Blog

I've been out every day this week, taking advantage of the great spring weather to get as much plein air work done as possible. I'm usually drawn to the "pure" landscape - no trace of people, houses, cars, etc - but I came to realize that I was avoiding adding those elements to my work because I thought it was too hard and I couldn't draw it well. It's so easy to fall into the trap of just doing what's easiest, but Tim Lawson (one of the best contemporary artists out there: www.tallenlawson.com) told me that if you're not moving forward in your work, you're slipping backwards. So in the spirit of always challenging myself, I 've been painting houses and cars and "townscapes" for the past couple of months. At first it was so intimidating, and all my paintings looked like a kid had done them, but now I'm finding that I really enjoy painting this genre. There are lots of older homes in our part of California, many of them dating from the Gold Rush in the 1800's, so I've got pleanty of subject matter to choose from. I'll be posting more from this series here and on the Field Studies page of my web site.