Coronado Bridge

This is another plein-air painting I did, it's called "Coronado Bridge". The size is 9x12 inches, oil on canvas. I enjoyed letting myself go a little bit in this one, the drawing is a bit quirky, and the paint rather thick in the sky. Perhaps I ought to let go a little more?

Believe it or not... this was another occasion that I was harassed by the cops when painting on location. My friend Aron and I were setting up our easels when a cop car pulled up. The officer had to run thru our drivers license numbers to see if we were terrorists or not. Fortunately, he let us go about our buisness. I always try hard to be nice to those jerks. I guess they need to fill out their stat sheets to account for their time not spent in the donut shop. Gotta look busy.

SOLEDAD LAGOON

This is a plein-air painting of "Soledad Lagoon", oil on canvas, 9x12 inches. I painted it on location, just off Carmel Valley Road by Torrey Pines. It was a nice cool evening and I was accompanied by my friend Aron Wiesenfeld... http://aronwiesenfeld.com/

The area has nice little trails and a parking lot for beach access. Earlier, when I was scouting around and looking for a place to paint, a park ranger approached me. I guess he had nothing better to do, so he started harassing me. Told me the area was off limits and it was a wildlife rehabilitation area (total BS, there was only a no parking sign). So when he gave me a ticket, I didn't have much to say. Later, when I went to court to fight the ticket, the judge threw out the case. Fortunately, as it turns out, the judge's mother was a painter too :-)

The Girl Next Door

Although I started this one nearly a year ago, I just recently finished it. At first, I wasn't all that pleased with it, untill last week when I re-worked it. I'm much more satisfied with it now, I even re-named it "The Girl Next Door". It is 18x24 inches, oil on canvas.

I've been a fan of Edward Hopper for a long time now. I have too many favorite painters to name, but he's certainly toward the top of my list. I had him in mind when I was working on this one, this neighborhood is just like the kind he would have painted back in the 1940's. It is located in the old University Heights area, just east of downtown San Diego.

The Night Drop

This is a larger painting, 36x36 inches, oil on canvas. I'm calling it "The Night Drop". I actually started painting it a year ago and took it to the gallery. It was rented out (with a few other paintings of mine) to a studio set for the newest Diane Keaton and Mandy Moore movie called "Because I said So". But I still didn't feel satisfied with the painting, and it sat around the gallery for a while with no buyers. So I took it home and totally re-worked it.

Nocturnes are amongst the most difficult subjects for me. I picked away at it, changing the values, adding the cars, warehouse doors (the prominent center of interest because of the light), as well as the other city lights in the distance. That car driving thru this otherwise empty landscape made me think that perhaps the driver was up to something, so I gave it a new title "The Night Drop". The painting has an entirely different feel now, I like it much better than before.