Paint & Words

Saturday, April 30, 2011

The Beach Players (2nd Set)

Beach Players (A)6

Beach Players (A)9

Beach Players (A)10

Beach Players (A)13

Beach Players (A)15

								"The Beach Players" have been my central focus for the last few years. The (A) series is smaller format work, which I do from life at Main Beach in Santa Cruz. This is the second set of paintings from that series that I've posted here. (B) series paintings are larger scale, usually painted from sketches or drawings done outdoors. And there is even a (C) series, which are paintings in black and white. Among other things, May means a return to the beach.
Beach Players (A)6

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Wilder Ranch 2011

Far Fields 1

Cut & Plain 1

Cut View 1

Post View 1

Tank View 1

Tank View 2

When I was first learning to paint, I worked outdoors. I love still life, abstracts and the figure, but I always seem to come back to outdoor painting. This winter, we've had pelting hail, flooding rains and tropical heat on the Central Coast. The tail-end of the Japanese tsunami even smashed up the harbor here. When the weather was calm enough, I've gone out to paint at Wilder Ranch, one of the jewels of the state park system.These are some of the results.

Friday, April 1, 2011

DRAWING WITHOUT CONCLUSIONS

This selection of drawings focuses on the various uses I've found for drawing thus far: as an aid to seeing; as information storage, as a way to develop skill; as an image that stands on its own. As in the black and white paintings in the previous entry, this is the beginning of a long process.

Robbie (1)

Man In A Wheel Chair

L.W. (Sun Dress)

B's Back

At Main Beach (2)

At Main Beach (1)

2 of Lily

Monday, March 14, 2011

BLACK, WHITE & GRAY

LW (C) 1

LW (C) 2

Antonelli's Pond (C) 2

BD (C) 1

Beach Players (C) 2

Antonelli's Pond (C) 1

Beach Players (C) 1

Color is a paradise and a maze. Painters get lost in colors like blue ochre, red earth and cobalt turquoise. From time to time, we return to the none-too-simple groundwork of black, white and gray, to a world of value and contrasting forms.

These paintings on paper were begun in outdoor painting sessions with my friend, Eduardo Izquierdo. They continued in a subsection of “The Beach Players” series and in various studio settings.

They are ongoing; that is, they’re the beginning of a great many lessons that I still have to learn.

Saturday, February 26, 2011

From "The Beach Players" series--Images & Notes

Beach Players (A)2

Beach Players (A)1

Beach Players (B)8

From Notes On "The Beach Players" Series

* * *

Near water, people allow themselves to play. They're taught again by their children, or the children they once were. At the ocean side, movement and pleasure meet and become primary again. We find our proper scale (which is not, I think, a diminished scale) confronted by the sky and open sea.

People seem to grow in stature simply by standing in warm sand.
* * *
I went to the beach because it is a natural place to draw and paint people in contemplation and movement. At first, I focused on the volleyball players at Main Beach, Santa Cruz, on the dedicated athletes there. Later, I was drawn to the strolling "players," who act out the dreams of their own lives on the beach--albeit in a quieter way.
* * *

Beach Players (B)2

"The Beach Players" series reaffirms my core concerns with structure and color, with how they work together to form that stillness inside... everything that moves us.