Painting on the Russian River

This spot is about a four-minute walk from my house. I have gone there twice so far with my small (5 x 7) pochade box to paint studies of the river. Two days ago I painted there for an hour while a large white egret fished on the opposite side of the river. Ducks flew by and the sounds of the gentle river current filled the air....

Gallery Time!

This little chapel is in Alexander Valley, near the Jimtown Store. One Saturday morning, I got up early in order to paint in the morning light. It was cold that morning, so I ended up painting inside my car. The chapel actually sits on an asphalt parking lot, but the vibrant spring grass was all around & I thought it worked better in the painting than asphalt would. This painting is one of four I have in the "Small Works" show at the Russian River Art Gallery in downtown Guerneville for the month of June.  

My painting on a wine label!

My wife and I, together with a group of friends, started making wine in our garage five years ago. Our winery is called "TKO." Yesterday, we bottled a rose of Pinot Noir. My painting was used for the label!

View of Armstrong Woods

This is one of the paintings I did at Armstrong Woods Park over my spring break. It is always a challenged to paint a place with lots of different greens. I don't use any tubes of green paint; I mix all my greens from a variety of combinations of blues, yellows and reds. The variations of green seen in nature is mind boggling! I have been painting a lot lately in preparation for a show at Studio Blomster in Guerneville. Tomorrow I'm meeting with David Blomster, owner of the gallery, to talk more about the show. It will be my first solo show...an exciting adventure!

Laguna of Santa Rosa

This was painted at the laguna of Santa Rosa. I love the colors there, which change from week to week.

Painting Excursion

Yesterday was a gorgeous, sunny, 80-degree day. I packed up my painting gear and my dog and headed to the hills of Cazadero to paint. There were many beautiful views to choose from; I finally set up across the road from a very sculptural dead tree. Wilson slept while I painted. As usual, the solitary time in nature was soul-soothing. While we were there, a photographer from Santa Rosa magazine drove up and asked if he could photograph me painting for an article he's doing on beautiful drives to the coast. I've never heard of Santa Rosa magazine, so I don't know if I'll ever see those photos. My painting still has a ways to go.

Looking at nature....

"About form and roundness, Hawthorne said, 'Let color make form; do not make form and color it in.' This is the main difference between looking at nature from a linear point of view as opposed to observing masses."

---Lois Griffel, writing of painter Charles Hawthorne in her book Painting the Impressionist Landscape: Lessons in Interpreting Light & Color

Fur Babies

Here you see the beginning & ending of a painting I just finished. These cute boys are Latte & Mocha. They are litter mates, but they don't look alike. Their faces are quite different, and Mocha is bigger than Latte. They are the babies of my friends Coop & Cindy. I've been wanting to paint them for awhile, but I wasn't sure I could pull off their furry coats, so I kept putting it off. Finally, I just decided to give it a go. I'm pleased with the result; it captures their faces nicely, and I think I did well at not overworking the painting. The photo somehow doesn't capture the white highlights in their fur.

Armstrong Woods vistas

These are two of the paintings from my spring break week, when I hung out a lot in Armstrong Woods Park. It is always a challenge to paint all the greens in nature, and I need a lot more practice!

The Russian River

One day during my spring break, it was very overcast. I painted in my car near the mouth of the Russian River. The very cool light seemed to make the red brush by the river extra vibrant.

Jeff Horn said...

"The goal of all this is simply to live in the world & make a statement about being in the world. Any day in which I have the opportunity to paint is a day I know I have been here. To paraphrase Robert Henri, there are moments in a day, moments in our lives, when we seem to see beyond the usual. It is the beauty & order of those moments that the painter tries to reveal & share."
--California painter Jeff Horn 

Spring morning at Duncan's Point

This was painted one morning at Duncan's Point, south of Goat Rock Beach. The coast is spectacular at this time of year for all its brilliant color. The morning I painted this, the sky was quite pale, which made the bright colors stand out wonderfully.

Back to Armstrong Woods

Yesterday morning, I went back to Armstrong Woods Park because it had been so beautiful the day before. I painted from the location you see pictured for about two and a half hours. I really like it when a painting is successful, but yesterday I kept thinking, "I get to spend the morning in this landscape; who cares how the painting turns out?" Still working on the painting; will post a picture when it's done.

Armstrong Woods Morning

This morning was beautiful---warm & clear. I got up early so as to get to Armstrong Woods Park with time to paint in the morning light. Here is a photo of my setup; my pochade box & brush stand perched conveniently on top of a large stone. It was so tranquil in the park. I only saw a few people the whole time I was there. There were plenty of sounds, but they were sounds of birds, and bugs, and trees swaying. I love painting en plein air for the quiet time in nature it gives me!

Color and Light

"Local color is the actual color of an object, uninfluenced by reflected light or color. At an early age, we were rewarded for coloring trees green & the sky blue, making it easy for us to believe in those judgements. As we become aware of the infinite variety of nature, we struggle to unlearn our color 'stereotypes' and open our eyes to color. If we could be open-minded about color names & simply react to light as it affects an object's color, we would begin to see! We must understand that local color does not express light or atmosphere; that in our painting we attempt to express the way that sunlight affects local color."
--Lois Griffel
Painting the Impressionist Landscape: Lessons in Interpreting Light and Color

Painting Along the River

Yesterday & the day before, I took my pochade box and set up on the Monte Rio beach. Worked on painting a scene of a house across the river. It has been a challenging painting for me due to the variety of foliage and the reflections in the river. I'm still working on it and it has a ways to go, and may not end up being anything worth saving. No matter; it was wonderful to be beside the river in the sunshine, watching the ducks splash around!

"River Nest"

This tiny cottage is in the tiny town of Rio Nido, which means "river nest" in Spanish. I've been planning to paint it for awhile, but wasn't sure at what hour the light would be best. Yesterday, had only about an hour to paint, so I decided to go check it out. Got there around 12:40pm and began the painting in the light you see above. I was so happy for the patterns of the shadows. Tried to quickly get down the light and shadows as it was changing rapidly. An hour later, the house was in total shade. I needed to see the lighting more, so went back today at around 11:30 and painted for about another hour. Not sure why my photo is so fuzzy; couldn't seem to get a good one today. I will probably work some more on the foliage, but the house is done, I think.

"Evening Light"

I live near Armstrong Woods Park in Guerneville. My friend Greg is a park ranger, and he used to live in a house at the top of the park. One evening my wife and I went up to visit him. The views and the evening light were beautiful. My wife stopped the car on the drive back down and snapped a photo of this view.

Pepperwood Preserve

This is a new version of a study I first painted two and half years ago when I took a plein air painting class at Pepperwood Preserve. It was a very hot summer day, and I was drawn to paint the curved pathway that led away from where all of us students had set up to paint.

"Morning Light"

This is a closer photo of the first painting I did with my new pochade box, which I wrote about in an earlier post. I am pleased with the sense of light in the scene. This was painted in the morning along the Sonoma coast, looking inward. When I paint en plein air, I always try to get the shadows down first, and after that to get the lightest areas painted in. Then I build the rest of the painting around those parts. I love the red-orange, rusted roof on this old barn.

"Waiting"

This is my dog, Wilson, waiting for my wife to come home from work. He starts his vigil about an hour before she's due to arrive.

Monet

"At times Monet imagined what it would have been like to be born blind and then suddenly be able to see, and to paint, without knowing what the thing one saw actually was. He felt that one's first clear look at a subject was the most honest, because it was the least sullied by preconceptions and prejudices."
--Steve Heinrich in MONET

Only an eye

"He is only an eye, but my God, what an eye!"
- Paul Cezanne, speaking of Claude Monet

Morning Commute

I teach at Rincon Valley Middle School, so I drive down River Road and then turn onto Old Redwood Highway (seen in the painting above) to get to school. I'm usually on this road some time between 6:45 and 7:15 in the morning, and the sunrises are often spectacular. This was my view one morning behind a Sonoma County bus. I don't usually paint sunrises (or sunsets), and I think my lack of experience shows. Will have to paint more of them this year!

Reading Corner at Kathleen's

About a month ago, I was in San Jose for a teacher conference. I had the good fortune to stay at my friend Kathleen's house, though she was traveling. I took my small (5" x 7") Guerilla pochade box so that I could paint in the evenings. Originally, I had planned to paint in Kathleen's garden. However, by the time I got to her house each day, the light was fading fast. I decided to paint a corner of her living room, which is a cozy reading spot.