Next B&B Painting?

If it looks like a picture postcard - it is!  Tom & Rick own and operate this pefect getaway in Centerville, Cape Cod, MA.  The Capt. David Kelley House [more US sea captains setteled on the Cape than anyplace in the country] was a B&B favorite during our Cape vacation 2012.  Each room is detailed like a designer showcase.  I took lots of photos and would like to start a canvas just after the new year?  What do you think? 

Cold & Rain in CA can make me nuts ....

so......, I had planned to use my new Guerrilla 5x7 pochade box today at The Stonehaus, a coffee and wine tasting great location within walking distance of my front door.  But it was just too cold to go, and although I want to try some interior Connie Hayes "Borrowed Spaces" kind of sketches, there was just not enough light at all. I decided to just do a small start-up of a lighthouse that I had photographed on a 18 mile bike ride on Nantucket Island last summer.  The simple shapes are done [above photo], so tomorrow I'll but on some paint and fill in the tall grass in the forground to finish it.  Should be a nice one I can put on the on-line gallery [ www.BobRaserArt.com ] later in the week - maybe before the Happy New Year. 

New Biz Card!

I decided to update my biz card to include a photo of a painting that seems to get so much response [must be the orange, blue and green combo]  as well as update with the location of my on-line gallery at www.BobRaserArt.com   I used the  simple Staples on-line tool www.staples.com/copyandprint  to design and publish it with the option to pick it up at my local Staples.  I got a call in only about 2-3 hours that it was ready to pick up!  Be very sure to double check all the details on your card before you press "DONE" if you try this.  That's tough for art-brained people who twist letters and numbers around all the time.  Cost $32.62 for 100 @19.99 because I added color for an additional $10 and then tax at $2.63. 

New On-Line Sale site!

I have a new on-line gallery finally up and running at www.BobRaserArt.com with about 20 paintings showcased for sale.  Each is priced to include frame & shipping.  Each painting arrives ready to hang.  I also have a new 30 page book that I will be offering on that sale site and this Blog site very soon.  It has tons of paintings in it and some neat takes on my plein-air experience so far.  The estimated cost of a book is between $25-$30 only because of the way they have to be shipped to me & the CA tax man adding his ever increasing fees.  I get delivery of 5 of these "Limited Edition" books close to Christmas Day & can't wait to see how they turned out!!  Stay tuned. 

Starting an on-line sale web site...

                                          "Stonefish"  8"x10"  $300


I have been working on this on-line sale site for my paintings since I began to research what provider to choose from last October.  The address is www.BobRaserArt.com  I decided on FASO [Fine Art Studio Online] and I am glad I did in terms of superb phone support and relative ease of dealing with design and upload.  Looks like the best way to get eyes to a site like mine is certainly social media - especially Facebook.  I haven't gone "real public" yet, meaning really working at getting the word out that I am open for business, but i am close.  All my paintings are very moddestly priced [$175-$350] and all include a classic plein-air frame as well as postage, so i have made it out of the box ready to hang.  It has been a lot of work refining the look and messaging, and i need to get back to painting for sure. 

"Stacks" in progress..

[ 8x10 acrylic] I often thought I would like to do a collection of paintings of really great breakfast "joints".  This is one of them.  It is just the rough in, and I think I will wait to add the waiting customers on the sidewalk after I complete Peggy Kroll Roberts amazing figure class in February.  STACKS is in Berlingame, CA just outside San Fransisco.  A family welcoming breakfast and lunch only place where the line is long on the weekends but the wait is usually really short and includes free coffee while you wait.  The food is solid and hot and tasty.  There are at least 2 other places in the same town that qualify as well.  I'll get some photos to work from when I visit family there for Thanksgiving.  

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!

"The yellow house in Payton Place..."

This home stands in the most photographed town in new England.  It sits on a Maine cove inlet more beautiful than most, surrounded by the classic New England small town, and tree lined streets that glow in early fall in the same kind of sunlight I remember growing up In Westchester County, NY.  A pulp classic and movie hit of the late 50's was written by a 20 something living here, and the 2nd story used book shop in town always has an old paperback for tourists.  $3 if he isn't sold out.  At the opening of chapter 5, it reads, "Chestnut Street...was considered to be the best street in Payton Place".  This is a yellow classic on that street, circa 1800.  Like the next painting below, the style here is loose and fun and filled with sun and energy I think.  I really enjoyed doing it "plein air", and later finishing it in the studio.  A perfect, quiet, and beautiful place.  

The Rose to Lobster Cove

"The Rose to Lobster Cove"  was a painting I produced in an hour or so on one of the final evenings of my Monhegan Island, Maine Tim Horn workshop, September, 2012.  What i love about this painting is that it is so loose and spontaneous.  I like to come out with a painting that tells a story every time.  This was a very late in the day effort.  I had left some of my gear back at the Monhegan House, I cobbled together a way to prop up the canvas and get on with it before the light went.  Some of the blue tape I used is still on the canvas [8x10],  I had painted over it and only noticed when I varnished it.  The rose is there on this great and new white fence and is a favorite sight with hikers on the dirt road [all the roads on the island are dirt - no cars at all permitted] on their way to see the Lobster Cove landmark coastline.  The sun blasts through the trees that time of day and the rose gleams.  Fast and loose and it's all there on the canvas board.

Lighthouse studies - Monhegan Island, ME

                                      "Monhegan Island: The Keepers House"  
                                      Acrylic - 8x10
                                      

                                      "Monhegan Island sunset - 9/11"
                                      Acrylic - 9x12
                                      

These are my final pre-workshop studies of this most painted, and certainly one of the most quietly beautiful locations in the country - Monhegan Island, ME.  This 1x2 mile island has welcomed painters since 1867.  Both "The Keepers House" and "Monhegan Sunset - 9/11" will be available for sale through this site after my late summer Monhegan workshop.  [Plein-air gold framed - ready to hang are available at additional cost]. 

Monheagan Workshop Warm up painting #2

Again, I am limiting myself to two hours and then stop & see where I am.  My first "warm up" painting for Tim Horn's Monhegan workshop [see below] was the same subject, the beautiful lighthouse on the island.  I'd like to think I could get something totally finished in 2.5 hrs - but realistically I think getting close,  then finishing it in a studio is as good as I am going to get unless I loosen up a great deal more. One of the major goals of the workshop is a focus on "values" - that is contrasting the light and darker areas, and seeing what kind of patters are created in the light spaces.  I have a way to go on this one nad will deal with that in the studio.  If you're interested in at how the pros deliver perfect values, try Tim Horn's blog, as well as Kevin Beers.  

Warm-up paintings for Monhegan Island workshop

Started this today and learned a lot about getting faster and light values.  The goal is to deliver 2 a day when you are at a workshop.  That's 2 a day that are worth it and teach you something.  This is my start today.  Tomorrow I plan to work on the "values" on the lawn area, the sea, and pop in the actual lighthouse structure someplace next to the cupola.  The Monhegan Island, ME lighthouse complex is bound to be on Tim Horn's workshop agenda.  It's been the favorite painting location since the late 1800's.  Now it's my turn.  I found lots of photos on-line and decided to paint a few of the most likely spots we will paint during our 5 day stay on this popular painting location. I  plan on at least one more of the same location before I move on to a few of the more popular beach and houses. 

OK - the vote is in and thanks...!..

The Kiwi Cafe is a popular breakfast/lunch place in Chester, NS, Canada.  Maybe I should do a series of "great breakfast joints" .  The sweeping waitress earned her right to "stay in the painting" with 23 yes votes - and not even close "Nos".  I did change the colors and some of the figure design enough to satisfy my "no" vote objection.  A favorite figure artist who has her own super style is Peggy Kroll-Roberts.  If I wasn't tapped out on painting workshops for the year I would run to her next class for sure.  I am moving on now to paint from photos of Monhegan Island as a warm up to my upcoming 5 week workshop/painting trip.  I have selected photos of the the most popular painting spots on that Maine island that has been a painting hang out since at least 1887. Should be fun.  I'll post what happens.    

"Almost Closing" is a bit of a bother still.  I can't decide if the "sweeping server" is a bit too "cutesy" or not.  Darkening up the doorway is what I am wanting to do - but many of my artist pals want me to leave her.  No clue.  What do you think?  Let me know.  The Kiwi Cafe is located in Chester, NS, Canada and is one of the all time great breakfast places.  If you're in town [summers only please] this is the place to have breakfast and lunch for sure.  It is one of the most beautiful towns I have ever painted in for sure.  

Final version - "Strawberry Stand"

This is how it finally turned out after several stops and starts.  Added the ranch guy unloading his truck, as well as the cat.  I added the sign as well.  I changed the color of the truck and made it more of a "work" truck bu removing the white wall tires.  Moving on now to finish  "Breakfast at the famous Kiwi Cafe" as well as a small exterior of the same Chester, NS  Canada eatery.  Stop back for a look see this week.  

Added the truck ....

There is a fine line in stretching a bit - a risk of a painting your self into something really "hokey" and poorly painted.  But if I don't stretch, I will never wake up and do it better - so here comes a truck, always planned for that space where it is now parked.  Not sure of the color but I'm close i think.  The absolutely best "truck and car" painter I know is Tim Horn.  Check out his blog.  So I will look at his versions and see what I can learn.  

Lots to do to finish yet....

Here it is after 2.5 hrs in 2 sessions -  and still not done.  I really do want to get faster somehow?  That's a common problem with a lot of plein-air painters I have met at workshops and through blogs.  It is a must to get the most out of workshops, as well as live with my ADD I guess.  To finish it in the  next setting I need to complete the sky and wires, add the neat "folk sign" for the strawberry stand to the lower left area, and finally clean up the red highlights on the stand itself.  The solution to fast and good is really do a painting a day for about 6 months.  Someday?  

This is where I started with "Strawberry Stand"...

Getting a fast one hour start on roughing in the shapes for "The Strawberry Stand" - from the photo on the left of the painting.  Hope to finish it tomorrow.  My goal is to get faster at starting and finishing in one 2:30 hr period, as I will have to do in the upcoming Monhegan workshop.  Two per day!  Working up to it.  These stands are all over ad-country in southern CA and near my home.  The red is just a great color and fun to use in any painting.  

What's in a painting.....?

I have had some questions on the Camarillo Cathedral painting that you can look at below. I guess I read too many art reviews - and the best of all art mags, "Plein Air", where writers are always looking for all kinds of motivation and symbols in better paintings than mine?  I like that.  So I try to sneak a few in to most of what I do actually.  For example:  In my 8x10 painting of this place - again, please look below -  there is a touch of "sun glow" in the towering clouds in the upper left of the canvas.  That lofty cloud, and the attention-drawing color, is meant to represent the bell tower of the actual church - only this clowd representation is reaching up high to the heavens, extending in a way the "reach" of the place and the people who come here.  The telephone poles at lower left reflect the hard working-class  "neighborhood", as well as "getting the good-word out", and the small buildings again on the lower left of the canvas represent the modest community and priests that surround the place.  I depict the East side of the structure, not the front that faces N.  I chose it because it faces the rising sun every day, representing eternity, and God's daily creations and challanges - new with every sunrise.  And - I painted it on Good Friday.  WOW.  All that into one painting plan.  It's too much information but now you know.  

"Growing together" ...

The Westlake Inn is adding this "tasting room" and coffee house to their property in southern CA.  I have been doing a series of paintings of the place under construction.  Here is the latest that combines the growing vineyard in front of the place, as well as the building - both coming together - or "growing" as well.  "Growing Together" and the other paintings of this place before, during and after should be ready for display here in time for the Grande Opening in late July.   

Camarillo Cathedral ...

It's been too long...

I have been "attacked" by the "brain" at Google that has done something awful to my ability to post so I have had to "invent" ways to get around their systems.  Seems my "browser is no longer supported by Google".  I have no clue at all what that means but it is really upsetting.  It takes forever to post anything now and I have no clue if my make-shift methods of posting photos or comments with work - but I'll try.  I have been away from painting for too long. Lots of life-stuff got my serious attention and when that happens it's impossible for me to paint at all.  So I am back at it now with this painting I started on-location on Good Friday - 2012.  It's a start - or should I say re-start.  This camarillo church built early in the 1900's is a treasure and beautiful from so many directions.  I may do more based on the photos I took.    

Sketching in "The Road to Ottos" with darks & lights..

North Shore crossing..

On the north shore of Oahu is this neat little hang-out town, and this is the only bridge to get there from Turtle Bay. Finished it in about 5-6 total hours and enjoyed the "trip" back to this sleepy paradise with every stroke.

Santa Paula CA Historic RR Depot

Roughing it in...

"Eye of the Storm"

I had called it, "Mom's House", but the more I looked at it, I realized that the title was wrong. The better title is, "The Eye of the Storm". Today this place stands in the shadow of Alzheimer's. It is the center of a family battle that is all about loss, anger, stubbornness and manipulation risen to an art form, & unresolved kid stuff from too long ago. It's all classic Alzheimer's family fall out. The house sits empty on a lovely Cape Cod acre. The price for this painting is $295,000 - and you get the house with it.

Painting on the Limonneira Ranch in Santa Paula, CA...

Santa Paula is one of the most beautiful & quiet areas in Ventura County. It's the 100+ year old home of the place most of our lemons are green-grown, The Limoneira Company. Limoneira has been providing low cost housing for their steady labor force for generations, and this is one of them. The house part of a group of 3 similar art-deco homes at the entrance to the ranch offices. The challenge in painting it is that the sun really never hits the front of the home, so it is always in some kind of shade and the most interesting view is flat, head-on, directly from the front. A painting no-no. After 3 hours it all worked out in the end. I always put what I create in a frame to see if I like it. I do, especially the poles and wires and the view in the background down Cummings Road to the lemon orchard and the mountains in the distance.

Jessie's Grove Vinyard Home

Painted on a cold but sunny Superbowl Sunday morning at the famous and original Lodi, CA vineyard. I finished it off in the studio this afternoon and here it is drying after the gloss varnish was added. Like all my plein air on-location sketches, a nice memory. Visit if you are in the area. The company is relaxed and the wine from the vineyards all around is wonderful. Have a glass and wonder through one of the last remaining oak groves in the area.

The Captain's House

Time for a RE-Do...

I did a very loose painting of this great home in Duxbury, MA in 2008 and it never rally came together for me. I pulled it out of a pile on a rainy afternoon when I was studio-bound and tried to "fix it" to my taste 4 years too late I think. It has it's "loose" sections that I like, but too much of it is just not right. So I am going to re-do it. This is the "Before" shot. Let's see what I turn out now that I hope I am better at it this many years later.

Framed and signed - Moss Hill Farm - The garden farm home of TV host P Allen Smith

Beginning painting of P. Allen Smith farm house...

A pal put me on to digitizing the P.Allen Smith daily TV half hour. As a career TV producer I like trying to figure out why a program is a hit, especially one as simple as this garden lifestyle format. The show often takes a look at the hosts 500+ acre "new" farm house and grounds in progress as a chance to tout green building and landscape design. I spotted a photo on his web site that is from a NYT profile of Allen's farm that is at the left of the beginning painting. Clean lines and coloring appealed to me as a fun painting to do. This is the result after 90 minutes and I am enjoying it as an exercise in simplification, block design and coloring. Hope to finish it this weekend, then antique it and send it to host Smith who is also a painter.

Super demonstration for art buyers and painters in the crowd...

I did the 5.5hr drive to Lodi, CA to visit the Knowlton Gallery, where Robin Knowlton was opening a great exhibit and "meet the artists" wine and artist talk afternoon. What a great time and the collection is super. World class artists [visit the Knowlton Gallery home page for the details] stood & spoke about their work. Artist Tim Horn gave a 2 hr painting demo which was really why I was interested in the first place. You can visit Tim's blog here too. The demo went almost 2 hrs. Visitors were in their seats with questions & comments all the way. What a great way for pro-painters to allow gallery-goers in on how they work from selection of a subject to completion of a canvas. This kind of "behind the scenes" stuff peaks buyers interest for sure & is a great place for always-learning painters like me to see how it's done and learn even more so we can have as much fun doing it was possible. I did.

Artist Tim Horn demo at Knowlton Gallery Exhibition

Painting at Jessies Vineyard in Lodi, CA

Every town has a breakfast place..

The Summerland Beach Cafe - expanded from an original centurty old home, is one of the best and most popular breakfast and lunch [only] hang-outs in this beach town. I went back to Summerland to paint last week [see below] and was reminded I had painted this one last year on an overcast afternoon. I re-worked it trying not to over-work it for a neighbor pal who likes both the place, and had enjoyed the painting when I painted it last July. I'm waiting for the lacquer to dry so I can drop it in his mailbox.

A winter morning in Summerland, CA