Nocturne from Marker Sketch

"Suburb Nocturne"
watercolor on paper, 2016
4" x 7" (10.16cm x 17.78cm)

Marker sketches
black markers
sketchbook 6" x 8" (15.24cm x 20.32cm)
Not for Sale

Here's a small watercolor from my marker sketches and another imagined nocturne landscape.
You can see the marker sketch original post here.
I am working from the marker sketches as an excuse to experiment in a variety of paint applications or treatment of the medium, taking my cue from the manner in which I drew with the marker.
The marker sketches were experimental in themselves and often were dictated the complexity of subject, my patience for careful study vs quick sketch and even by my mood at the time.

I am back to posting on a regular basis again so stay tuned. For now I will be posting these watercolors from the marker sketches.492

Art-A-Fair 18th St. Nocturne

"18th St. Nocturne"    SOLD

oil on panel, 2015

5" x 7" (12.7cm x 17.78cm)

Here is another painting down at Art-A-Fair. I love the nocturne and that stillness of night.

We paint what we see. The view from my balcony, which I have painted several times. This one from early in the evening, lights still on in many of the homes. I love the linear quality of the lit power lines which break up the sky, make the composition more dynamic and gives the painting some energy.311

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

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

Local Landmarks - White Point Battery Bunker

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

A battery here in San Pedro California built for WWII and part of Fort MacArthur Museum, but never used in defense.

Originally Battery 127, its name was officially changed to honor the memory of Colonel Paul Delmont Bunker, Battery Paul D Bunker, BCN-127, hence the Bunker in the name. It's not a military bunker, it's a gun battery.

The road leading into the picture from the bottom makes a nice S line passing up through the contrails, ghostly echoes of its guns which never fired in defense and are long gone.
Adding the contrails also gives the sky some dimension. I prefer to make my skies a participant in the painting as a whole with some kind of texture, instead of smoothly rendered with no thought.

This is part of a new series of local military landmarks, many of which are within a couple miles of home.
Another local San Pedro battery drawing here.222

Urban River 6

"LA River #4"
oil on panel, 2013
2" x 2⅜" (5.08cm x 6.01cm)

I know I know... it's really blue...
probably should have thrown some other colors in it!

This is another tiny painting, fun and quick to do. I like to do these when I am in the middle more demanding works. Works that require lots of time and lots of sessions layering, drying, layering, drying. It gets long and drawn out so I find myself wanting some 'finished' satisfaction. That is the case right now. I'm working on several paintings in oil and watercolor, two of them commissions.

This is a pipeline bridge and there are several along the southern end of the LA River in Long Beach California where much of the harbor industry is located.
I love these huge sheets of concrete. All they do is carry the pipes across the river, but are very simple and dramatic.220

Urban River 5

 "LA River #3"
oil on panel, 2013
2" x 2⅜" (5.08cm x 6.01cm)
private collection

Here's another for my Urban River series, although on a small scale at only 2" x 2⅜". Not really sellable but I do have my reasons for painting these mini's.
This is the LA River in Long Beach California looking north at the Willow Street Bridge. Viewed laying down on the sloping concrete bank makes for a strong angular composition and a nice sweeping line from corner to corner. With landscapes typically being in a horizontal format I am always looking for verticals, and especially angles to either counter or compliment the side to side landscape.

I used a similar compositional device in this locomotive painting, making the subject, here the bridge and the BNSF engine in the other, smaller within the design yet still the primary subject.

The sloping wall takes up more than half of the picture frame but due to its architecture the bridge gets the attention. This also lends a good variation to the blue sky shapes in the arches so each is different and is not so repetitive.210

Night Rain at 6x6 Show

"18th St. Rain Nocturne"    SOLD
oil on panel, 2012

6" x 6" (15.24cm x 15.24cm)

My fourth painting accepted into the 6 Inch Squared Show at the Randy Higbee Gallery in Costa Mesa California.
Another rain painting in the show here.

A simple enough idea, more challenging to paint than I thought.
Warm light on a cold night. Yellow green from the house, orange from the sodium street lights meant the two had to be interspersed in some places.
In reality the light is actually blueish white but made for a cold uninviting image. This is when artistic decisions must be made.
I initially had more yellow from the house light but the painting lacked depth so I added green as the light spread out from its source, even further under the shine of rainy conditions. I finished it off by adding some color accents of blue in the sky and red of the taillights.199

Another "18th St. Rain" here, a view slightly up the same street.
Click rain 'RAIN' LABEL to see others.

Rain at 6x6 Show

"11th St. Rain"    SOLD
oil on panel, 2012
6" x 6" (15.24cm x 15.24cm)
Randy Higbee Gallery

Here is one of my four paintings accepted into the 6 Inch Squared show at Randy Higbee Gallery.

If you are like me you never tire of rain and weather images. I love shiny glistening streets under these conditions. The landscape under a canopy of clouds with the golden sun breaking through.
I've always thought of rainy days as slow days. Here I've painted the late afternoon with a lone figure returning home from work in no particular hurry.196

Click 'Rain' or 'Weather' LABELS to see others.

Note: I updated the image here with one that is more color correct.
Click on image for larger view

OMA #6

"OMA #6"
oil on panel, 2011
6" x 10" (15.24cm x 25.4cm)
For Sale at Daily Paintworks, CLICK HERE

A simple frontal view of the Oceanside Museum of Art. To compliment the straight lines of the architecture I set the museum against the organic shape of shifting clouds sweeping overhead dropping soft shadows across it’s facade.169


Click on image for larger view

Urban River 4

"Santa Ana River #4"
watercolor on paper, 2012
8" x 11" (20.32cm x 27.94cm)

Number 4 in this series. This view looking north shows more of the power corridor that runs along the river and the straight vertical concrete walls instead of the sloping walls of previous versions.

This is the time of day, late afternoon, when the light is blue looking east and that certain pale green and yellow looking west, just before the golds, oranges, reds, pinks and purples take over at sunset.
Much more peaceful and introspective than the fiery finish of sunset I think.168

#3 here
#2 here
#1 here

Click on image for larger view

Urban River 3

"Santa Ana River #3 Footbridge"
watercolor on paper, 2012
7" x 10" (17.78cm x 25.4cm)
For Sale at Daily Paintworks, CLICK HERE


Here is the third painting of this river. The other two, here and here.

Each explores the man/nature theme.
This one showing the man made structures of pedestrian bridge in the middle ground, two traffic bridges and the power poles and towers in the distant background. So more of this composition is of the man made vaguely looming over nature.

I experimented by placing the more saturated color across the middle with the top and bottom nearly monochromatic and more loosely painted.
This one was done on hot pressed paper which takes the watercolor differently. Besides being untextured (like cold pressed) watercolor washes heavy with pigment tend to go down slightly softer around the edges, as though the surface has the slightest bleed. It also seems to dry to a more velvety finish. I like the difference but it will take some time to get used to it.166

Click on image for larger view

Urban River 2

"Santa Ana River #2"
watercolor on paper, 2012
8" x 11" (20.32cm x 27.94cm)
For Sale at Daily Paintworks, CLICK HERE

Looking forward to a new year as I have set many goals for 2012. Of course that now means signing the date '12. Darn, the two ones of '11 were so much easier. Oh well.

Here is my first finished piece of 2012, literally done on January 1st. This is the second of this urban river.
Much like the first, done in oil, it's the juxtaposition of the natural and man-made world that I find fascinating to study.
The lazy meandering river takes its time moving through the frame from right to left. The razor sharp line of the highlighted bike path slicing across the picture, the verticals of power poles and towers and the flat plane of the river bank contrast nicely with the organic flow of water and vegetation. 164

Click to see "Santa Ana River #1"
Click on image for larger view

OMA Store 5

"Tree Nocturne (Downhill)"    SOLD
oil on panel, 2010
5” x 4” (12.7cm x 10.16cm)

This painting is the 7th of those at the Oceanside Museum of Art store. Click label below to see the others.
The nocturne ... its origin, mid 19th century French from Latin, nocturnus, meaning ‘of the night’.
Like most from my Tree Nocturne Series this is from a combination of imagination and memories, which lends it a subtle surreal quality. Working this way I allow things like the slightly off kilter street, the rustling tree wrapping around the streetlight, the distant harbor veiled in a marine layer. All to give it a more dreamlike quality.145

Link to value thumbnail here.

Click on image for larger view

Urban River 1

"Santa Ana River #1"
oil on cradled panel, 2011
12" x 24" (30.48cm x 60.96cm)
For Sale at Daily Paintworks, CLICK HERE


Urban nature is a sort of oxymoron. It took years to come to terms with seeing our rivers encased in concrete banks as part of the natural world. I could never quite call them rivers.

But this is how we modify nature as it passes through our cities before being returned back to nature and into the ocean. There is a push and pull of man/nature going on. Concrete and manicured rock banks, then natural silt islands and vegetation growing in the middle. Nature briefly contained and on display. Ebb and flow.

I do see the beauty in both, the smooth hard man made surfaces and the delicate organic forms of nature. They simultaneously compliment and contrast each other.140

Click on image for larger view

Park Nocturne

"Tree Nocturne (Park Hillside)"
oil on panel, 2009
7.75" x 7.25" (19.685cm x 18.415cm)
For Sale at Daily Paintworks, CLICK HERE

The nocturne... its origin, mid 19th century French from Latin, nocturnus, meaning 'of the night'.

From my Tree Nocturne series. This was painted in one sitting or alla prima. Alla Prima, derived from Italian meaning 'at the first'.
I very rarely complete a painting in one sitting since I prefer working in layers but sometimes the image just 'falls out onto the surface' as it did here.

Painted from my imagination having seen so many urban and suburban parks. Hints of buildings, a walkway and sloping grass was enough.121

Click on image for larger view

Subdued Energy 2

"Tree Nocturne (2 Figures, City View)"   SOLD
oil on panel, 2010
5" x 4" (12.7cm x 10.16cm)


The nocturne... it's origin, mid 19th century French from Latin, nocturnus, meaning 'of the night'.

Like most from my Tree Nocturne series this is from my imagination and maybe distant memories.

Being more of a night owl I love the faint buzz of the nighttime air. As Ray Bradbury so perfectly described in one of his books... it's  "... the gentle hiss of distance...". I could not say it any better than that. It is not quite silent, but you can't really hear it either. It's just there.
Although it dominates the composition the tree is not the main focus. The figures overlooking the city, silhouetted against the bright lights, command the attention, even if small.
I designed the foliage of the tree to radiate outward from the center and pushed the color saturation a bit to give the scene more life, that subdued energy of the suburb and urban setting.
This is what I had in mind for this painting as well as the other one under the same post heading 'Subdued Energy' here. 116

Link to value thumbnail here.

Click on image to enlarge

*Update - previous post original value thumbnail here.

Subdued Energy

"Tree Nocturne (19th St.)"
oil on panel, 2010
3.5" x 5" (8.89cm x 12.7cm)
For Sale at Daily Paintworks, CLICK HERE

The nocturne... it's origin, mid 19th century French from Latin, nocturnus, meaning 'of the night'.

My Tree Nocturne Series. I've kept the series compositionally simple, focusing on the tree and usually an unseen light source. This small painting breaks from that slightly.

Here I show the foreground and middle ground source of the street lights with light emanating from the distant LA Harbor. All, the orange sodium lights. This also is a more zoomed back view than previous tree nocturne's, including more of the surrounding landscape. The color saturation is pushed a bit to give the scene more life, the subdued energy of the suburb and urban setting. In contrast to the previous post.95


Click on image for larger view

*Update - previous post original value thumbnail here.

Night Eyes

"Tree Nocturne (Rooftops)"    SOLD

oil on panel, 2010
5" x 4" (12.7cm x 10.16cm)

This painting is loosely based on the view from my balcony. So it is painted from memory, the cousin of imagination.

Having seen the view many times I resisted the temptation to run back and forth while painting. I allowed myself to take liberties in the interest of composition etc., and that freed me up to work on the image without the restraints of the actual view.

I shaped the tree mass to lean left, framing it within the power lines and the collective curve of the rooftops climbing the hill. A lower light than many of my other nocturnes so the lights from the windows show brighter and appear as eyes peaking over the rooftops.69
Click on image for larger view