Olive Oil

6"x4" oil on raymar panel. This bottle of olive oil was the subject for my very first daily painting. Poor thing.
Posted November 30, 2010
sold • private collection altadena, ca

Lilliput Cottage

6"x4" oil on raymar panel. There are two things I could discuss here. One being how painting something so annoyingly detailed is a challenge and the second being how this seemingly innocuous lump of plaster almost killed me. Let's see... Tough decision... Let's go with number two, shall we? • It was a dark, windless Fall night and I was on patrol (on my way to get a late night snack). I was feeling secure in the fact that the war zone (the living room) had been swept clean of all land mines (toys). Unbeknownst to me, the security of the curio had been secretly breached. I don't know when or how, all I know is that an entire village of these %@#&$ figurines had been set up right in my path to the kitchen. It's not the stepping on the dang thing that will kill you, it's the apoplectic lurching that follows and where your frame lands. My spasms luckily took me to the couch. Another foot to the right and I would have been a goner. So, I guess I have that to be thankful for. Happy Thanksgiving everybody!
Posted November 24, 2010
sold • private collection west hollywood, ca

Stanley No. 5 Plane

4"x6" oil on raymar panel. This old beauty was passed down to me. It is a beautiful tool in function and it is a beautiful tool in appearance. The grays in the metal alone were worth whipping out the paint and making a mess: warms, cools, blues, reds, yellows, you name it—it's all there. Old surfaces, particularly patinated metals, are just like skin, offering an artist endless opportunities to express their love of color. May sound syrupy, but it is true.

Posted November 23, 2010

sold • private collection bradbury, ca

Lollipop Heart

6"x4" oil on raymar panel. Happy Valentine's Day! Wait, what? Okay, so my timing is a bit off... but only by about 84 days or so. Time was of the essence, the little candy's life is in danger and I fear he will not last much longer. Two of these heart-shaped lollipops mysteriously appeared in the house. Some chronologically challenged neighbor must have slipped them into the kid's Halloween bag or they were part of some illicit schoolyard trade, I don't know. Anyway, one has already disappeared, which means there is a secret campaign to knock them off. I finally find another interesting looking piece of candy and it is being hunted by some nefarious imp, so I just had to paint it. Besides, how could I pass on the insanity of painting cellophane?
Posted November 22, 2010
sold • private collection pasadena, ca

Agua Dulce Do Not Pass Sign

6"x4" oil on raymar panel. I have an admission to make: I painted this because of what somebody said, not because of what it looked like. This sign is near the water tower in yesterday's painting. I scoped out the tower over the course of two days; the first day it caught my eye, so the next day I went back to take another look. When I got out of the car on the side of the road, I was standing there stumped as to where I was standing the previous day when a lyrically wonderful voice barked, or should I say floated?, out from the car window, “You walked past the Do Not Pass sign.” Well, the Spousal Unit’s simple sentence stopped me in my tracks and caused me to laugh out loud. This proves two things: One, I have a very simple sense of humor and two, how well that woman knows me. I am pretty sure I was not showing any physical signs of being stumped, and yet she knew I was stumped. As I have stated in the past, that woman's powers are spooky.

Posted November 19, 2010

sold • private collection monrovia, ca

Agua Dulce Water Tower

6"x4" oil on raymar panel. Head north on Sierra Highway and as soon as you pass a sign informing you that you are now in Agua Dulce, look up to your right and you will see this lonely stalwart up in the hills. It looked so poised and cool up there on its graceful red legs, I had to take a shot at painting it.
Posted November 18, 2010
sold • private collection burbank, ca

Yuko

10"x8" oil on canvas. The lovely Yuko actually had her hair done up in a kind of point on top of her head—a cone head. I chose to cut it off for this portrait and I think it works. The challenge with these portraits and the way I paint are the transitions. You may not have noticed, but I am not too shy with my application of color. This pigment abuse is okay as long as the values in my transitions, especially in the curved areas, are maintained.
Posted November 17, 2010
sold • private collection west hollywood, ca

Strawberry Candy

12"x8" oil on canvas panel. Last week was a dismal stretch of not painting. It didn't turn around for me until the very end of the week. These things happen, so there's no use whining about it, outside of it being fun to whine about at least something. I could whine about being beaned by these little candies when I was a kid, but that would be a little hypocritical—okay, really hypocritical. I'll admit that the beaning might have been somewhat of a two-way street kinda thing. Hey, a kid had to protect himself. I guess I still have some post Halloween/childhood issues to work out. Anyway... This is a bigger version of the 6" x 4" I did of this once ubiquitous candy. Just thought it would be fun to do it a bit bigger before I ate it.
Posted November 16, 2010
sold • private collection bradbury, ca

Tootsie Roll

4"x6" oil on raymar panel. Halloween night we sent the imps forth to collect goodies. Considering that the amorphous horde we joined fluctuated from anywhere between six to around 1,000 kids, the fact that only one door knocker was broken was a small miracle. Ours was a rambling group that any respectably maintained hedge would fear. This foray into the dark didn't really bring in much for me to paint. Don't get me wrong, the overall haul was quite impressive. It's just that most of the candy doesn't really appeal to me as subject matter. I had to really dig to find this lowly and wonderful little Tootsie Roll. And yes, Dad gets first dibs on the candy (for artistic purposes, I assure you) and as long as everybody knows and accepts this, the universe will stay in a state of harmony and bliss.
Posted November 4, 2010
sold • private collection los angeles, ca

Aviatrix

10"x8" oil on canvas. What a cool word: Aviatrix. Glad I got the chance to use it. This dashing young aviatrix is actually the glorious Marissa in a wig.
Posted November 3, 2010
sold • private collection monrovia, ca

John Alcantara

6"x4" oil on raymar panel. See what happens when you let me take a picture of you? You end up in paint and are sent out into the ether. Anyway, this is my friend and fellow artist John Alcantara and I actually did not take the picture, our mutual friend Tim did (I didn't wrangle the iPhone camera too well, so Tim stepped in). The thought has crossed my mind to immortalize some of my fellow artists in oil paint. Like many of the thousands of artistic thoughts that cross my mind, it sometimes proves fleeting. My being easily distracted by shiny things has spared my artist friends, for now.
Posted November 1, 2010
private collection los angeles, ca