New Exhibition opening November 10th at American Legacy Fine Art in Pasadena

 

 

"Tail O' the Pup" 10 x 12 inches, oil on canvas.

 

"Avenue 26 Bridge, 110 Freeway" 18 x 24 inches, oil on canvas

 

These new paintings and more will be in the upcoming exchbition, “Eclectic L.A. – Four Perspectives" November 10 – December 8.  at American Legacy Fine Art in Pasadena. Also in the show is artwork by Scott W. Prior, Alexander Orlov, and Eric Merrell.

Elysian Park View

"Elysian Park View" oil on canvas, 10 x 12 inches. I don't do allot of paintings this small, except for my plein-air work, but I thought I'd change my routine in the studio a bit for the summer. I put allot of heavy paint in areas of this little piece and did some all over glazing to harmonize the color. I really like how it turned out.

Elysian Park is both a park and an adjacent neighborhood in the City of Los Angeles. It encompasses Chavez Ravine where Dodger Stadium is located, and is mostly a hillside community that is also home to the Los Angeles Police Academy. The park itself is the second largest park in Los Angeles at 600 acres. It is also the city's oldest park, founded in 1886. I actually found an Emil Kosa Jr. watercolor image with this similar view to my piece, but painted back in the 1940's.

I have been up to this spot in Elysian Park to paint on location a few times, usually with a painting-pal. There's some strange folks hanging out around there... one time Bill Wray and I were up there painting, when a middle-aged latino gentleman wearing a mini-skirt and a tube-top shouted from accross the street to us, "Hey boys, you want to have some funnn?" Bill replied, "No thanks, that's not the kind of fun we're looking for, but that's a cute outfit you've got there!"

Thundering Trains

This started with an older canvas that I painted a couple of years ago. I liked it, but I felt that I could do more to take it further, so I recently re-worked it. The whole harmony is different now, it has much softer and more subdued color than before. And I edited out alot of elements that were there, like a telephone pole and some foreground train tracks. The size is 24 x 24 inches, oil on canvas, and I changed the title to "Thundering Trains". I think that my second attempt here with the painting is much more successful, I love it.

6th Street Bridge

This new piece is another moderately large one, it is 30 x 30 inches, oil on canvas. I actually crawled down the steep concrete basin to the bottom and walked a couple of miles along the L.A. River (in the rain) to shoot some photos a while back. Prepared to risk life and limb for my art, I almost slid on some gravel and toppled down to my imminent demise. But fortunately I lived to tell the tale and finish this painting, unscathed.

This view is a rather iconic angle of the old art deco era bridge, I loved seeing that dark underbelly, plus the reflections in the murky water. I decided to keep the color rather simple, emphasizing the dramatic contrasts. There's alot of thick paint on there, but other areas I kept washy and thin. The canvas was begun with gray gesso, a technique that allowed me to better judge appropriate values. At the drawing stage, I had to find my vanishing point and more accurately depict what the camera lens tends to bend. I'm very pleased with the finish here, it's one of those pieces that I've long wanted to paint.

Night Trains

Overwhealmed with other obligations, I've still managed to get a good amount of painting done since my last post here, but I've only just photographed my four new pieces. The first one here is "Night Trains", 18 x 24 inches, oil on canvas. It's part of my ongoing series of nocturnes and also the LA river. According to my friend William Wray, we're apparently founding members of the "LA River School of Painting".

This painting depicts a train yard, just east of downtown Los Angeles by the LA River. I was on a bridge, above the river, just as the sun had set. Not a place I'd prefer to spend an evening alone, I painted the view back in my studio rather than plein-air. It's really a study in blues, a narrow variety of color, almost a tonalist piece. I chose to paint it with a loaded brush, there's alot of pigment on there, giving it a liquid feel without much for hard edges. Painting the night is difficult, as I've said before, because it doesn't photograph well and the artist needs a good color memory and sense of color harmony. It's easy to let the painting go into black, and I try to never let it get too dark, allowing the viewer to see into this shadowy world. The earliest part of the evening is like a magical hour, it really casts a melancholy mood onto the landscape.