Paint-out with Dan Pinkham

My sketch of Ignat painting "Portuguese Bend".

This last Saturday, the California Art Club had it's first Mentor Member paint out, hosted by Dan Pinkham at his home and studio in Palos Verdes. I stayed at my pal, William Wray's place, and we drove up together. Also in attendance was Ignat Ignatov, Aaron Westerberg, Sergio Sanchez, Stan Prokopenko, Justine Carroll, Leonardo Lambaren, and Ann Lee (who snapped the photos).

I took the opportunity to do a number of sketches while everyone else painted. I posted my favorite sketch above... maybe I'll paint it? Dan Pinkham told us about his method of starting with a sketch, and writing why you want to select a particular view before painting it. It struck a chord in me, the heart of why I paint... to make a connection. What I bring of myself to the painting, and the landscape before me. Dan also made some technical pointers in his demo that will serve as tools to me in my own color mixing.

At Dan's Studio, he showed us boxes and boxes full of his plein-air paintings from the last several decades, all of which he's kept for himself and uses as reference to work up studio paintings. After the paint-out, we we did a critique of everyone's work. Dan then went on to expound brilliantly on painting, and tell colorful stories.

Beyond teaching me some of the mechanics of painting, I felt that Dan, through his example, taught an even greater lesson in humility, and reminded me of the honor in hard work. Nobody wanted to leave at the end of the day, it was totally inspirational. Made me want to get out and work more on location again too!