Times, they are a changin

Summertime and the livin ain't gettin easier. Gasoline prices keep sky rocketing (but at least SUV and Hummers sales are plummeting- I guess there is a silver lining here). Food prices keep going up (here too, there must be a silver lining, because we have been a glutinous country for decades). All this "sunshine" leads me to get a little more personal. My wife, Cheryl is into her second career and second year as a high school english teacher. She will find out within the next three days if she has a job to come back to next year. As things stand, the state of California will run out of money by August, and the budget for the state school system has been severely slashed. If she is out of a job, she will join thousands of laid off teachers, and we will have to pay for our own health insurance (any self employed artists out there? If you take a $5,000-$10,000 dollar deductible, you might be able to "afford" the quarterly payments). As an adjunct college prof., I don't get coverage. I need to pony up the scratch to get on the college district's group health plan.

So, is this a diatribe on our broken down health industry, the state of the economy and recession? Maybe I'm having a pity party here. Well...this IS a blog. Blogs can function as diaries (with the exception that it's open for people to read).

Got that off my chest. Don't forget to vote this November.

PS: This acrylic hand study (8"X10" on masonite) was painted for my acrylic/oil class. I make it a habit to always demo class assignments.

Another Acrylic Portrait Commission

This is Alice. She has for many years worked to develop directions and programs for how we educate our children here in California. And for many years, I too have worked with her as an illustrator whose illustrations have appeared on many posters and text material (I include a sample here). She recently left her position with the County Offc. of Ed. to take on a new educational job. Her coworkers commissioned me to paint a portrait to present to Alice at her "retirement" dinner. So here she is at home with her dog (who came to work with her every day. I loose count of the number of times that I have had project meetings with Alice, other educators, and her dog).
What was challenging here was not only to paint a good likeness, but to render the table and tableware without having them distract from Alice and pal. I was provided with a small reference photo from Alice's coworkers.

Scuffy The Tug Boat Found!

Two thousand years ago (I think) when I was a wee one, my favorite Golden Book (do they still publish Golden Books?) was "Scuffy The Tug Boat". I loved the story of Scufy slipping out of the hands of his little boy and heading down the stream, river, port, and finally out to sea. He eventually gets returned to the little boy and the safety of his bathtub for a most satisfying snap, happy ending! I read it over and over (these were the days when children read for amusement) and loved the illustrations. Fast forward to 2008- I go out Friday mornings to paint en plein air from about 7:30AM to about 11AM after which I head for campus to teach an acrylic/oil painting class (I'm in tall cotton on Fridays!) Well... last Fri., I and another painter were out at the Sacramento Rowing Club on the shores of the Port of Sacramento. Imagine the Shock and Awe (where have I heard this term before?) I received when I spied Scuffy there!!!! Wow!!!!! He's grown up now, retired, and tucked snugly amongst the river reeds by the club's boat house!! And....the owner of Scuffy came by to chat with us!!! He's grown up as well, and is a very nice man. I got his cell number so when this Friday rolls around, and I go out to paint Scuffy again, the nice man will let me climb aboard and give Scuffy a hug and kiss!!!!! Shock and Awe indeed!!!!!!

Lobenberg is in the house!...or...My first step.

Lately I've posted some watercolor and charcoal gesture paintings and drawings.
Thank you all for some very complimentary comments. One of the comments was from fellow hometown artist Terry Miura. He's a very talented artist from whom I always appreciate a good word (check out his blog link-you won't be sorry). In his latest comment and after having seen my gesture art, he invited me to one of his open life drawing sessions to strut my stuff. I've always intended to partake in theses sessions (he has three a week) as he has very professional models, a spacious studio, lots of easels and drawing mules, and talented artists in attendance. But you know how it can go...other daily activities always precluded me from going. But indeed, a good ego stroking can often overcome such obstacles. Yes, last Saturday, there I was, Johnny on the spot and ready to rock the house with my charcoal gesture drawings. The male model disrobed for a few 5 minute poses. Five minutes? Ha!! I can knock off gestures in one minute. Five per pose! And so with my newsprint pad on easel, soft black compressed charcoal in hand, and both feet spread in the drawing stance, I was ready baby!
Question...how much experience, outside of drawing my fully clothed students in my drawing classes, do I have drawing butt naked models? Answer...practically ZILCH, NADA, and DIDLY SQUAT. I attempted about four gestures that were absolute crap. Terry couldn't make this session thank god, but one of my ex-drawing students was there as well as a fellow City College art professor. I was finding out that drawing a real live nude gesturally was going to be a lot harder. Not only that, but how could I not try to meet the challenge of capturing the contours and mass of the model. Bye, bye gesture drawing!
So I did not rock the house. I present exhibits A @ B. Not stella drawings, but hey, remember?... almost zilch life drawing experience. Now I gotta attend more sessions and get better. Then and only then can I try to knock off those one minute gestures, By the way, an ancient Chinese proverb says "The journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step".

Dredged Up From The Archives

"Trinity"

This is a watercolor painting I did a few years back for the Sacramento Ballet. It was reproduced as a limited edition print and sold to patrons. I painted it from a reference photo from the Joffre Ballet Company. I'm posting it as my last example of gesture art. I was just visited on my blog by an artist in Wales who does terrific race car paintings with lots of gestural style motion in them. His name is Rob Ijbema and his blog is: car-a-day.blogspot.com. Check him out via my links section.

Got Japanese Style Gesture?

This was done on cold press h2o paper with a #16 watercolor round brush.