"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.