Article on French Blog/masmoulin

Here's something I love about the blogosphere. A painter in France named Pierre de Broucker has kindly, in french, published an article about my California Plein Air paintings. The french artists ,of course, being the ones who invented plein air painting. His blog is very good and he discusses a lot of color theory from what I can understand from my 30 year old high school french. Any one who would care to translate is welcome! A link to his blog entry with illustrations is here:
http://masmoulin.blog.lemonde.fr/

Valona Paint Out

The first week of November there was a paint out in Crockett sponsored by the Epperson Gallery. It was a good thing we had a whole week because the weather switched from warm and sunny to cold and rainy a couple of times. I got to paint three of the days. I did two paintings I am happy with and one flipper. Here are the two keepers:
McEwen's Jewels 14 x 14 
Painted on McEwen Rd on the way to Port Costa on a sunny day. I presume the ranch there is McEwen's Ranch and the black cows were persistent in trying to get me to give them food. I suppose my white SUV looked like a rancher's truck. It was interesting that when I brought this painting to the gallery, I realized my interpretation of eucalyptus trees owes much to those mop- headed trees in the Dr Suess books.
Crockett Roller Coaster 11 x 8
As an experiment, I decided to try something very different, a Wayne Thiebaud inspired scene looking up at the steepest hill in town. Sort of the opposite of Valley Vertigo, looking up instead of down. It was fun to try to get the atmosphere of the light reflecting on the pavement and to push the colors but not too far. From a design standpoint I wanted to see how large the road could be and how little of the stuff around it I could include and have it still read road. It reminds me of taking the girls into San Francisco and taking them up and down the hills for thrills when they were MUCH younger.
This sold one during the reception. The exhibit lasted only two days, but there was some really fine work by Leslie Wilson ( First Prize) Tim Horn (Artists' Choice) Linda Sutton (Honorable Mention) Mamie Walters (Second Prize- I think ) Mary Lou Correia and Tara Keefe.The Epperson Gallery is done with a major remodel and looks good. It is located at 1400 Pomona Street in Crockett and the web site is http://eppersongallery.com/

A Tangled Place Watercolor

A Tangled Place 14 x14

This is a studio painting done from a plein air piece from earlier in the year. I took my tendency to tighten up in the studio and turned it into something like embroidery. I try to have your eye meander up the paths of color and tightly control the values to make the meadow shimmer and lead you to the three trees at the top. Even though it is not a mountain or hill painting, you'll notice I've kept to my favorite high horizon format.

Valley Vertigo Watercolor of Carmel Valley

Valley Vertigo 21 x 14

This is a half sheet I started in Carmel Valley way back in May after the Carmel Art Festival. It was painted near the top of El Caminto, which has unbelievably beautiful views everyway you look. It overlooks Holman Ranch which was closed last year because of construction. I ended up doing a lot of painting on the foreground in the studio but the horizon and upper third were pretty much what I did on location.

Carmel Trip Watercolor Paintings

Highland Fling 14 x 21

Painted on a perfect day on Point Lobos,no wind! It is of Carmel Highlands. I had the idea to make the painting look plaid because of the sharp shapes and clear colors on the ridge and the highland fling name. It was an interesting experiment as I usually paint things that are more rounded off.



Carmel Mission Ranch Morning 12 x16

This was painted from the porch of our room at the Carmel Mission Ranch Inn. It is Clint Eastwood's well located place to stay. It's a little rustic but perfect for our purposes. This was the morning fog lifting over the ridge and meadow and I am very pleased how with soft and majestic the ridge in the distance looks.