Sun's up at The Sonoma Hotel

                                           

[6x8 Acrylic] Wine country's home town, and this favorite hotel is right on the Sonoma, CA town square.  The early light is like fall back east. This was painted from a personal photo I took during my week watching the Sonoma Plein Air event.  Not sure if this is the town I should put on my short list of places to move to in 2014, but it's on the list for sure - especially if I can get my own Vespa to ride to coffee in the AM.

"The Seaside Inn" - continues

                                               12x16  acrylic

Listening to George Shearing on Pandora.com and working in-studio on a cooler and darker than usual Monday here in S.CA.  It was an "honor" to have worked with Shearing early in my TV career, and then to have written him one of his last checks for his performance on Pat Boone's '50's variety hour TV hit.  The film of that performance with Pat dueting on  "Stranger in Paradise" was one of the highlights of the program we did for PBS last year. Every once and a while I get an e-mail from someone who has seen the show late-night in some small PBS town who wants a copy.  Maybe "Stranger in Paradise" would be a title to consider for this painting in the works.  Port Clyde, ME is not what i always thought of as "paradise", but as I spend more summer times there it grows on me for sure. The style here is an omage to Connie Hayes one of the neat and popular Maine artists i discovered this past year.  Check her out on the net.   

A 2 hour "rough-in"...

                                      12x16 "rough in after 2 hours.


The Seaside Inn in Port Clyde, Maine [above] is a B&B [and both the bed and the breakfast are super] in this seaside lobster fishing working port village.  It closes down - the Inn and the town - around Columbus Day and comes alive again in the spring.   I spent a week using this as a base as I painted here and in nearby Main towns like Rockland and Camden.  My room was the upper gable on the left and every sunrise was an eye opener view.  This is a good start on a larger canvas and I include it only to demonstrate how I get started - thanks to all those super workshops with fine artist Tim Horn. 

"Gateway to "Sunshine"

                                               "Gateway to Sunshine"
                                                6x8 on the drying rack

Another Wallace Neff design classic shape at the southern CA King Gillette Ranch - now a state park in the Santa Monica Mt. range about 10 minutes from my front door.  Owned by King in the 20's, and after he died sold to a motion picture director in the heyday of studio parties on private ranches near Hollywood, I can just imaging who went through this gate....I can hear the music and the splashes in the pool...

I was busy before breakfast...

in progress even before the sun was all the way up..

   

Finished between breakfast and peanut butter...

This is the trophy art-deco late '20's bridge designed by the famous Wallace Neff [he built most of the hot stuff in Santa Barbara] and it is simple, elegant and still there.  The not-to-early sunlight is beautiful.  Not to far away you can hear the commuters racing to LA to work on Malibu Canyon highway.  Some of them find this place on the weekends.  This was done both on-location en plain air as well as from a photo i took while I was painting on the property with the local Allied-Artist group.  They are having a show/sale there in November and I thought i should have a few done on the spot.  6x8 - acrylic.  Truth is that under the bridge is green slime so thick the leaves fall on it like they would on solid ice.  I changed that. 

Stable of the "King"....

                                     posing with today's finished 6x8 and 8x10

                                     8x10  Open acrylics


What a great time at the King/Gillette Ranch with The Allied Artists painting group.  They "paint-out" on the 2nd Saturday of each month at some of the most beautiful places I have never seen that are right in my back yard.  Really talented painters and thanks for letting me tag along.  The ranch was designed for the Gillette [as in shaving"] estate owner, then passed to a Hollywood director who used the ranch for great parties and premiers - even putting in a small air strip so they could fly to the "distant" location from LA.  Total distance - about 40 miles.  This was the famous Neff designed stable from the back side.  It offered the best shadowed surfaces to me, so here it is.  90 minutes on location and 30 in the studio to finish.  Fun day and enjoyed the painting.  

In progress..

                                     "Sonoma Barrack"  6x8  

"Sonoma Barrack" in progress.  Next to the Sonoma Mission on the town square is the historic Sonoma Barrack .  I really liked the sweeping wall and the shadow surface in the early morning rising sunlight.  Here I am again working with the new found [for me] GOLDEN "Open" paint [see post below].  I was able to get this done in about 90 minutes and will finish tomorrow by adding a highlight here and there.  This 6x8 was done from sketches and photos I captured on location during the Sonoma Plein Air event in October. 

Sonoma Mission done with new GOLDEN Open Acrylics...

I was at the Sonoma Plein Air following Tim Horn around as well as meeting and watching the great plein air artists in action there, when I met the creator of "Guerrilla" painter sulpies Carl Judson.  What a neat guy and I have lots of his great iventions from the pochade box to a brush holder and more.  He gave me a sample of Golden's "open" acrylic paints and wow are they great!  Just like oils that dry so much slower that you understand what all my oil painting buddies are talking about.  I really like this product and painted the "Sonoma Mission" [photo above] in just over 70 minutes because of the Golden open colors i used.  It allows me to move so much faster for some reason. Thanks Carl!