Christmas Present to Oakland A's Outfielder Nick Swisher

Last year, I was commissioned to do a portrait of San Francisco Giant's pitcher Barry Zito (at that time, he was finishing his contract with the A's). It now hangs in his home. This year, the same publicist hired me to paint a portrait of Nick Swisher of the Oakland Athletics. He will get it this Friday before he travels to Western Virginia for the Holidays.
16"x20" acrylic on stretched canvas.

Getting On The Wagon

I sure am posting on my blog quite frequently of late. Am I getting a tad compulsive? I'm putting myself on the wagon until my next commission is completed! I started my blog in June of this year with a watercolor of Barry Zito who pitches for the San Francisco Giants. It was commissioned by his PR person. She had it beautifully framed ( painted on a full water color sheet- 22"x 30") and gave it to Mr. Z for a Christmas present. This year she has commissioned me to do another Holiday portrait for another of her clients, Nick Swisher, of the Oakland A's. Except this time, I'm doing an acrylic painting. I've got to get it done in a hurry before the fat man comes to town! So the next blog will be highlighting a Nick Swisher acrylic. Now it's time to get off the damn blog and onto that beautiful easel! Bye Bye.

David's@Paul's Jolly Green Giants

In my Dec.1 post, I wrote about how I was inspired to paint a helicopter (nicknamed "jolly Green Giant" during the Vietnam war era), simply because of an earlier and exquisite pencil sketch my good friend Paul Bianchini had rendered. Speaking of "green", one might say that when I saw his sketch, I was GREEN with envy! Anyway, here is my acrylic and his pencil. Kinda interesting seeing something rendered by two different people in two different mediums.

Dorian Grey In Reverse

This artist is aging, and he's not going to take it anymore! My birthday is Feb.1. When that day comes around this 2008, I'm going to DELETE one year off my age. Instead of being 61, I'll be 60! In another 50 years, I'll look close to my childhood photo. An idea (for us baby boomers) whose time has come!
OK,OK... enough tom foolery (that's how we aging boomers talk), the next post will bespeak (that's how we aging boomers talk) to art issues again.
Yes, I had braces put on my protruding teeth during my teens. I'll have them put on again and then taken off as I travel back to my miss spent youth. Reverse time travel can be complicated.

Good, Good Pals

Here I am with my good, good pal Barry Zito, pro ball player and winner of the Cy Young award! Notice his portrait in the background. DON'T notice my pot belly. DO notice the "Have You Hurled Today" on my T-shirt ( the word "hurl" is in reference to hurling a stone with a medievil siege machine called a Trebuchet. Maybe I'll save an explanation for a future blog). Barry makes millions of dollars a year. I make diddly squat a year! But if I practice as hard at throwing a baseball as I practice painting paintings, well, who knows? There may even be a "signing bonus" in my future.

My Good Buddies

The Maloof brothers own the Sacramento Kings (GO KINGS!). During the 2000/2001 season, they commissioned me to do their annual art print that is send out at the end of the season to all their season ticket holders. During the playoffs at Arco Arena, I went upstairs to the exec. offices to meet them. All of a sudden, the MBA commissioner walks in for a photo op. I'm left in the dust! One of the photographers says to me "why don't you get in the picture". Bless his little Fstop heart! Really looks like I'm buddy, buddy with the boys. Had to number and sign about 7000 prints. My good friend (and REAL buddy), Paul Bianchini (see previous post), helped me in this arduous task. He numbered, and I scrawled out my John Handcock. We started with 1/7000 plus sig. until we ended with 7000/7000 plus sig. Took about 3 days working about 2-3 hrs. a day! I added an extra $1000 to number and sign all those buggers. I'm posting this, because I can't figure out how to add a photo of me to my blog profile. Anyone out there know an EASY WAY to do this?

One of my first plein air paintings

In November of 2006 I discovered a plein air painting group in Sacramento headed up at the time by a very accomplished painter, Terri Miura ( I took over the reins, I think, about April 2007). I have referred to him at least once or twice in previous posts, and he is a link on my blog. So... in Nov. of '06, I suggested that the group might want to paint out a the Sacramento Air Museum. They have all sorts of aircraft on display outside on the tarmac. I remember that Terri painted a little world war II trainer, and I tackled a helicopter. The helicopter you see here normally would NOT have been an aircraft that I would have wanted to paint except that a good friend of mine by the name of Paul Bianchini had done such a fab. job of drawing it about a year before, when he and I were there pencil sketching, that I wanted to challenge myself. I'm happy with the fact that the rendering of its shape in this painting came out pretty good. I met the challenge of doing the same foreshortened view that Paul did so masterfully! On the other hand, one can see that I struggled with the sky, foliage, tarmac, and cast shadow. Again, at this juncture in time, I was a plein air wannabe and was still figuring things out. Now, more than a year later, I still have much to figure out but at least I'm more comfortable and proficient at painting out doors.
But the main reason I'm posting this is to establish the date that I started my plein air journey and education. After all, one of the reasons why I'm blogging is to document it all and learn some things through self reflection. The other reason is for my college and workshop students to hopefully pick up a thing or two by reading portions.
So the date is now marked, and I'm happy about that...on with the journey!