More Info Here!

I'm excited to announce a new Gouache & Watercolor workshop coming up June 2-3, 2012. This will be held at the beautiful Ft.Mason Center in San Francisco, CA. A large, comfortable teaching space with tall ceilings will provide an inspiring place to learn and practice various techniques and concepts. You'll also enjoy demos and slide shows of my artwork and great examples from history. There will be plenty time for sketching outside by the bay and you'll elaborate on those sketches by creating paintings back in the class. I will provide lots of feedback and guidance as well. Beginners are most welcome.

Sign up soon on my website. This will be a memorable learning experience!

Digital gouache painting from memory. A recent hike down to the ocean inspired this piece. It was amazing to see a coyote, salamander, rabbit and hawks all in one morning.

Atmospheric landscape with trees in morning haze. Sepia ink, watercolor browns and blues with additions of gouache delft blue. Bamboo reed pen, steel dip pen, pastel pencil, pencil and washes of muted warm white gouache. 7x9 inches on watercolor paper from a notebook.

I'm thinking about Paulus Bril and Momper with themes by Claude Gellée here. This could be a placid Italian river setting, or easily evolve into a 1500's mountainous landscapes from a traveling experience. Nothing like the Northerners awakening from their Gothic past... “Do you know the land where the lemon-trees flower?” (Goethe). These days reading quite a lot about the draw of Rome on the Dutch, Flemish, French and German artists around the 1600's.

I just wanted to thank the folks over at Pratique Des Arts magazine in France for showcasing one of my tree sketches. The theme of the short article was called La poesie des arbres, poetry of trees in english. Some other excellent tree focused artists from France, USA and the Netherlands were in the recent issue number 101 as well.

In addition there was an article in ImagineFX (Dec.2011) highlighting the successful efforts for the SketchTravel book project and auction late last year and the artists involved with making that happen. One of the images showed a digital composition warm up for a gouache windmill piece I did next to the final gouache.

Rapid sketch of pine trees near the Legion of Honor museum, San Francisco, Ca.
6"x9" on Canson Mi-Teintes pastel paper -warm gray. Marker, Pitt Pen, white pencil and water-soluble black pencil.

Pastoral Storm Break Gouache on Stonehenge fawn colored paper. 7x10"
Rapidly painted from imagination. Thinking about John Constable's full-sized oil sketches What a great idea to paint loosely at a larger size to get warmed for the 'finished' version.

Sepia Tree Cluster study with shadow-obscured artist sketching on the lower left side. Italia Acquerello water color paper -6x6 inches. Watercolor, gouache, sumi ink, Liquitex Ink! - transparent raw umber, sepia ink, dip pen, reed pen, charcoal pencil with additions of Pitt artist pens along w/ sable brush work.

Happy New Year! All the best to everyone and may this be a very creative year to all of you.

Just finished a recent landscape commission using Pt.Reyes National Seashore (West Coast of Northern California) for inspiration. Oils on linen - 80 x 29 inches. In my post from earlier this summer I shared a handful of digital color sketches and the client picked this one to develop.

I wanted to share some recent imaginative color sketches. A French pastoral landscape and an Italian campagna setting are both atmospherically set with fast changing weather.
-Digital-

Digital Gouache sketch from memory after a hike. Morning light with breaking fog, 8:30am. It was interesting to notice the buzzards looking dark in their shapes and with the right angle see them shift to a high shine against the muted hillside.

Sun dissolving into the headlands fog. Digital color sketch from memory.

Recent gouache study for a larger painting. Thinking about Valenciennes, Poussin, Lorrain, Richard Wilson, and Turner. 6x6 inches with additions of gold gouache dip pen boarders.

A study of river side woods with the great Barbizon school painters in mind, in particular the friendship between Harpignies and Corot is evoked. I can't even imagine
how wonderful sketching and painting the Italian country side must have been in the 1860's with these great ones.

Gouache & watercolor on hot press paper with pastel pencil, pastel stick, sepia pen/ink and touches of lifting out with paper towel. 24,5 x 10,5 cm.

Watercolor and gouache sketch painted on location near the Golden Gate Bridge. 6x6 inches - Italia Acquerello paper by Magnani.

Just wanted to spread the word about the upcoming SketchTravel book auction that will be held October 17th in Brussels. Please check out the links to help out a great cause!

I've been lucky to be featured on the SketchTravel Blog today.


official website
http://www.sketchtravel.com/

facebook page


There are so many ways you can help!
1) Donate to Room to Read: http://www.roomtoread.org/sketchtravel
2) Visit and "like" the page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/SKETCHTRAVEL/30677216995
3) Re-share this to spread the word.

Thank you for those who attended my Watercolor & Gouache workshop last week. It was an excellent group of artists and I had the best time! Here is one of my demos of a Mendocino Cypress tree study. An old dilapidated fence rested at the base of the trunk, almost like a faint attempt at holding up the 100 year plus tree. We sketched outside and then carried on in the studio with painted value and color work.

Watercolor burnt umber with Sepia ink. Touches of dip pen work, and a Derwent Inktense pencil (Outliner) used for blocking in the shapes. In addition, white gouache and chinese white watercolor were used for the sky and foreground details. 6.5" x 9" on warm gray smooth card paper.

A study of parting clouds and mist above a bay - moonlight. Watercolor, dip pen with touches of gouache. Arches cold press paper, approximately 5x11 inches.

Drawing on a post-it note with yellow background (3"x 5"). Brush Markers, grey pastel pencil and permanent Pitt artist pens for details. This approach can be useful in working out ideas for projects. I have made hundreds of small sketches like this for various films over time. Warming up for concepts is something I recommend trying before diving into complex pieces. I like to do this when thinking of new paintings to be later carried out in oils or gouache.

Workshop Coming Up!

My Mendocino Gouache & Watercolor workshop is just around the corner. Please sign up soon: it's the weekend of September 17-18, 2011. Besides demonstrating my painting approach and how to tackle the local coastline and other landscape features, I will also be able to look at portfolios and give feedback on all aspects of your work.

Workshop Info

I also wanted to share that there are special discounts at local inns- just ask the Mendocino Art Center: 1-800-653-3328 ext. 10

*The sepia image is a recent digital painting exploring an invented Italian harbor, in the spirit of the Dutch Italianates.