x 19.05cm)
For sale at DAILY PAINTWORKS
Direct link to painting here

This is what was left of the Long Beach California Press Telegram, a pile of rubble.
Shoveled into a nice neat pile is the remains of peoples former lives. The paper itself, as it once was, is the story now.

Like many of my industrial subjects the fascination here is all the various shapes.
Whether it is a pile of debris or a hillside in nature does not always matter to an artist. Instead we focus on its artistic values. So this is more of a study for the series. When I figure out what else to say I will use this for another painting.257

"Press Telegram #1" here.

Church in Rain

"10th Street Rain (Church)"
watercolor on paper, 2013
6" x 9" (15.24cm x 22.86cm)
For Sale at Daily Paintworks, CLICK HERE
Direct link to painting here

We had our first real rain of fall this week so I thought I would paint a rain scene.
Will this (churches) be a series? I don't know yet.

I have done plenty of rain paintings. Click the RAIN label to see more.

There are tons of paintings of churches in this world. If I can find something to say it might turn into a series. I'll have to give it some thought. For now I just liked the rain motif and the shadow crawling up the side of the church.

I painted this as a continuation of a looser or more painterly approach in watercolor. Not as much pre-drawing, instead finding the image in paint. I like working this way from time to time since it is freer and I learn different 'ways of the watercolor' and what you can do with it. Even when it looks like it's failing I find I can recover it much of the time.

Watercolor has a reputation for being so final and though that is true much of the time when I do reach a point of "oh damn, your'e headed for the shredder", as I did on this one, sometimes I will hang in there figuring if it's ruined anyway I can't make it any worse so throw down paint and see what happens. This is when I lose a little more of that inherent fear of watercolor, lay it down right or it's ruined.

I should say really working the watercolor this way means a high-density paint application and I like that too. It is not the vibrant thin washes typical of a lot of watercolors. Thats OK, sometimes a heavy-handed approach serves the subject better.
Hey, maybe that is my first thought for a church series?249

Others in this dense approach here, here, here(UP 8381) and here(San Pedro Plant).

This is another adjusted image due to the Blogger image upload problems I have been having sporadically lately. The better image is on DAILYPAINTWORKS.

**I have updated this post with a 'fixed' photo. This is how it should have looked in the first place.

Vincent Thomas Bridge #16 - Part 2 - The Painting

"Vincent Thomas Bridge #16 (Tribute)"

oil on panel, 2013

18" x 24" (45.72cm x 60.96cm)

commissioned, private collection

Part 2 of 2:
This covers the challenges and decisions needed to arrive at the finish.
Challenges I faced to meet the clients and my own wants and the artistic decisions I had to make to still finish with a successful painting.
It was a balancing act

I knew at the outset the bright light blue sky was going to be an issue, and I was a little worried about that, if I was to show the green as iridescent and bright. A bright and light blue sky would compete with it yet the bridge tower was more important.
Although the client wanted a bright sunny day I had to darken the blue sky somewhat in order to get the tower to appear bright. These are the artistic decisions that must be made while still fulfilling the wants of the client.

I also knew from seeing the bridge everyday that , from this view, the sun comes from the south, or to the right in the painting, and puts the towers (their faces) in shadow for most of the day and I would need the afternoon light to showcase them.

As I said in Part 1 I was concerned that a wide panoramic view would be weak or watered down thus losing the ability to present the bridge as powerful and strong so I decided to crop in as close as possible while still leaving some air around it to breath.

Another challenge was getting some warms tones into the painting. With so much blue sky and green bridge, early on it was apparent I was going to end up with a predominantly cool toned painting which I felt would work against its personal story. Even with a warm afternoon light on the concrete bents (archways or piers) there was not much surface area to apply the warms.

Adding the marine layer catching the sun solved the warm to cool ratio problem. I now had more surface area of painting for warms tones. And since the marine layer generally hugs the ground I was able to save the blue sky.

Because of the personal story behind the painting I wanted the San Pedro tower slightly more prominent so that meant downplaying the other somehow but still have the lighting make sense.

Decisions to make predominant the San Pedro tower:

Besides the warm vs cool problem the atmospheric conditions of the marine layer helped solve two other problems or challenges: it let me soften the background and far tower (to down play it) and gave me the benefit of spacial depth or perspective.
It took some time to figure that out. I let the painting sit for a few days, contemplating so I would not ruin the third attempt. Remember, I was thinking blue sky, as the client wanted, and although many of my paintings feature the marine layer I wasn't considering any of that in this one.
I was happy with this realization since adding it served triple duty.

I then decided to 'turn down' the light on the far tower just a bit which also worked toward the goal of making the important tower more prominent. Now it glowed a little more than the other.

At this point there was a lot going on in the foreground and it was detracting from the tower and the story so I let the painting sit while I worked on other projects and kicked it around in my head.
I revisited the bridge over the next few days at different times of day to figure out what I was missing.

The bridge, the one in the painting was a little weak, it needed some weight thrown into it.

Darken the foreground and soften the foreground edges with a shadow from Palos Verdes creeping up from the bottom. That is what happens late in the day.
That epiphany made the bridge, up to the near tower, more important and gave the bridge something of substance to sit on as well as firmly anchor it to the right corner. I like the way it launches from the right corner
It also gave it that needed (visual) weight and supported the back story of the bridges' history; firmly secured in the harbor, that it IS the only of the three bridges that will remain.

I also took some artistic license by throwing a shadow under the bridge that in reality would not be there at this time of day. This made the four bents (archways or piers) visually stronger, clarified its structure, and downplayed some of the needless foreground busyness.

Other crucial but more technical factors were maintaining the correct proportions and getting the perspective right, miscalculations and it starts falling apart fast.
As in a portrait it is important to get the exact proportions of any structure and the Vincent Thomas Bridge's design is based on ratios of thirds.

My final review before calling it done I decided it still needed just a touch more life to it.
I came back in and added some traffic, just enough to bring it alive and since Caltrans maintains the bridge and the personal story is of one of them, I parked a Caltrans truck under the San Pedro tower, as one final salute, subtle and understated, not too obvious.

What I finally arrived at in the painting was the most important part of the bridge (supporting the personal story) is the most prominent. The focus is on the approach in the foreground leading up to the San Pedro tower.
Everything else; the rest of the bridge, the Long Beach tower, the lower foreground, the background are all supporting characters. None of them are painted with the same degree of finish. Each has been downplayed, softened in a vignetted manner or simplified, including the cars on the bridge.
And again, done in a subtle and understated way, not too obvious.
That was the balancing act and how I avoided the typical postcard shot.

It is a living bridge.

One thing artists do while working is turn the painting upside down, sideways and view the mirror image for both practical reasons and to check for irregularities.
The practical... the swing of your arm when drawing arcs etc and to avoid smearing wet areas while working.
But more importantly it disassociates your mind from the subject in its recognizable form, allowing you to see any drawing problems, flaws, weakness' and see the painting more abstractly, so you can assess it from an artistic and design point of view.

I noticed that turned this way its beautiful, graceful but powerful shape became even more apparent. It is simply a beautiful form in its own right.

(Oh, and by the way your welcome, now you don't have to turn your computer on its side to see what I'm talking about!)

Urban River 8

"LA River #2"
watercolor on paper, 2013
7" x 10" (17.78cm x 25.4cm)

This is from my Urban River Series which includes The Santa Ana River in Orange County California.

As in others from this series the concrete banks are visible at the upper left of this composition.

Here is a view of the concrete bank and Willow Street bridge, built in 1946.

I love the smooth forms of the banks and the way they intersect with the gentle arches of the bridge

This is the urban river, part nature, part man. In each of these I have divided up the composition to varying degrees, favoring either the natural or man made as I search for different ways to present what I am seeing, to have something to say.
That guides me in the artistic decisions and determines how I paint it.
In this one I liked the idea of a busy composition juxtaposed against a calm cool spring day. The lively  hustle and bustle of the city without really showing any of it.243

Urban River 7

"LA River #1"
watercolor on paper, 2013
7" x 10" (17.78cm x 25.4cm)
For Sale at DAILY PAINTWORKS, CLICK HERE
Direct link to this painting here.

This is another from my Urban River Series which includes The Santa Ana River in Orange County California.
As in others from this series the concrete banks are visible at the upper left of this composition.

Here is the Los Angeles River looking south towards downtown Long Beach from the Willow Street bridge on a bright spring day. The bridge in the middle ground is a pipeline bridge.

I liked this view for the bottleneck the river takes just after passing under the Willow Street bridge.
During the winter months when there is a lot of rain most of the (green) riverbed is under water including the large trees.242

Tree Nocturne Red Curb

"Tree Nocturne (Red Curb)"
oil on panel, 2013
2" x 2⅜" (5.08cm x 6.01cm)
For Sale at DAILY PAINTWORKS, CLICK HERE
Direct link to this painting here.

Here's a new one from my Tree Nocturne Series of an old desolate street.
Again I paint the warm glow of an orange sodium street light which plays so beautifully against the cool blue night.
Under the tree the fire hydrant hides in the shadow guarded by the red curb.241

Once again images are uploading with poor quality. I made some adjustments but a more accurate image can be found at DAILY PAINTWORKS.
This problem seems to come and go. Oh mercy!

**I have updated this post with a 'fixed' photo. This is how it should have looked in the first place.

Urban Haze

"Storage Yard Haze"    SOLD
oil on panel, 2013
5" x 7" (12.7cm x 17.78cm)

I see a lot of scenes like this living near the ocean. Bright days tucked under the marine layer.

Colors intensify but are not too glaring, not like a bright clear day. All the moisture in the atmosphere affects colors in a different way, they seem to bleed softly into the air.
Even harsh environments are gently cushioned under this canopy of moist air, not quite blocked and grayed out as on foggy days. The marine layer lets the sun through just enough to let us pause and relook at what we would normally dismiss.

That's what I see and why I choose the often maligned urban setting. It would be too obvious, and easy, to take an already pretty landscape and make it prettier.240

Marina Towers Oceanside

"Marina Towers"    SOLD
oil on panel, 2012
7" x 5" (17.78cm x 12.7cm)

I did this after a visit to Oceanside California in the late afternoon
just as the tower was beginning to drop into shadow.
I love this time of day.239

Gutted Like a Fish

"Press Telegram #1"
watercolor on paper, 2012
9" x 12" (22.86cm x 30.48cm)
For Sale at Daily Paintworks, CLICK HERE

This is the first in an intended series although I sometimes get so busy that some series don't go past 2 or 3, we'll see.

The old Long Beach (California) Press Telegram building as seen from the backside.

The end of an era and a local newspaper, at least as newspapers once were. At one time the four story building housed the entire news operation, including the presses which could be seen at street level.

This building is being refurbished, opened up and gutted like a fish. It is urban renewal. It is not getting knocked down but certainly has been, the last few years, and currently is a shell of its former self.

On the left is the former, being removed, deleted and swallowed by the dumpster. On the right is the revamping as shown by the machinery at the ready and the slung ropes. Right in the middle, the transition, the pile I intentionally shaped like a dead fish. The holes punched in the side of the building painted nearly black like hollow lifeless eye sockets.229

Other similar themes of Long Beach California urban renewal here, here and here.
One from San Pedro California here.
Two from Oceanside California here and here.

Value Thumbnails 5

"Value Thumbnails-LB Courthouse"
pencil on paper, 2012
page 11" x 8.5" (27.94cm x 21.59cm)
NFS

I did these thumbnails of the new Long Beach Courthouse about midway through its construction.
It is currently near the end and will soon be open. Part of the urban renewal of Long Beach California.

Shown here in its iron skeletal form, i-beams and steel girders.
Even as small thumbnails these were more challenging than I thought they would be.
The simplification proved to be harder to do than I anticipated since there was a lot going on.

The middle right thumb especially tough since the angles are not 90°. Even though drawn right it still looks wrong. I only like the top and middle left, don't care much for the others. This is one reason to do thumbnails, to work out and/or discover potential problems early.217

Long Beach Landmark-Breakers

"Breakers"
watercolor on paper, 2012
8" x 6" (20.32cm x 15.24cm)
For Sale at Daily Paintworks, CLICK HERE

Here's a simple watercolor of a notable building in nearby Long Beach California that has had a roller coaster history. It's 14 stories, was built as a luxury oceanfront hotel in 1926 and designated as a Historic Landmark in 1989. Its seen more than its share of ups and downs over the years and never quite maintained its luxury hotel status for very long. It now operates as a retirement home.

This time of day the sun reflects from nearby glass buildings creating interesting patterns across the side and illuminating the bottom half while leaving the top in shadow.

It is these kinds of atmospheric effects I look for, and quite often add to a painting myself, for turning what would otherwise be an ordinary image of a city building, into one with some life and vigor.207

Shrinking Violet

"Top Gun House (Dirt Pile) Study"
oil on panel, 2012
3.5" x 5" (8.89cm x 12.7cm)
For Sale at Daily Paintworks, CLICK HERE


Here is a second study for my Top Gun House series, the first here.
I'm still kicking it around in my head so I'll probably do several before deciding on one for a larger version, searching for the right image that best tells the story.

The house, from the movie Top Gun is shown behind a fresh dirt pile on the otherwise empty block being redeveloped.
Since it is being moved to another location and will be refurbished itself the challenge for me was to present it not as a house to be razed but instead against its current surroundings, the site in a state of flux.
The house seemed to be a shrinking violet and appeared smaller when seen on the huge lot all by itself.

Juxtaposing it against the foreground pile gives more importance to the redevelopment of the site. The landmark slowly disappearing from its original location and being pushed out by redevelopment.174

Click on image for larger view