Duck duck at Laguna Art-A-Fair

"Duck Duck 1"
oil on panel, 2016
5" x 7" (12.7cm x 17.78cm)

Here is a new work for Laguna Art-A-Fair.
The worlds largest rubber duck and her duckling when it visited the Los Angeles Port in 2014.

If you know my work you might wonder, a rubber duck? Well yeah, if it's 61 feet tall, weighs 11 tons and sits in the Los Angeles Harbor. It's a no-brainer! And it's a nice complement to what may be The Worlds Largest Pumpkin, "Smilin' Jack", which I also painted.
Fun industrial.
Suitable for all ages.
I-N-D-U-S-T-R-I-A-L !
Have a newborn? Duck Duck is perfect for the new nursery!
Have a 5 year old? Smilin' Jack is it!

At that size She had a certain presence.  I wanted to have a little fun here so I painted in the yellow halo and kept the paint application crystal clear with high chroma and saturated color to give it that presence for the paintings diminutive 5"x7" size.451

Industrial Purgatory

“Old Dredge”
oil on panel, 2011
6” x 6” (15.24cm x 15.24cm)

Here is second of my 3 paintings in the  6" Squared Exhibition and Sale at the Randy Higbee Gallery tonight, Saturday December 3rd, and hangs through December 22nd.

An old relic, left in the cold shallow waters, listing to the right, about to face another winter storm, half heartedly covered by the yellow tarp.

Hung up by the dock and unable to sail it’s stuck between two worlds in a state of purgatory. It’s no longer needed but not pulled ashore. It can’t sink anymore but is contained by jetties in the protected harbor so no storm will be able to put it out of its misery by dragging it to the bottom where at least marine life would have it as a home, an artificial reef.

Too outdated for work but neither is it salvaged to be put back into service in some new form. It is forgotten in plain sight.152


Click on image for larger view

Herculean Muscle

“47 Bridge (Three Tanks)”    SOLD
oil on panel, 2011
6” x 6” (15.24cm x 15.24cm)

Here is one of my 3 paintings that is in the  6" Squared Exhibition and Sale at the Randy Higbee Gallery this Saturday December 3rd.

The 47 Bridge, its design born more out of its practical need than aesthetics. The middle spans raise up to allow boats and ships to pass in the channel underneath, the reason for its boxy towers. The two near towers for auto and truck traffic, the two far ones for the railroad.

But its very utilitarian design gives it a herculean look, one of muscle. It is not a design to be admired for its grace or beauty. There are no sweeping curves of suspension cables or steel arches, no ornamentation. It belongs to no school of design other than its industrial purpose. So it stands disproportionately tall for the channel it crosses.

An obvious approach to support it’s brawniness would be a worms eye view but that would say nothing of its relative place in the bigger picture of the harbor mechanisms.
The high vantage point I’ve done here doesn’t minimize its stature but instead allows it to dwarf the surrounding area, both the background and the foreground tanks sitting low in the composition.151

Click on image for larger view

Harbor Line - Bridge Shadow

"Pacific Harbor Line 20 (Bridge Shadow)"    SOLD
oil on panel, 2011
5" x 7" (12.7cm x 17.78cm)

The Pacific Harbor Line, the workhorse of the LA  Harbor. This newer one is part of the low emission line of locomotives for the move towards a greener port. Black and shiny as tar with striking graphics, they don't blend in, they stand out. Not graceful looking, they look like they mean business. The back end diagonals point down, the front point up to distinguish front from rear when seen head on. Its side panel graphics angling forward. So a nod of beautiful work to the designers of these burly beasts of burden.

My Pacific Harbor Line series. This one, the #20, is a remote control locomotive and is often parked here near the base of the Vincent Thomas Bridge.
Here it sits in the afternoon at the shadow of the Vincent Thomas Bridge as the marine layer begins to settle in over the port.136

Click on image for larger view

Urban Seascape 2

"Seal Beach 2"    SOLD
oil on panel, 2011
6" x 8" (15.24cm x 20.32cm)

Seal Beach is quietly tucked between the two more well known Long Beach and Huntington Beach. Long Beach known for it's Grand Prix race every year and Huntington Beach, a major surf town, for it's surfing competitions.
This is the second painting of Seal Beach and is a variation of the first, "Seal Beach" click here. The first focused more on the water, this one features the sand more prominently.
Both are of the same time of day. A hazy, warm summer day, late afternoon. Silvery surf and bronze sand set against the backdrop of the LA Harbor. Visible are the harbor cranes, an oil drilling island, downtown Long Beach and the Palos Verdes Peninsula in the distance.
The beach is fairly empty after some kind of event earlier in the day and a few of it's remaining denizens lazily head for home.119

Click on image for larger view

Vincent Thomas Bridge at 6 x 6

"Vincent Thomas Bridge #2"   SOLD
oil on panel, 2011
6" x 6" (15.24cm x 15.24cm)

Here is a second painting that will be in the 6" squared exhibition and sale at the Randy Higbee gallery April 16th. For more info see my previous post below.

From my Vincent Thomas Bridge series.

Here’s a view of the bridge from below the roadway looking west toward the towers, the far tower barely visible behind the scaffolding being erected on the near one. It takes about six months just to wrap a tower for painting, first in scaffolding from the ground up, then wrapped in a white tarp to contain the work. The maintenance of the bridge is a constant job, never finished. This series will show not only the grandeur of the bridge itself but also serve as a tribute to those who maintain and keep it beautiful.110

Click on image for larger view

Low Growling Murmur

*with compositional overlay

"Harbor Line #72 (47 Bridge)"
oil on panel, 2010
6" x 8" (15.24cm x 20.32cm)
NFS

In a low growling murmur, the #72 slowly crawls through the harbor on an almost imperceptible uphill grade, pulling a string of rail cars loaded with cargo containers, the 47 bridge as it's backdrop. Late in the afternoon, the sun from the left puts the sides in shadow... jet black. One of those days where the atmosphere is heavy and hazy but bright.

This location is wide open, a staging area for huge piles of dirt, asphalt and concrete used throughout the harbor for all the various construction and renovation projects.

The slight upward tilt as well as the heavy section of bridge bearing down convey the weight of the long train being pulled, even if unseen. Well fit to this task, the sturdy black locomotive dominates the horizontal composition.

Anatomy of a painting... structurally the image is made up of horizontal bands (rectangles), triangles and the forward leaning angles of the stripes. All serve the subject. As indicated in the *overlay above, the triangles point in the direction of the action, moving the train forward and through the composition from left to right. The stripes too seem to push the train forward, a thought the designers must have had in mind.

The horizontal bands of the foreground left simple but punctuated with tufts of grass and dashes of paint to set up implied lines also moving left to right. The blunt shape of the locomotive echoed by the same shapes of the trucks, it's smaller commerce cousins, in the background approaching the bridge.75
Click on images for larger view

Harbor Colors

"Sunken Dock, Cranes (w/Bird)"   SOLD

oil on panel, 2010

6" x 8" (15.24cm x 20.32cm)

I was lamenting awhile back that mother nature was holding back spring in favor of an extended winter. Now she still has spring or at least spring like weather on the table. Our 4th of July was only warm, not hot, with a rather cool evening. We have not seen any real hot, blistering summer days and nights yet. So, with that, here is another spring painting.

The harbor, looking east, a bank of rain clouds. This is a common site in Los Angeles this time of year (early spring). The weather will move off shore and along the mountains, leaving the LA basin to the sun, a sort of hole with no weather, much like the eye of a hurricane. This does lead to some dramatic backdrops and here it provided a deep cool gray for the brightly lit red cranes.

These are the colors of the harbor. The equipment... whites, reds, blues, greens, yellows, oranges, some bright, some pale. Docks and piers... earthy siennas, oxidized gray browns, dark wet chocolate browns. The organic... green waters, ochre dirt, various shades of gray and tan in jetties and rocks.

This is another palette I like. Saturated color, but deep, still weighty, with bright accents. A good mix of artificial and natural earthy color. Man made and nature together.

Bright days don't necessarily have to be depicted in high key (lighter) values. If done right, middle and even low key values will represent a bright day.

The only light values here lie in a thin horizontal strip at the base of the cranes... sunlit whites, blues and yellow. The color saturation too, aids in depicting a sunny day and distant atmospheric conditions... wet air.65

Click on image for larger view

Urban Seascape

"Seal Beach"

oil on panel, 2008

6" x 8" (15.24cm x 20.32cm)

private collection

Thought I'd throw in a seascape to mix it up. Although it still shows the harbor cranes(industrial) and downtown Long Beach in the backround.5

Click on image for larger view

Urban Seascape 2 "Seal Beach 2" here.