The green goes on

In a few months the world I'm painting will be shades of gold and violet along with the green.
I worked today on the hill behind my house for several hours and did three pieces, two of which were
off the cuff challenges: a random clump of grass, and a tree shadow coming off of a trunk on a steep hill.
They were worthwhile exercises, but didn't bear fruit. I have a lot more to learn about painting grass... and tree trunks.
The other image in this post is from last week, looking into a shadowed space on the hill with the cherry blossoms
poking up.

Beyond the back fence

Still studying the complexities of trees, shrubs and grasses on the hill behind our house. It is an interesting challenge to try and imply what's going on. I have been looking at some of Richard Schmid's work, and I think it has infected me a bit. He often paints very complex trees in front of equally complex architecture, and does it beautifully. He sets the bar pretty high for his edge control, as well as a mixture of very tight, and very loose handling of paint in the same image. At this point, I'm just trying to paint a tree in front of itself. Research continues.

Spring is coming

Though it is only February, yesterday was warm, sunny, and dry, so I took a long hike on the Rocky Ridge Trail out of Rancho Laguna Park in Moraga. This is a path that runs through East Bay watershed, and has easements through several parcels of grazing land up to Rocky Ridge, which is a few thousand feet in elevation. I only walked in about 2.5 miles, but had plenty of climbing and descending, as I was curious about the views towards the ridge. The light was pretty flat in mid afternoon, looking in that direction, so I started hiking back and became intrigued by a view to the southwest, looking downslope and towards the sun, which backlit all the grasses, turning them insanely green, as well as illuminating the atmosphere tremendously.

I've also been painting closer to home, as in my own backyard, or wandering on the hill behind my house. There is a large buckeye tree that appears to be dead every year, and then miraculously blooms in spring. Uncanny. I am intrigued by that patterning of the branches as well as the different tangles of foliage one encounters at close range amongst the oaks, blackberry vines, dormant fennel stalks, and lurking (and abundant) poison oak. Here's a few studies looking at some of those subjects.

Summer Pastel Workshop in the Sierra Buttes

I'm going to be giving a 4 day pastel workshop at the Sierra Nevada Field Campus mid-summer, from July 26-30. Class size is limited to 12. The field campus is run by San Francisco State, and is located in the Sierra Buttes, along the north fork of the Yuba River. I took an astronomy class up there about 4 years ago, and have wanted to teach a workshop there ever since. There are numerous small lakes in glacially carved granite basins that are very accessible by car, or an easy hike. The region is like a mini-Sierra buffet of beautiful scenery. Accommodations are available at the campus. The campus itself is composed of large tents on platforms spread along a sloping river drainage, with a large dining hall/classroom building. Hot showers and bathrooms are provided. It is rustic but quite comfortable. The cost of the workshop itself is $400, the accommodations are extra, and vary according to the options you can choose, involving a meal plan, as well as whether you bring your own tent, or decide to stay elsewhere, but dine on campus, etc.

There will be some lectures, daily plein air work and demos, as well as one-on-one time. This is an opportunity for some immersion in the challenges and rewards of painting on site, capturing light at different times of the day. Painting in the Sierra is a wonderful sensory experience... the character of light at higher altitudes , the glacial basins of granite, the range of color of in the creeks and lakes. I am always inspired by working in the mountains and I hope you'll come away with impressions of your own that will endure.

Here's the link to the website for the classes offered this summer. Just click on the courses link to find a class description.
All signups have to be done through the website, so they can keep track of the number, but I'll be happy to answer any questions you have.

Sierra Nevada Field Campus

Pt. Reyes

The California Art Club hosted a gathering of artists at Pt. Reyes last weekend. A large group stayed at the hostel near Limantour Beach. The weather was warm and clear, with some great semi-foggy morning light to work in. All images are pastel on Canson paper. More notes to come.

Recent Demos and Studies

I recently finished teaching 2 more pastel classes at work. I teach an 8 session course to about 20 students at a time, so for a month I had 40 students total to incite, badger, and cajole into experiencing the challenges and rewards of studying natural light. I enjoy it very much and, as a teacher, I learn new things each time, about light and teaching. The first 2 class sessions were held indoors with some lectures, exercises and demos. After that we headed outside, where natural light and circumstances prevail. The outdoor sessions were generally held in the Berkeley Hills above Emeryville and Oakland, with the goal of painting the same locales in the morning hours and the late afternoon, to observe the dynamic shifts of color, value, and light. Part of my regimen in the class was to set up at a given locale and start a piece, so students could watch me work, or elect to start their own if they desired. I always had a few folks peering over my shoulder while doing these pieces, but it wasn't a full on demo where I would verbally announce all my thoughts and strategies to a large group. That sort of display I have yet to master. These were more relaxed studies with a few onlookers, who may or may not be asking questions. Less stressful... more nutritious!

The classes were a pleasure to teach. People from work are pretty motivated to learn, and a class that gets one out of the office and up into the hills to paint is a fairly healthy way to spend time. While we were fogged out of spots on more than one occasion, we generally had good results with the weather, and witnessed some spectacular shifts in light between dawn, sunrise, all the way up to sunset and dusk.

A caveat with all these pieces is that they were all painted as studies or demos within the context of a class, and I often stopped working on them somewhat prematurely to spend the remainder of my time making the rounds with students, discussing and assisting them in their work. In that regard, I probably managed to avoid overworking anything, though some are rather abbreviated and 'pedantic' in my opinion. Further comments below.


Probably the most 'pedantic' of the bunch. By that I mean that I was very conscious about the relative values and the attention to atmospheric light, topics I'd been pointing out in lectures and one on one discussions. Subtleties? Like the briefly indicated 'deeper' shadows on the hillside in the midground? Yes, some cursory indications were made...then time to make house calls!



I did some quicker small studies to try and represent very ephemeral, intense atmospheric light and extremely warm, direct light slamming into the hill next to me right before sunset. The light is visibly changing by the minute at times like this.


Done on a different afternoon than the first piece. There was an enormous glare on the bay from the late afternoon sun. That is the Berkeley Marina angling in on the right. These top 4 pieces were all painted from a turnout on Grizzly Peak Blvd.





The three images above were all painted at Lake Anza, the top one in the evening, and the next two were done in the morning,
right before and after the sun came blasting into the lake basin. These are clear examples of the shifting range of color that is going on around us continuously.




Mulholland Ridge in Orinda is a good bailout point when the fog comes too far into the bay, as it lies a few miles east of the Berkeley Hills. The images above are both afternoon/evening demos done on different days. The grove of trees in the top of the first image is the same grove that is in the bottom of the second.
The color of dead grasses in shadow is always one of those interesting challenges, as it presents a warm local color that is being hit by the cooler ambient light of the sky. So, is it warm, or is it cool? A great paradox to bedevil students with! The answer is that it is cooler than the lit portion, and likely warmer than something that has an inherently cooler local color that may be enveloped in the same shadow! In addition, the shifting folds and planes of the hill play a role in how cool or warm they are relative to each other, as some parts 'see' the sky more than others.
The light on these 2 days was markedly different as there was quite a lot of high altitude clouds and haze the afternoon the second piece was painted, which lent a rather pasty, pale aspect to the atmosphere. Even though the sunlight was quite warm, colors were not as vibrant overall. In looking at the bottom image, I can also note in hindsight that some of my distant 'warm' shadows are too warm, and jump forward as a result. This student still has plenty to learn!

Sequoia National Park

Late last month, I was fortunate enough to be part of a group of artists, writers, naturalists, former park rangers, and educators who were invited to spend a few days camping near the Giant Forest in Sequoia National Park as guests of the Sequoia National Park Foundation. A group of us would head out and paint every day, meeting up periodically with the others, some who had extensive experience in the Park. We were taken to some wonderful spots to paint, fed well, and had stimulating discussions (fueled with poetry and wine) at all hours of the day. It was quite a wonderful experience to be a part of, and I hope I can do it again. The mix of individuals and viewpoints made for lively interaction. This is the kind of retreat, with no fixed agenda, that stimulates creative potential of all sorts. It was a very positive and thoughtful experience for me.

This year also marks the 5th year of an annual painting packtrip that I have put together with the help of my artist friend, Paul Kratter. Paul, and another packtrip stalwart, photographer Bob Watters, were also invited to the above mentioned event, so we planned our back country adventure to dovetail with the one in the front country. For this part of the trip, we invited 4 other artists, Suzanne D'Arcy, Carol Tarzier, Sharon Calahan, and Ann McMillan, to come along. We hired a cook and mules from the Horse Corral Pack Station, run by Charlie and Judy Mills, to haul a field kitchen and most of our gear, up to Pear Lake out of the Wolverton trailhead for 5 days of painting in glacially carved granite at 9500'. It was quite a nice spot to work, and the company was good. I've posted below a range of studies from both trips in a general chronological order with a few notes appended.



We were camped at a boy scout camp about a quarter mile below the trailhead into the back country. This was painted in the parking lot of an old ski area that has been closed and overgrown. It was a nice spot to walk to in the morning and get in a study or two before walking back for breakfast.



I looked at a lot of Sequoias, but this is the only one I painted. They had a marvelous bark color, bordering on orange in direct sunlight. The light on this day eventually became completely overcast, and I became more interested in the 'tree holes' of sky poking through.



Painted in a rather deep, granite lined creek bottom, looking at a reflection of trees up the slope that were well illuminated by morning light.



After breakfast that same day, we hiked up this granite lined drainage full of small pools, boulders and streams of shallow water pouring down, one after the other. This boulder at the bottom of one of the descending ramps of granite caught my eye.


I stayed there most of the day and kept doing studies. This is fairly late afternoon. While the color is not so interesting, the collision of forms, made an interesting composition to my eye.



This is painted looking South towards Morro Rock in early morning light, one of the icons of the park.


One of the studies of Alta Peak I did the first afternoon at Pear Lake. The whole basin was almost entirely formed of solid, streaked and fractured, glacially polished granite, along with erratics and many boulders that had tumbled down the steep walls surrounding the lake. Alta Peak sat at the far end of the lake from where we were camped.



You could pick out a section of the steep walls surrounding the lake, and find interesting compositions. This area had some 'survivors'... trees that have toughed it out in a harsh place.



We had one day with a white sky that just flattened all the light. I hiked around and became intrigued by the patterns of solid rock running down to the lake. Even in flat light they were interesting.... to me anyway! Perhaps I was desperate. I did several studies of this type. They may yet bear fruit.



A midday painting. Below the lake, there was a lengthy sloping drainage covered with fractured slabs of granite, some vegetation, trees, and periodic boulders.


Late afternoon, looking northwest down the drainage to the opposite slope of the valley.


This view stayed fairly stable for a long period of time in the morning, as the light would slowly creep over the far rim of the drainage on the east side, while the foreground was bathed in warm light. The main surface of the drainage was patterned with cracks and fissures. I painted a few of these views.