Morning Sunrise

This is a painting I revisited today and spent another half of hour fine tuning some of the drawing and tones. It is a desert landscape and has been pushed to create a mood.

Studio Sketch

This is another 10 minute sketch of a chef painting in the studio. I limited my color choices and tried to match the values. I used the end of my brush to draw back into the wet paint.

Karen Reading In Studio

This was done with available light in the studio. I draw and paint at the same time. The colors are keep in relation to others in the same family.

Interior Studio

This is the back of my painting. These are compositions that explore what I intend to paint.

On a stained canvas, I roughed out the interior of my studio. This time I chose to use graphite

 The next stage I have blocked in the darks and left the light areas. This was done in about 30 minutes. I intend to go back to the painting and work on it after the paint has dried.

Here is another hour of painting on the 10x20" interior of me working on the wheel in my studio. It still needs some drawing to clarify the shapes and details of the space, but I am working toward an overall balance of design and composition.

Mushroom Farm Gate

Here is a painting on gessoed board. I usually work on canvas attached to board and am not used to the soaking in of the oil paint and the way the brush skips across the surface. This is the first painting I used my compass to write down the specific location on the back.

The overall color scheme is off in the photograph, but I did work extensively on the palm trees, background and foreground

Freeway Palm

This is a quick painting I did of a palm near the 101 freeway. I left the warm ground color for the highlight of the trunk and explored use of ivory black, for a change. 8 x 10"

I made some major changes to this small painting in fall of 2019

Port Hueneme Naval Base

I like to paint planes. Ever since I was a child I was fascinated by them and their variety of shapes and purposes. This is a fighter jet sitting on the runway.

Morning Star Painter

Here is a painting I did while the lettering was painted on the boat while on dry dock. It is 10 x20"  and in oil on canvas. 

It seemed best to delete the lettering on the ship and have a gradation of warm to cool on the bow, thus the new version....

Morning Star On Drydock

This is a 12"x12" oil painting done from an elevated perspective. The dock master let me paint it from the office at Ventura Harbor.

Pumpkin Field Farm Workers

This is a small painting done at sunset near Olivas Adobe. The fields are filled with pumpkins and beautiful in the fall.

Beverly Hills Art Show

This is a painting of my setup at the Spring 2013 Beverly Hills Art Show. It was a fabulous event and I enjoyed painting while I was there. Here is an 8x10 study with my sign hanging out front.

1982 VW Camper

Here's a sketch of my westfalia vw van. 8x10"

Restoration Underway

Here's another car undergoing restoration. Since I painted this, the grill has been removed to be chromed. 8x10"

Bamboo Brush

When it rains, I work inside my studio under the skylight with my indoor brushes.

Ventura Produce Stand

Even though it is my favorite produce stand, I cannot seem to get a good painting from it. Finally, I gave up sticking to what was there and painted it as if I were standing on top of my van and moved the grove of Eucalyptus trees forward two miles. It's working now! 8x10" oil

Circus Vargas Tent Raising

This is one of my favorite subjects to paint. Maybe because of my love for the movie Dumbo and the opening sequence when the tents are being raised by the elephants and men during a storm. I always look forward to watching and painting this tent, even tough I hate the challenge of the yellow design on the material that ruins the shape and form of the overall tent. This painting is in oil and about 11x14". Roustabouts and machinery included in the shadows.

Hillford Moving

Wow! I let this blog down by not posting for a long time. Oh, I've been painting allot, but for some reason I have turned to fine tuning older starts. Some of the blogs have been updated with the newer versions of the same paintings.
This is a painting session I did with a good friend from Disney, Brian McKim. It's an oil and about 9"x 12". In 2009 we moved from La Canada Flintridge to Ventura and used Hillford Moving company. My studio is a stones throw away from this very spot.