July 1, 2025
The two paintings I submitted to the Torrance Cultural Arts Center (TOCA) “Palooza 2025” show were accepted. They were “Gustavo Dudamel” and “Shopping with Mommy.” Initially, I wasn’t sure either one would be accepted, because I didn’t have any idea what the judges were looking for. As it happens, I know one of the judges. She and I are friendly, although not quite friends. She is a local artist, and years ago, we were in the same art group. I know what sort of art this judge likes to make. She enjoys pastoral landscapes, often with farm animals. Her technique is somewhere between realism and impressionism.
Of the 13 shows I have entered so far this year, one or both of the paintings I submitted was accepted. My painting, “Grace,” was accepted for a show that I was able to enter, because I am a member of the California Art League. The show had a cute title: “Nothing to See Here: Nudes and the Human Figure.” It’s a rare show that invites artwork depicting nudes. I submitted a painting with a clothed female and another of a nude man, with only with his head and shoulders showing. My nude was rejected and my clothed figure was accepted. This cracked me up. I have drawn and painted a fair number of nudes when taking art classes, and now prefer to paint clothed figures, often placing them in a background setting. Both the clothing and the background put the figure in a context, and thus add meaning.
It’s tricky to imbue a portrait with some sort of universal meaning, so that viewers would appreciate it without knowing the subject. Even though I’m pleased with my painting of “Grace,” I don’t have an emotional attachment to it. She was a live model; lovely, but not someone I know. Thus, I’d be fine selling this painting. Even, so, I’m also okay with not selling my painting of her, because her pensive pose and facial expression speaks to me. By the way, Grace was the only clothed figure in the show, “Nudes and the Human Figure.” This seemed to me to be quite an odd choice on the part of the show’s curator. I thought she looked totally out of place. Weirdly, my painting of her had fit in better at the Japanese Cultural Art Center art show last year. lol! I believe I was the only non-Asian artist in that show.
I sent out a message to friends, letting them know that I have two paintings in the current Destination Art show. This show invites viewers to vote for their favorite piece of art in the show. I suggested that my friends have a look and choose whatever painting speaks to them. I have been intrigued to learn that some of my friends told me that they preferred my painting, “Of Human Bonding” (named after the 1,000-page tomb, Of Human Bondage, that I had to read in high school) to “Gardening with Daddy.” I thought most people would be attracted to the bright colors in “Gardening with Daddy.” Colorful paintings seem to be a real draw, and who doesn’t like flowers? On the other hand, the mother and child in “Of Human Bonding” are slightly bluish in their skin tone, which is the way Caucasians look outdoors, when in shadow.
I have begun work on a painting of three children reading a book. My models were children I photographed a couple of months ago. I got in touch with their grandmother to let her know that I was starting on the painting. I have thought about my agreement with her, which was that there was no obligation between us to buy or sell the painting. (I had offered a model fee, which was rejected, and one of the family members told me that she had thought I might want the family to buy the painting “for thousands of dollars,” and I assured her that this wasn’t the case. In fact, I had been concerned that the family might have interpreted what we were doing as an acceptance of a commission to paint this portrait for them.) Yet, after I show this painting for a couple of years, it seems to me that it might belong in one of the family’s households. There is plenty of time before that discussion needs to be reopened. As was the case with Grace, the children are beautiful models, but I don’t know them, so my attachment to the painting may not be fierce, as it is with my paintings of relatives.
I started my painting of the children by making a drawing. Then, I began with the youngest child’s face, because she is the furthest to the right and I’m lefthanded. She is an adorable, blonde-haired three-year-old, with blue eyes and a pixie nose. (What could go wrong? Oh, you’d be surprised.) How could I use paint to depict the delicate rosiness of her cheeks and the blueish white of her pale, pale skin? Well, I’m plunging in to make that attempt. What about those nearly non-existent eyebrows, and the surprisingly dramatic black eyelashes? Who would believe this combination? (Keep in mind that with realistic painting, the artist needs to have the features and body parts to look plausible, otherwise viewers will assume that the artist lacks skill. For example, in my most recently completed painting of my niece, Kathy Jeselle, in the photo I took of her, her hands appeared to be of dramatically different size and her thumbs seemed to be shaped quite differently. I had to modify both to make her body parts plausibly relate to one another. Even good cameras distort images, and artists need to compensate for that.)
By the way, I was pleased to learn that my original colored-pencil drawing of my niece Kathy Jeselle, from the same photo I took of her years ago, is hanging in my brother Dave’s house today.
When Mike delivered my two paintings for the Destination Art show, he reported that the DA board members who were present were quite taken with my painting of the little girl among the sunflowers. The show’s judge was less impressed, awarding it an honorable mention. In this show, my work is now being compared with that of professional artists. I’ve been moved up from the category of “emerging artists,” which mostly consists of people painting as a hobby (that describes me), because I have won a number of awards in Destination Art shows. For that reason, I felt good about receiving an honorable mention, considering my work was being evaluated against “the big boys.”
A few days ago, one of the Destination Art board members, who is my favorite artist affiliated with DA, told me that he thought my painting, “Gardening with Daddy,” was one of the finest paintings he had ever seen, and deserved to have won best in show. Another board member shared with me that she and another board member thought my painting should have won first place. These comments made me feel better than winning an award!
I’m still hypothesizing about what judges are looking for, and my tentative conclusion is that it depends on the judge, and whatever is his or her preferred style of painting and subject matter. This isn’t always the case. For example, my first award ever for a painting, 3rd place, was given by a judge who did non-objective art (art that has no recognizable forms, such as people, animals, buildings, or plants). I figured that there was no way she would think highly of my realistic portrait, but she did. She took the time to comment on each painting she chose for an award, and I so much appreciated her sharing her reaction to my painting. This is what she wrote about “Almost Shirtsleeve Weather”: “Mysterious, eerily disquieting. Simultaneously modern and classical. A peaceful mother-daughter tableau replete with tension and brooding landscape—somehow almost biblical—that draws us into their story.” A quote attributed to Henry J. Kaiser is relevant here: “When your work speaks for itself, don’t interrupt.”
It seems to me that if art group members wanted to take judging seriously, they could assemble a three-judge panel, wherein each judge made independent assessments and then got together to horse-trade. Soon after I thought up this idea, I was delighted to observe that this was precisely what the Torrance Cultural Art Center did with their Palooza 2025 show in June, assigning three jurors to collaborate. The O’Hanlon Center for the Arts has two jurors for their upcoming show in August, “Women Artists Making their Mark.” I hope this idea catches on.
June 2, 2025
Last month, my brother George sent me an article, posing the question as to whether a “bad” person can produce good art. My first impulse was to say, “yes, why not?” Out of that “bad” person’s mental torment might come a work of art that speaks to people, most likely about anguish and its frequent companion, anger.
I know that it is fashionable among certain groups to attempt to “cancel” people when the viewer has found a flaw in their behavior or character. This seems to be a modern version of an argument ad hominem, which is the logical fallacy of trying to undermine an argument by attacking the character, motives, or other irrelevant aspects of the person making the argument rather than addressing the argument’s validity. It’s a common tactic used to divert attention from the core issue and instead focus on personal attacks.
I would be reluctant define a person by one act or unfortunate behavior pattern in the context of that person’s entire life. I tend to enjoy movies that have villains who demonstrate complexity, displaying qualities that are likeable or at least relatable, as well as ones that are reprehensible. I suppose these actors portray characters similar to problematic humans in real life.
I’m pretty much of the opinion that artwork should be able to stand on its own, without viewers knowing anything about the artist. For me, the main criterion is, does this work speak to people who see it? The figures in many of my portraits have enigmatic expressions on their faces. I have been intrigued by the emotions that viewers told me they read into these portraits, which I didn’t intend to express.
Some artists don’t name their artwork. I imagine that this is not out of indifference, but is instead an effort to avoid swaying the viewers’ experience of the artwork, since titles tend to telegraph the artist’s intention in creating it. Once or twice, I have viewed an impactful painting and then felt deflated when I read the title it had been given by the artist, which made the piece seem banal.
During May, I applied to the Destination Art associate artist show, offering “Gardening with Daddy” and “Of Human Bonding.” Both paintings have been accepted into the show. I urged my fellow book club member, another associate artist at DA, to enter this show. I thought it would be fun to invite our book club members to the reception, if we both had paintings for them to see. As things turned out, Mike and I will miss the reception. We’ll be in Nevada, attending my late sister-in-law’s celebration of life. My fellow book club member decided not to enter the show. The reception is quite nice and well-attended, so feel free to drop by on June 14th from 3:00-5:00pm. The address for Destination Art, is 1815 213th Street, Suite #135, Torrance, California.
I also entered two paintings in The Torrance Cultural Art Center (TOCA) show, Palooza. The paintings were “Gustavo Dudamel” and “Shopping with Mommy.” In previous shows, Dudamel has won a first-place award, and “Shopping with Mommy” has won a second place award and an honorable mention. Who knows whether they’ll even be accepted to this show, since there is no agreed upon criteria for judging the quality of paintings.
Last month, Mike retrieved my painting from the Chemer’s Gallery, which is located quite close to where his mother and siblings live. After collecting my painting, he showed it to his mother and his sister, Cindy. Neither of them is normally in a position to see my paintings in “person,” so all four of us were happy that this opportunity developed.
My experience participating in the show with the Chemer’s Gallery prompted me to realize that selling my paintings is a vanishingly small goal of mine. I would rather keep my paintings and enjoy my favorite ones, show them in hopes of having them acknowledged with awards, and then relinquish them to family members and friends, whom I trust to appreciate and to care for them. All of the paintings in this month’s blog, except for the one of Dudamel, are of relatives.
My most recently finished and dried painting, “Gardening with Daddy,” has been featured by an online outfit, Artsy. I visited their website and discovered that this business offers to follow artists for interested potential buyers. It’s intriguing to discover how online marketing works. This outfit has decided to represent me, without communicating with me about it.
I finished the painting I have been working on of my niece, Kathy Giselle Clark. Now I need to wait three months for it to dry, before I can enter it in shows.
Next week, I’ll begin the painting of three children reading a book, which I started planning a couple of months ago.
May 5, 2025
Spring has sprung here in Southern California. We have enjoyed some lovely sunny weather, as well as a bit of rain. My painting, “Gardening with Daddy,” exemplifies spring, and I was pleased that it was accepted by the lovely Chemers gallery in Tustin, for a show entitled “Figure This.”
When I dropped off my painting, I was dismayed to find that the gallery owner’s specification in the show entry prospectus that all accepted entries be dropped off in black frames, and any other color of frame would need to be cleared, was in fact, a serious stipulation. I had never heard of such a demand! Since I had had a frame especially made for and color-coordinated with my painting, I thought I would get a pass from the gallery owner when she saw how well the frame set off my painting. But no, when I showed up to drop off my painting, she very much wanted it in her show, but insisted on a black frame. I was on the verge of putting my painting back into the car, when the owner said she thought she had a black frame into which she could slip my painting. Since the gallery was also a frame shop, I worried that she meant to sell me a frame I didn’t want and wouldn’t use. Plus, although my painting was dry to the touch, it was so recently finished that the paint wasn’t fully hardened, so transferring the painting to a new frame involved some risk, especially since I wasn’t about to admit that my painting wasn’t thoroughly dry.
My hesitation was further spurred by my realization that I did not want my painting to sell, and here I was offering it to a gallery, whose entire purpose was to sell it and charge me 50% of the sale price! I’d rather keep my painting. I set the price at $5,000, hoping doing so would be enough of a deterrent, but not entirely confident that this would be the case. One time in the past, my similarly-priced painting sold anyway. I wanted to hang onto this piece to show it in several shows, and hopefully collect some awards. I also planned to enjoy viewing it for a couple of years, and eventually pass it on to the family of the child depicted in the painting. In most art shows, the artist can specify that the painting is not for sale, but this is not an option when the painting is shown in a professional gallery.
When I reluctantly decided to relent and go along with the gallery owner’s proposal, I was further horrified to discover that the gallery owner, a complete stranger, didn’t see any need to give me paperwork acknowledging the exchange of custody of my painting. I had proposed that we write up some acknowledgement of this, which is normal when paintings are dropped off for shows. Heck, my jeweler takes a photo of the piece of jewelry I have given into his care, and he also describes the piece in writing on my receipt. Even my shoe repair guy gives me a receipt! If I turned my painting over to her, I would have no proof that she had possession of it (and its frame). This is where the Edvard Munch “Scream” emoji would fit nicely at the end of the last sentence.
After standing still, acting like Gollum gripping “my precious” for several minutes, I counseled myself to be more trusting, and gave up my painting.
A week later, Mike, I, along with three friends, attended the reception. The show was impressive in terms of its quality of artists, some of whom were “signature artists” (the highest ranking) in the prestigious California Art Club. It was also a treat for me to see a show in which people were featured in a realistic way in every piece of artwork. This type of show is where my paintings belong. I was somewhat mystified by what I perceived as a significant amount of variability in the quality of the artwork, even though virtually all of it was above average.
“Gardening With Daddy” was also accepted to an online show in April. The KMB Art Gallery’s show was called “Bellissima!” Online shows display photos of paintings, sans frames, so—controversy averted.
I have made progress on my portrait of Kathy Giselle Clark, my niece. Although she lives on the East Coast, and we haven’t seen her for a decade, Mike and I, my older brother and his wife and older daughter, as well as my younger daughter and her husband, look forward to seeing Kathy next month in Nevada at her dad’s home, to celebrate the life of her late mother.
April 1, 2025
The month of March was a high point in my life as an artist. I was delighted to win the top honors in the two shows I entered. The Best in Show award at the California Art League member’s only show went to my painting, “Suffragist Alice Paul.” This show took place in a lovely setting, The Artists Gallery, on Wilshire Blvd. in Los Angeles.
The Best in Show honor brought me prestige on the Internet (which I discovered accidentally when I was looking for a video taken of me a few years back describing my process of creating my painting of Alice), a check for $800, and a medal. The CAL president asked me what I was going to do with the medal. I replied that I didn’t know, but that I have a little box where I put the art awards I have won. The CAL treasurer asked me whether I hung my award-winning painting somewhere, and I replied that I had a place for it on a wall in my home. She suggested that I hang the medal on my painting. I said, I didn’t think I wanted to do that, because it seemed ostentatious. The three CAL members talking to me were being funny when they suggested that I was obligated to wear my medal around my neck for a month. I replied by asking whether I was allowed to give the medal back.
Two weeks later, I won a First Place for my painting, “Grace,” at the Los Alamitos Weekend of Art show. I have been in this show three times. The first year, I won Third Place and my friend, John, won First Place. Last year, I won Second Place and John won First Place again. At that time, I teased him by saying that I thought March of 2025 would be an ideal time for his wife and him to take a vacation. This year, I won First Place, and, no, John wasn’t in the show. Gosh, I hope he knew I was joking last year!
While looking around at the other artwork in the Los Alamitos show, I had to chuckle when I saw a crude wooden box structure offered as a sculpture, with a written message on the inside. I had the thought that this person needed to decide whether he or she was a sculptor (probably not) or a poet (possibly). This entry reminded me of a Palos Verdes Library District show a few years back in which my painting, “African Mother in a Blue Dress” won an honorable mention. Naturally, I was curious about the other award winners. I was astonished by the piece that won Best in Show, which was a rough-looking wooden box with about a dozen two-foot long, quarter-inch diameter black tubes hanging off the bottom of it. What the heck? Well, the artist had written an appealing description of his piece’s meaning, which must have charmed the judge. It was something about discarded junk. Another potential poet, right?
The Los Alamitos show had a youth section. There were some amazing sculptures created by young people from pieces of cardboard—I mean they were breathtaking in terms of the artistic prowess! That art teacher is a gem! For this show, cardboard was a good choice of medium. If those cardboard sculptures got damaged, it would be sad, but also an inexpensive loss in terms of materials. I looked for the work of the sculptor from last year with the gorgeous ceramic piece that had gotten broken during the show. He wasn’t present and I didn’t think he would be.
Mike and I had dinner recently with our friends, Dale and Ray. Dale brought up my winning of two top awards this month and he asked me whether, if I could go back in time, I would have chosen to be an artist as my profession. I said, oh, heck, no! The life of an artist is fraught with difficulties and is likely to leave the artist impoverished and deeply discouraged. However, I might have considered being an art professor rather than a psychology professor. I related my knowledge of how our college’s art teachers lumped three levels of students into one class session, and thus managed to get credit for teaching three courses in one time slot. This left them time to pursue their own art projects. In addition, they didn’t have to grade papers and their students always seemed delighted to be in class. Finally, the teachers I had didn’t do much instruction. They might spend 20 minutes out of a three-hour class on direct instruction. Otherwise, they either did their own thing or circulated among their students, making comments on how they could improve their work, which sounds like fun to me.
A final art event for me during March was that I went on my first “photo shoot.” A week earlier, I had lunch with my friend, Alicia, and as we were parting, I mentioned that I needed to find three children between three and six years old to model for a painting I wanted to make. Within an hour, Alicia had lined up three children, grandkids of a friend of hers. I was nervous when I went to photograph them last Thursday, but the whole thing turned out beautifully. Two of the three children had brief meltdowns during the 30 minutes I was taking photos, but they recovered, and was I able to get some nice shots. Below is the one I plan to work from.
My painting of Kathy Clark is progressing quickly (for me). In another month and I could finish it.
March 4, 2025
Hello fellow artists and art appreciators,
During February, I worked on my painting of Kathy Giselle Clark and waited for my most recently completed painting, “Gardening with Daddy,” to dry. Due to the oils that I infuse into my paints, my paintings take a minimum of three months to dry to the touch, and aren’t dry enough to varnish for a year.
Lance was pleased with my progress on the painting of Kathy. He said my blocking in of Kathy’s throat and upper chest looked just like what he would do. He told me that I hardly need him anymore, and that the painting already looked like another winner I was going to have on my hands. He commented that not all of his paintings are winners. I responded by saying that not all of mine were either, and that it is my understanding that this is true of even famous painters. Lance replied that I certainly have made a collection of my “greatest hits.”
I remember reading that most famous artists could credit their lasting fame to about four of their paintings. As a young person, I adored Van Gogh’s painting style. Recently, I googled Van Gogh, and discovered that eight paintings came up as his most famous ones. Mike would be surprised to know that his favorite, “Irises,” wasn’t among them. I was shocked to note that Van Gogh’s painting of sunflowers was one of the eight. Honestly, if I had seen that painting without knowing the artist, I would consider it uninteresting and amateurish. The four “blossoms” right smack in the center of the painting look deformed; unrecognizable as sunflowers, and smooshed into a blob for no good reason that I can detect. His outlining of the vase and horizon line seem amateurish. It flattens the plane, making it look like a high school student’s drawing. The effect of painting a literal horizon line, is to make the surface on which the vase is supposed to be sitting appear to be a vertical plane. I know that cubists, contemporaries of the impressionists, purposely defied the rules for establishing depth perception. If this was Van Gogh’s intention, he succeeded, but it doesn’t do anything for me. If I were grading this painting in an advanced oil painting college course, I would give it a “generous B.” In my view, the composition is boring and static. However, I’m used to having my ideas about art being out of fashion. AI explains that “Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’ is famous because of its vibrant, almost solely yellow color palette which showcases his mastery of color and expresses a sense of optimism and joy.”
Meanwhile, I returned to my painting “Marleth,” of a live model at the Los Alamitos portrait workshop last summer, because I plan to enter that painting in the “Weekend of Art” show at the Los Alamitos Community Center. I was hoping to also enter “Gardening with Daddy” in that show, but parts of it aren’t dry, as I mentioned earlier, and won’t be by the submission deadline. Even if this painting had been thoroughly dry, I would have had misgivings about entering it in that show, because last year I observed that inexperienced young people were handling the paintings, stacking them on top of one another, and otherwise putting them at risk. I was so alarmed, that I insisted in leaving my three paintings in their protective terrycloth covers. I borrowed a permanent marking pen and wrote my last name and phone number on each cover. I decided that I would rather risk never seeing my protective covers again than leave my paintings vulnerable to damage. I felt vindicated in my concern when I discovered during the show’s reception that a gorgeous ceramic sculpture in the show had been broken, and irredeemably destroyed. It seems unfair to me that artists must assume all of the risk for entering their work in shows. Yet, practically speaking, how would one place a value on a painting that has never been purchased? I think the IRS values them at the cost of materials.
In February, I had my painting, “Suffragist Alice Paul” accepted to a California Art League show, with the theme, “Imagination.” I wrote a description of my painting on the entry form, saying that Alice Paul imagined that sometime in the future, women would have the right to vote. Mike, Megan, my friend, Bridget Duffy, and I attended the reception on March 1st. My painting won “Best in Show,” which was quite thrilling. Since I am a member of this group, this award furthers the “conspiracy theory” that I mentioned last month, that judges might be biased toward members of the art group sponsoring the show, even when the show is open to non-members. However, I don’t want to sink into confirmation bias, by only noticing incidents that support the theory.
I entered an online show through CaFé, “People 2025.” “Gardening with Daddy” was accepted. I was tickled to have a painting accepted that was so recently completed that it is still wet in places. Some oil paint colors dry more quickly than others. Black and white paints dry slowly, whereas brown pigment seems to dry faster than any other. There is no black in “Gardening with Daddy,” but I’m still waiting for the little girl’s white bonnet to dry.
I entered another online show through CaFé, “Woman 2025 Juried Annual Exhibition.” “Suffragist Alice Paul” was accepted. Thanks to online shows, “Alice” can be in two shows at the same time.
February 1, 2025
I have enjoyed getting back to painting regularly on most days since Jan. 13th, after the holidays and preparations for Mike’s birthday party and then actual birthday celebration were over. During the last two-and-a-half weeks of January, I spent my painting time putting finishing touches on “Gardening with Daddy,” and am pleased to finally be satisfied with the painting. I didn’t want close scrutiny of the background to discourage viewers from appreciating the overall impact of the painting. I felt fairly confident that the vast majority of the viewers would have had no quibble with the background of this painting if I had left it the way it was last month. My teacher thought it was fine, yet my “imaginary audience members” are a sterner bunch.
During my painting of Everly Gordon, everything went smoothly, even though there were some daunting aspects to the composition. Simply trying to make the wild array of sunflowers look realistic was a time-consuming task. The child’s textured bonnet was another challenge, as was her dress with a floral print. I also wondered how to pull off the adult glove on a child’s hand, but that turned out to be one of the easiest parts of the painting. It just worked right off the bat. I’m least happy with the blades of the clippers.
Meanwhile, I began a new portrait of my niece Kathy Jeselle Clark. It is based on a photo I took of her back in 2012, which was the one I selected from among about 15 that I snapped of her that evening, wearing her ballet practice outfit. At the time, I was taking a life drawing course, and I drew Kathy for a class homework assignment, using colored pencils. She was happy to pose for me. After I had my assignment graded, I framed the drawing and gave it to Kathy for Christmas. I was not entirely pleased with my drawing, because it seemed somewhat flat (an issue with colored pencils), and I didn’t think I had done justice to Kathy’s youthful attractiveness. Even so, I liked the composition, and the way the background enhanced the portrait. Since I have been on a kick of painting relatives, I thought I’d like to take another crack at a more appealing version of this portrait by making an oil painting of it.
My painting of Kathy is off to a good start. Right away, I have corrected my biggest failing in the colored pencil drawing, and begun to capture her youthful charm. The other failing of my drawing was that her body looked flat. That was partly due to the limitations of colored pencils and partly because the photo had dramatic lighting, so that much of it is in darkness. Cameras aren’t good at registering shades of light and dark. They turn dark areas into one mass and light areas also lose their subtleties. Even with the limitations of the reference photo I’m using, I imagine that this painting will come together much more quickly than the last one. It is quite a bit less complex.
This month, Destination Art, a gallery that does much to foster a thriving community among artists in the beach cities of Southern California, is currently putting on a show with the theme of “the color pink.” To fit the theme, 20% of entered paintings were required to be pink. I’m an “associate artist” at this gallery, and I thought about entering the show. As I looked over my collection of paintings, I realized that the only painting I had created during the past five years, with any substantial element of pink, had already won a first-place prize at a Destination Art show in 2021, and it was irrelevant that the main figure was wearing a light pink dress. So, I had to pass on entering the show. Yet, this got me thinking about my choice of colors in my paintings.
Although I enjoy wearing various shades of pink, and fuchsia is my favorite color, I don’t use much of it in my paintings. Considering the calming, positive impact that pink has on most people, it should be a natural color for artists to use. Decades ago, when I did more abstract paintings in the service of self-expression, I used loads of pink. Now, as a realistic painter, I am somewhat confined by the scenes I have chosen to paint. Conversely, I have noticed that I also enjoy putting yellow, orange, and other colors in my paintings, which I would never dream of wearing or using to decorate my living spaces.
The color blue permeates my paintings, and it is also my favorite color to wear, yet the linguistic and psychological links between the color blue and sadness or depression don’t fit in my case. I seem to find the color blue, particularly navy blue, flattering to wear, in preference to its neighbor, the stronger “color” black. Those of us with light skin tones, eyes, and (lately) hair seem to benefit from softer colors.
The association of sadness with the color blue did seem appropriate for Picasso. During Picasso’s blue period, from 1900-1904, he was depressed. This might have been precipitated by the death of his friend, Carlos Casagemas. During Picasso’s blue period, he tended to depict the poor and downtrodden. He could relate, because he was living in poverty and struggling to survive as an artist. During this time, his paintings often portrayed a sense of dejection and isolation.
Last month, I collected two of my paintings that were on display for three months in the annual Anaheim Art Association Open Show. They are “Of Human Bonding” and “Shopping with Mommy.” This show has mystified me, in that for the four years in which I have participated in this association’s annual show that was open to nonmembers, and had every painting I entered accepted, yet even so, none of them have won even an honorable mention. The paintings I entered were “Jane Goodall with an Infant Chimp,” Soy Nativo de California” (which won 2nd place in a Torrance Artists Guild show), “Almost Shirtsleeve Weather,” (which won 1st place in a Destination Art Show and 3rd Place in a Front Porch Gallery show) “African Mother in a Blue Dress” (which won an honorable mention in a Palos Verdes Library Art show), “Alice Paul” (which won an honorable mention in a Carlsbad Ocean Art League show), “Gustavo Dudamel” (which won 1st place in a Carlsbad Ocean Art League show), “Of Human Bonding,” (which won 2nd place at The Art Preservation Institute show in NY) and “Shopping with Mommy” (which won 2nd place in a Los Alamitos show and an honorable mention in a Destination Art show).
I have to wonder whether this is a series of four years of bad luck with judges, or something more systematic. The Anaheim show is the same quality and size as most of the shows I typically enter. In order to make sense out of unpredictable events, people tend to develop conspiracy theories. I know artists who are convinced that art groups only award prizes to their group members or already renowned artists. I don’t have any evidence that the Anaheim Association is expressing a bias against nonmembers. If I cared deeply about this issue, I could track down whether any nonmembers in the Anaheim open show have won awards. Obviously, I have wondered whether I’m getting a fair shot at being considered for an award, but I don’t think it matters enough to spend hours looking into the matter, without having any reason to believe my efforts would make a difference. After all, it could be a coincidence.
On Jan. 27th, my painting teacher did a portrait painting demonstration at the Palos Verdes Art Institute. After the demonstration, Lance told me that a woman our age, with a European accent approached him, and told him that his work reminded her of Tricia Alexander’s paintings. She wanted to know whether I had been a student of his. How fun is that! I soon found out that this mystery woman was my artist friend, Elke Goodno.
January 1, 2025
As has been the case these past few years, my painting time has seemed to vanish in the midst of holiday activities. I don’t think I painted for even 20 hours during December. Instead, I did a great deal of holiday cooking, got Christmas decorations up, and made decisions on, ordered, and wrapped presents. Next, there was time spent preparing, then sending out Christmas cards, as well as attending potluck parties, and doing a bit of entertaining ourselves. Those efforts paid off with several thoroughly enjoyable social occasions.
All of this celebratory activity was suspended for about four days right before Christmas, when one of my sisters-in-law, Charlotte, was rushed to a hospital emergency room and wasn’t expected to survive. We are grateful that she pulled through.
The few hours I spent painting during December were dedicated to refining my painting of Everly Gordon in a garden of sunflowers, which I consider to be my best effort so far. Refining the details of this painting has been time-consuming, but the tedium of this effort was counteracted by my conviction that I had already created a delightful painting, and felt confident that I could make it better with each hour I spent on it. (I entertain myself with audio books while I’m working).
The painting has everything—an appealing child, a landscape, brightly colored flowers, as well as dramatic highlights and shadows. There is a narrative as well, since the child is holding a pair of garden clippers, which, if noticed by the viewer, adds a note of drama and possible danger to the scene. The only soothing antidote to the implied danger represented by the shears in the hands of a toddler, is the title, “Gardening with Daddy.” Her father was in fact present at the time, keeping his daughter safe, but I bumped him out of the scene, because only an odd fraction of his face was showing in the photo from which I worked.
Another element of a good painting, it seems to me, is implied movement. The riotous sunflowers and their leaves behind the child seem to be bursting with life, and practically seeking the sun as we watch. Interestingly, the child’s obvious concentration on what she is doing supplies an intriguing contrast. She anchors the scene, with her calm attention on the sunflower she has in her grasp. Is she about to liberate it from its moorings?
I also “disappeared” some non-descript buildings in the background so that I could create a larger space for the sky, to give the viewer’s eyes a place to rest in this busy painting. Finally, I changed the color of the garden glove to better coordinate with the other colors of the painting, and got rid of the floral pattern of the glove, which seemed necessary, if I were going to have any chance of making that shape recognizable as a glove. For that matter, there were plenty of flowers in this scene, without introducing the floral pattern of the glove.
As I studied the child’s bonnet, I noticed that it must be on sideways. The flaps on either side of her head don’t match. I decided that probably only a person who wears hats as much as I do would notice that, and besides, it seemed sort of cute.
I sold a painting from my “on sale” items last month. The buyer was my number one supporter, my big brother, George. The painting is of a vineyard in San Luis Obispo. My painting buddy, Harvey, and I went to the Chamisal vineyard wine-tasting room and asked for permission to paint the vines. Our request was granted. In the foreground, there were red grapes hanging heavily from the vines. I was quite delighted to see that I could use some dabs of purple and maroon to depict the grapes, and they looked weighty to me.
In the middle-ground, there were rows of grapevines, but they were so far away, that they were only a blur of color. To depict them, I made ribbons of green, then created irregular shadow areas, and somehow that seemed to work. The Achilles heel of the painting was the hilly background. In the actual scene, there was a building to the left and one to the right, but the middle hill was empty. I didn’t like that look, so I created another building for the middle hill.
December 4, 2024
Happy holidays! I am still putting finishing touches on “Gardening with Daddy.” There is so much content to the painting, with a field of sunflowers behind the little girl, and I want to be satisfied with each petal. I was hoping to fit in a still life painting before the end of the year, but already feel quite swept up in holiday activities.
‘Tis the season for sales, and I’m offering a few paintings at a reduced price, to free up wall space in my house for the new paintings I made this year. (Of course, if you don’t feel the need to own the originals, you can get copies from Wayfair, Etsy, Amazon, and half a dozen other places selling copies of my paintings from photos they have taken off the Internet😉)
“Double Devotion” (a recreation of—but quite different from—a scene I observed in Pollywog Park, Manhattan Beach) $250 plus shipping if needed (75% off)
“On the Beach” (a portrait from a live model, Jantzen Zink, with a made-up background) $250 plus shipping if needed (75% off)
“A Muse” (a portrait from life of model Erika Muse) $250 plus shipping if needed (75% off)
“Kayla Goes to Sea” (a portrait of a live model, Kayla) $250 plus shipping if needed (75% off)
“Una Mujer de Mexico” (a portrait of a live model, a Mexican woman) $250 plus shipping if needed (75% off)
“A Day in Paris” (a portrait of Doris Day as her character in “April in Paris”) $100 plus shipping if needed (75% off)
“Chamisal Vineyard in San Luis Obispo” (a plein air painting I created on an outing with my painting buddy Harvey) $100 plus shipping if needed (75% off)
“Wolff Winery, San Luis Obispo” (my only solo plein air outing—ever) $250 plus shipping if needed (75% off)
“Greengate Farms, San Luis Obispo” (a plein air watercolor, also painted on an outing with Harvey) $250 plus shipping if needed (50% off)
“Goldilocks and the Three Oaks” (an imaginary scene that I made up) $100 plus shipping if needed (75% off)
“Bridget’s Apple Tree” (a plein air painting I made alongside my friend, Bridget, in her backyard) $100 plus shipping if needed (75% off)
“South Coast Botanic Garden in Fall” (a plein air painting I made on an outing with Bridget) $100 plus shipping if needed (75% off)
November 4, 2024
In class with Lance this past month, I reminded him that years ago I had brought up the idea of collaborating with him to write a book for artists depicting the insights he had gained over 40 years of painting using the techniques of the Dutch masters. He had said he didn’t think it was possible to demonstrate his painting techniques through a book, but maybe videos could be adequate teaching tools. After working with Lance for five years, I felt inclined to agree with him that a book on his painting techniques would only allow a reader to get part of the way toward being proficient in the techniques of realistic figure painting. Videos could take them further, yet to emulate Lance’s skillful techniques expertly would probably need to involve personal tutelage. Even so, a book that would earnestly guide interested persons along that path, aided by supplemental videos that might take learners far enough to be reasonably competent could be worth doing.
After my conversation with Lance, I had the thought that there might be quite a few people online claiming that they could teach others to paint like Rembrandt. Sure enough, there are. I went through several, many of which were quite silly, for example, claiming they could teach beginning painters how to paint like Rembrandt with 5-7 easy tips. I did find one serious artist, who was helpful. While looking at her website, I once again viewed the painting below.
“The Night Watch”
This painting is The Night Watch, by Rembrandt. Mike and I had the privilege of seeing this painting at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. When I looked at this photo recently, I was astonished by the liberty Rembrandt took with the effects of lighting. Just to start off, why is the woman in the middle-ground (seemingly an insignificant person in the piece) lit up as though she were facing a spotlight? She is in more full view than anyone else, even the two main characters in the foreground. What was Rembrandt up to? This lighting had to have been in service of the composition. Look at the lighting yourself. Can you explain all of the lit areas by concluding that the light source was coming from the upper left? I can’t. I’m also not sure my attention, captured by the lighting effects helps me focus on the purpose of this scene. What do you think? Thank goodness, the main figures are the second and third most well-lit figures, yet I still wonder what was the purpose of the lighting on that woman?
Both of the paintings that I submitted to the Anaheim show were accepted. The two people in the larger painting and the one in the smaller painting are from the same nuclear family, and are relatives of mine. Both paintings have received honorable mention awards at previous shows. One of those paintings, “Of Human Bonding” was also accepted to an online show, with an international audience.
During October, I came close to finishing “Gardening with Daddy,” (my tentative title). Lately, my teacher has been telling me that this painting is my best one yet, and that I hardly need him anymore. This has been a painting that I haven’t ever felt stumped by, in spite of its numerous challenges. It has crowd-pleasing elements, such as bright colors, flowers, and a lovely child, with light effects as well. The scene certainly captivated me. This painting depicts a first cousin, twice removed from me.
My teacher, Lance, has been urging me to apply to galleries, because lately he has become convinced that I am painting at a gallery level, and sometimes even approaching a museum level. Goodness, I’m just beginning to have fun painting again, and I think this is because I’m not so frustrated by being unable to get the effects I want or ones that please my teacher. Do I need to seek notoriety, and probably end up feeling discouraged? I don’t care whether or not I sell my paintings. Pandering to galleries seems of me masochistic, especially since earning a few hundred or a few thousand dollars doesn’t affect my financial situation. It would certainly be appealing to be recognized more widely. Yet, I’m not yet inclined to go ahead with this effort. I’m still charmed by JMW Turner’s refusal to sell his paintings, even though he was offered generous amounts for them. He wanted his collection of paintings to be offered to the British nation. No, I’m not trying to compare myself with Turner. Keeping the bulk of my paintings together at home risks having them all destroyed in one mishap, and for me, that is more of an incentive to disperse them than anything else.
October 3, 2024
This month, I had a one-week interruption in art activities, when Mike and I traveled to the East Coast. We attended a political conference in Washington, DC, which was sponsored by The Atlantic Magazine. We visited dear friends in Virginia, and also drove to Philadelphia to see the Liberty Bell, Ben Franklin’s Grave, and Betsy Ross’ home. We also visited the National Portrait Gallery once again, where I was mostly looking for interesting poses.
After arriving back home, I thought about attending additional sessions of the portrait workshop in Los Alamitos. The models are often appealing, yet I haven’t finished the last portrait that I started there in August. Since I have painted quite a few models staring off into space, without a facial expression, I have tentatively decided to start next year, by hiring my own models, so that I can designate the pose, hopefully the facial expression, the background, and also work with the model to wear interesting, portrait-worthy clothing.
The last weekend of September, I was delighted to participate in the Gardena Valley Japanese Cultural Institute’s annual art show. I may have been the only Caucasian artist in the show, and, while my work adhered to the show’s theme of displaying Japanese-inspired art, my “Western” style painting added something unusual to the show. I felt gratified by how well-received my paintings were. I was particularly pleased that all of the paintings I submitted were painted from life, although I did touch them up with reference photos back in my studio.
During September, I worked exclusively on my painting of a four-year-old girl (a distant relative), with her mother’s gardening glove on one hand and shears in the other, amidst a field of sunflowers. It is really turning out beautifully, with no hitches so far. I hope to finish it before this year’s end. That will be a bit challenging, since the holidays are already upon us, and my work must give way to socializing and merry-making. I have my priorites!
September 3, 2024
In last month’s blog, I mentioned attending a portrait workshop in Los Alamitos once during July. At the end of the three-hour painting session, the model’s mother approached me and wanted to know whether I would sell her my painting of her daughter. I returned to the portrait workshop once during August and enjoyed painting a lovely African American model named Britany. While there, I spoke with a few of my fellow artists. The good rapport among these artists at the workshop is one of the endearing aspects of spending time there on a Saturday morning. Neither my friend, Bridget, nor my fellow book club member and fellow psychologist, Diane, attended the workshop that day. Anyway, I mentioned to a superb artist, John, that at the session three weeks previously, the model’s mother had approached me and asked whether I might be willing to sell my painting of her daughter, Marleth. I was touched by her request and wanted to accommodate her, but felt the need to take my painting home and finish it. I told the mother that my painting would also take as much as two months to dry, because of the medium I use to delay the drying of my paintings so that I can blend colors and soften lines as I complete them. The mother gave me her contact details and I gave her my card. When I related this saga to John, he revealed that the same mother had approached him, and he had sold her his drawing of her daughter for 10 dollars! John then discovered that another artist had been approached by the mother, and had sold his work for $50. Thus, John’s advice was not to sell my painting “cheap.” As if that weren’t shocking enough, I talked to another artist at the workshop that day, who had the model’s mother approach him to ask for his drawing of her daughter. He had drawn his portrait on newsprint paper, so he merely gave the drawing the Marlett’s mother. This artist is a lovely person, but his work can’t compare to John’s, and yet the difference in price the mother got for their portrait drawings was $10! Well, that certainly changed my view of the mother’s approach to me. Like me, these artists had been flattered by the mother’s interest in their work, and generously sought to accommodate her wishes by essentially giving their art away. I was going to reduce my price for this mom, but still would have asked for much more money to compensate me for parting with a painting that I could show during the next couple of years. As of now, I would feel free to ask for more money, in the event that the mother contacts me, and I’ll make no effort to contact her. I feel slightly deflated to realize that her interest in my work was not special, but I do feel happy about getting to keep my painting. I plan to order a custom frame for it and start entering it into shows.
At a small family reunion last month, I thoroughly enjoyed being with my brother, sister-in-law, and several cousins whom I don’t often see, because of the physical distance between us. I was able to meet two children I had painted, but never met in person. They are adorable young people, and I assured their mother that I would save my portraits for her, after I had finished showing them. Both paintings earned second-place awards this year, at different shows.
My painting of another child relative in the Gordon branch of my family is underway, and I already feel excited about how it is turning out. The painting is taking shape more quickly than expected. Much of the composition consists of a background landscape, a field of sunflowers.
This past week, I traveled to Oak Park to have lunch with my brother, to Santa Barbara, to spend the weekend with my daughter and her husband, and to San Luis Obispo, to see my friend of 43 years, Kathy. It was a perfect trip, as it generally is. I have made this journey routinely for at least a decade. For the narrative here, the destination of interest is visiting Kathy. She is bravely sorting out her life after the death of her husband two years ago. It was such a bittersweet experience for me to be in their house, enclosed in a space with Harvey’s paintings (and other works of art) in every room, some of which he had painted on plein air outings with me. I felt bereft, yet oddly comforted to be surrounded by the abundant evidence of his presence and creative energy.
I helped Kathy clean out a substantial portion of her late husband’s art studio, another emotional experience. We found paintings that were designated for specific family members that needed to be mailed. We boxed up supplies that could be donated to future artists.
Kathy invited me to select a painting I liked of Harvey’s from among those that were left. Many friends and family members had already collected their favorite paintings. Harvey once told me that he sometimes dashed off two paintings in an afternoon. I chose one of his paintings that he had obviously spent more than a couple of hours making. It is a small, square painting of a street scene in Peru. Harvey had traveled there with his son, Adam. Mike and I visited have also visited Peru. I was delighted with the composition of this painting, with an accurate perspective, and a dramatic contrast between light and shadow in this sun-drenched scene. I have always admired it.
Four of the five paintings I submitted to the Gardena Japanese Cultural Art Institute were accepted for their annual art show. I was amazed and thrilled! The initial notice called for artwork inspired by Japanese art. When I belatedly noticed that the show’s theme was not just about art inspired by Japanese themes, but also Japanese diasporic art (I had never heard of it, so I googled it), which doesn’t remotely resemble my artistic style, I figured that I had wasted my time in entering this show. This concern deepened when I heard back from the curator asking me to justify how each painting that I had submitted fit the theme! I enjoy these little self-induced adventures, and responded as best I could as a person with only a rudimentary grasp of Japanese artistic styles. (What was I thinking?)
Goodness! The saga continues. The curator for the Japanese art show withdrew his acceptance of the two landscapes I had painted at the South Coast Botanic Gardens, because although they exhibited elements of Japanese style, they were a bit too Western😉 Life is full of surprises, n’est ce pas?
I had two shows going on during August, and it turned out that paintings needed to be collected from both Pomona and Carlsbad on September 1st. I drove to Carlsbad and Mike drove to Pomona. He is so supportive!
August 5. 2024
Why portrait painters are understandably nervous about commissions, and why I turn them down:
In Charles Dickens’ Nicholas Nickleby (1838-39) the portrait painter Miss La Creevy pondered the problem of being a portrait painter: “People are so dissatisfied and unreasonable, that, nine times out of ten, there’s no pleasure in painting them.” Perhaps the most famous portrait painter in the 19th century, John Singer Sargent echoed this concern, saying, “Every time I paint a portrait, I lose a friend.”
I turn down offers to commission me to do paintings. Accepting commissions doesn’t seem like a tenable road to pursue for a variety of reasons. I figure that I don’t need the stress of trying to satisfy a customer to add to my insecurities as a painter. I imagine that potential clients envision spending a couple hundred dollars on a portrait of their choice, and that amount of money might just cover the expense of my materials and not account for my time working on the piece, never mind the inevitable anxiety over whether it will be pleasing to the person who asked for it. In addition, I like to choose people to paint who inspire me, rather than accepting a commission that expresses another person’s desire to have a loved one painted, warts and all (and by the way, please minimize those warts, but still make the painting look like my beloved).
I returned to the Portrait Workshop in Los Alamitos for the first time this year! I had enjoyed it so much last year, and developed five paintings that I started from a live model in that workshop and then finished in my studio from a reference photo that I took. Last Saturday, I was nervous, because I was so much out of practice in painting from life. I was pleased during the session, that my painting seemed to be capturing the charming model, and was almost satisfied with my painting at the end of three hours. I felt quite honored when the model’s mother shyly approached me and got around to asking me whether I would consider selling my painting of her daughter to her. I was so touched! I had seen her and her daughter admiring my unfinished painting during the model’s breaks during the session, and thought they might like to have it. For a mere three hours of work, I would be happy to accommodate the mother by asking for much less than I normally would. I liked the painting I made on Saturday, but didn’t feel quite satisfied with it, so I took another 10 hours to complete it. I still plan to offer the mother a deal, and if she can’t afford my price, I’ll offer her a giclee, which she could probably cost her under $100, since the painting is only 18×14 inches.
Thanks to the activism of “my people,” my painting of Gustavo Dudamel won the popular choice award in the Destination Art Associate Artists’ Show. I asked friends and family members to participate in the contest, to give my two paintings in the show a look, and then view the rest of the entries and vote for whichever painting spoke to them.
I have thought more about the issue I wrote about last month, in terms of having so many portraits in which my subject was unsmiling, and not particularly expressing any other emotion. I began to think about finding situations in which I could catch the face of my subject in the throes of an emotion and paint it. I think this would be a good path to pursue.
Current shows I am in are the CAL Gold Medal Show, with the theme of “Illuminated.” My paintings, “Of Human Bonding” and “Green-Eyed Madonna” were accepted. This show, located in Pomona, and will continue until August 31st. The KLM Art Gallery online show, “Show off Your Art” accepted my painting, “Gustavo Dudamel.” The COAL show in Carlsbad accepted my painting, “Shopping with Mommy.” The art reception for that show is on August 10th, from 3-5pm.
July 9, 2024
I applied to a couple of shows in June. One of them, an online show, had the theme “Smiles and Tears.” For last year’s show with this same theme, I could only think of one painting I had, “Shopping with Mommy,” in which my subject was smiling. I submitted that one piece and it was accepted. This year, I submitted a new painting in which both subjects were smiling, “Of Human Bonding.” I also decided that an older painting, “Child’s Play,” also qualified, so I entered it as well (but not for sale, because it has been sold). “Child’s Play” was accepted.
Entering this show got me thinking about how many of my portrait paintings display a neutral facial expression. My painting teacher told me that it is extremely difficult to paint people’s teeth; making them look natural and wet. Another explanation I have thought of is that portraits were made before the invention of photography, so that perhaps a record of the individual’s relaxed face showed more truly what the person looked like, without being “distorted” by a smile. After speculating on my own, I decided to pose this question to Google. I’ll summarize my findings:
Due to their scarcity in art, smiles began to be considered unseemly and likely to change the fundamental nature of a painting. A portrait was thought to be the complete representation of a person, and their life, status, and triumphs, which could not be reduced to a smile. If a painter did manage to convince his subject to be portrayed mid-smile, the resulting portrait would likely be perceived as radical and the smile would become the focus of the picture, which was rarely what a paying subject might wish for. By the 17th century in Europe, aristocrats had decided that baring teeth – in public and in art – was a lewd expression reserved for the lower classes, drunks, and theatrical performers.
Another theory is that personal hygiene was lacking in past centuries, so that condition of a person’s teeth left much to be desired. Subjects would keep their lips firmly closed when posing for posterity to avoid showing their teeth. This hypothesis has been countered by the argument that, in fact, poor dental hygiene was so common that it wasn’t considered a detractor from attractiveness. (That’s hard for me to imagine!)
An alternative explanation is that posing before a painter involved patience and could make it impossible to maintain a sincere smile, since it is a fleeting reaction that departs as fast as it appears. A forced smile is not only difficult to maintain, but also doesn’t look the same as a genuine one. We all know what it’s like to hold a smile for too long; and how a smile can turn into a grimace. For most of recorded human history, the open smile has been “deeply unfashionable,” observed writer Nicholas Jeeves in his essay “The Serious and the Smirk: The Smile in Portraiture.” He wrote, “A smile is like a blush,” it is a response, not an expression per se, and so it can neither be easily maintained nor easily recorded.”
The Italian Renaissance artist Antonello da Messina was one of the few who consistently returned to the smile in his work. Messina was trained in the cutting-edge oil painting techniques developed in the Netherlands, which prioritized a direct observation of nature. He introduced the smile into his portrait paintings to indicate the inner lives of his realistically rendered sitters. His “Portrait of a Young Man” from about 1470 predates Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” (ca. 1503–19), long considered the owner of the most enigmatic smile in art. During this period, the Dutch were engaged in depicting everyday life, smiles and all.
Almost immediately after the invention of photography in the mid–19th century, the fleeting smile became a standard part of the photographic portrait. Contemporary painters working with portraiture have not followed suit, still rendering people with a serious expression, and sometimes painting unsettling smiles to suggest sinister, sociopolitical meanings.
Back to the show I entered, “Tears and Smiles,” I not only have few smiles in my portrait paintings, but also a complete absence of anguish, much less tears in the faces I have painted. Even so, I often receive feedback from friends, family, and strangers that my portraits express a great deal off emotion. I’m at a loss to explain this. Any ideas? Your feedback would be most helpful.
In May, I entered The Art Presentation Institute Online Summer Showcase, with the theme “Portrait Format.” I entered “African Mother in a Yellow Dress,” “Shopping with Mommy,” and “Of Human Bonding.” “Of human Bonding” won 2nd Place.
I began a new still life painting in June. A former board member, Alvin Takamori, who was on my team when I was president of The Torrance Artists’ Guild, sent me a notice of an art show at the Gardena Valley Japanese Cultural Arts Institute. He has sent me this annual announcement for about four years. Finally, I decided to respond. This year, the theme is “Japanese-Style” art. I have some landscapes that might fit that theme. I also have an antique Japanese vase that I paired with a wooden sculpture of a cat, curled up in sleep. The cat sculpture is a bit simplified and stylized. I set up the two pieces on an oak bookcase near a window in my bedroom, using the window as my light source. I drew the arrangement and then started painting it. I’m pleased with it so far. For months, I have been wanting to make a still life painting. Even with my realistic style, still life paintings are far less demanding to create than portraits, so they are great fun, almost like recess from my patient attempt to learn realistic portraiture.
My painting of Grace is nearly finished! I plan on entering it in the same show as the above still life painting.
To return to a topic I first brought up in May, I have found further evidence that companies are using photos of my original paintings for profit, without crediting or compensating me.
My painting “Chantal’s Garden in Blueberry Season” has a new entity selling copies of it. Amazon is selling it as a “Garden-Painted Art.” My painting, “Chantal’s Garden of Earthly Delights” is also being offered by Amazon as “Garden of Earthly Delights.”
My “Canoes at Morro Bay” is now offered by FineArtAmerica.com as a part of its series, called Morro Bay Art Prints, as well as by icanvas.com as Morro Bay Art.
My painting of the Santa Barbara Mission is now being offered on Amazon under the heading Santa Barbara Paintings, in Wall Décor. I slaved over that painting to get the perspective to be accurate, and spent a great deal of time on the details. Then I gave the painting to my younger daughter, who lives in Santa Barbara and visited the mission with me. Now it’s being sold on Amazon. Hmm. I’m not sure how to feel about that. Maybe, “thanks for the back-handed compliment, but how dare you profit from a gift I gave to my daughter?”
My painting, “Sycamore at Islay Park, San Luis Obispo,” which I painted for Mike’s mother as a birthday present, is offered on Amazon as “Sycamore Tree Painting.”
Prints of my painting, Chamisal Vineyard in San Luis Obispo” are being offered by fineartameric.com as a part of its series, Sonoma County Canvas Prints. That’s inaccurate, since Chamisal Vineyard is in San Luis Obispo County; not to mention the poaching of an image of my original landscape painting.
My painting, “San Luis Obispo in January, After Rain” is being offered by oilpaintings.com/hand-painted/oil-painting” as well as Amazon.com under “oil painting rain.”
Some of my friends have urged me to hire a lawyer to send authoritative letters to these companies and individuals, ordering them to stop what they are doing. I could make a project of this and devote many hours and some expense to seeing it through. Yet, in the big picture of what really matters to me at this stage of my life, I consider what is going on here to be an annoying, but a petty matter.
June 3, 2024
In the Destination Art Associates Show, I entered “Gustavo Dudamel” and “Una Mujer de Mexico.” Both paintings were accepted. Both subjects happen to be Latinos, one Venezuelan and one Mexican. The show’s reception will be on June 8th from 3-5pm. Address is… Destination Art, 1815 213th Street, Suite 153, Torrance, California 90501.
“Gustavo Dudamel”
“Una Mujer de Mexico”
I also entered the Art Preservation Institute Online Summer Showcase; which announced its theme as “Portrait Format.” This meant that the painting didn’t need to actually be a portrait, but the height needed to be greater than the width. Also, photos of already sold paintings were permitted to be entered. Therefore, I entered “African Mother in a Yellow Dress”, (which I have sold), as well as “Shopping with Mommy,” and “Human Bonding.” During May, I made some final touches on the painting I had been calling “Mutual Devotion,” but decided to try out the title, “Human Bonding.” I entered that still wet painting in this online show. Hopefully, it will soon dry so that I can enter it in in-person shows. All three paintings were accepted. I was amused to note that all three of my paintings depicted females wearing a yellow straw hat. I had mentioned in my December, 2022 blog that I seemed to favor this sort of subject matter. I am about to begin a new painting, which will fit right in with this unintentional “series.”
During May, I continued to improve my painting of Grace, and also pulled out a landscape painting I began about a year ago of the Octagonal Barn in San Luis Obispo, but abandoned when I became busy with other, more pressing matters. I haven’t completed a landscape painting in eighteen months, so I had fun trying to form this painting into a pleasing composition.
May 6, 2024
Both of the paintings that I submitted, “On the Beach” and “Canoes at Morro Bay Inlet,” were accepted to the California Dreamin’ show. Unfortunately, I accidently encountered two places online selling copies of “Canoes at Morro Bay Inlet”: www.greatbigcanvas.com and www.artbymaudsh.com/elegant. The second site is a bit annoying, because this is a plein air painting I did with my friend, Bridget Duffy. So, what’s the deal with claiming my painting is “art by maudsh”?
Apparently, making copies of my landscapes is quite a thing. On the same day, I discovered that both www.greatbigcanvas.com and www.wayfair.com have decided to sell copies of my plein air painting, “Pismo Beach Butterly Preserve,” a painting I did with my late, longtime friend, Harvey Cohon. Both sites are selling copies of “Redondo Beach Esplanade,” a plein air painting I did during a paint out with 20 fellow artists. Both are selling my painting, “Yosemite’s Half Dome,” a plein air painting I made in Yosemite. (You can skip to the last paragraph if you are tired of hearing about this.)
Copies of my painting, “San Luis Obispo Barn at Miossi Ranch,” which I painted with Harvey, is offered for sale by www.greatbigcanvas.com and www.amazon.com/home-garden/paintings. So is my painting, “Morro Bay Inlet.” It is offered on Amazon as “fishing boat wall art.” This is another painting that I created with Harvey. An image of my plein air painting, Sycamore in Islay Park, San Luis Obispo,” my last painting outing with Harvey, is also offered by these same sites. “Chantal’s Garden in Blueberry Season,” a painting I made in Chantal’s Redondo Beach backyard, is offered for sale by www.greatbigcanvas.com and www.etsy.com! My plein air painting, “Moon Rising over Harbor Lake before Sunset” is offered for sale by www.great bigcanvas.com and https://fineartamerica.com. The company https://fineartamerica.com references this same painting as “Tricia Canvas Wall Art,” whatever that means. I had to have a peek. This website carries copies of paintings, in which the first name of the artist is always “Tricia,” as if that had anything to do with anything. Copies of my painting, “Martha’s Vineyard,” are being sold through www.greatbigcanvas.com and www.amazon.com/Shop/marthasvinegardart. Copies of my painting, “Santa Barbara Mission” are being offered by www.greatbigcanvas.com.
My portraits are also being sold in the same manner. A copy of “Sweet Dreams,” a painting I did of my brother’s only grandchild, is offered by www.wayfair.com and www.amazon.com/Shop/sweetdreamsart. “Chelsea on the Verge” is a painting I did of a live model, and is offered for sale by www.greatbigcanvas.com. Copies of my painting of “Suffragist Alice Paul” are being offered as freakin’ wall art by www.greatbigcanvas.com! Copies of my painting, “Flamenco Dancer,” are offered for sale by both https://wayfair.com/home/free-shipping and https://fineartamerica.com. Copies of “African Mother in a Yellow Dress,” one of my most popular paintings, which I sold years ago for a tidy sum, is being offered for sale on www.greatbigcanvas.com. Copies of my painting, “Child’s Play,” are being offered by www.greatbigcanvas.com. Both www.greatbigcanvas.com and www.wayfair.com offer copies of my painting, “A Day in Paris” for sale.
I haven’t created many still life paintings, but copies of some of them are offered for sale as well. A copy of a painting that my older brother owns, “Party Guest Flowers,” is offered for sale by www.greatbigcanvas.com. Copies of my painting, “Winter Fruit,” are being sold through www.greatbigcanvas.com and www.etsy.com under their “modern art décor” section. My painting, “Grandma’s Vase,” which I painted alongside my first painting teacher, Christopher, is offered by https://etsy.com and https://potterybarn.com. The vase in the painting is my maternal grandmother’s cut crystal vase, something I treasure. The rose buds were from my garden. All three of these paintings were created from life in my studio.
Who will protect artists from this sort of theft? Interestingly, there appear to be a couple of sites that advertise my paintings and those of other artists, in a more legitimate way. They actually give the website where the original painting can be found for sale.
I wasn’t particularly productive in April, but have made some progress on my painting of “Grace,” and have still been putting just a little more polish on “Mutual Devotion.”
“Grace”
April 2, 2024
My painting, “Shopping with Mommy,” won 2nd place in the Los Alamitos show. The three items shown are the ones I entered in the show.
My painting, tentatively titled “Mutual Devotion,” was finished this month. I’m beginning to dry it, a process that takes a couple of months, because of the slow-drying medium I add to my oil paint.
“Mutual Devotion”
I have been thinking about the source of light being the focal point of paintings. For years, I have heard that this is the way to go, and it makes perfect sense, yet I seldom manage to accomplish it in my paintings. I would say that my paintings, “Gustavo Dudamel” and “Soy Nativo de California” achieve this. “Green-Eyed Madonna” and “Una Mujer de Mexico” do as well. “Dogwood Canyon Cabin in October Morning Light” is another painting that I based on light effects. Yet, this is a small number of paintings in my body of work.
“Dudamel”
“Una Mujer de Mexico”
“Dogwood Canyon Cabin in October Morning Light”
Why can’t I seem to follow the advice: “paint the light, not the objects”? Experienced landscape artists prefer to paint in early morning or late afternoon light, in order to take advantage of nature’s most dramatic light effects. They have the challenge of “chasing the light,” since The Earth doesn’t cease to move in relation to the sun. Still life painters control the light source, preferring one light source, which provides a dramatic contrast between light and shadow. However, portrait artists have a dilemma. They could do the same thing with faces that still life painters do with objects, but the dramatic one-source lighting has an unflattering, aging effect. Perhaps for this reason, portrait painters settle for subtle light effects, and often more than one light source.
Most portrait artists opt for flattering their subjects, and decide that the best lighting is soft and diffused. In general, clamshell lighting works best, as it takes out harsh shadows while providing good contours around the face. The setup gets its name from the placement of two lights at 45-degree angles, one facing up and one facing down, mimicking the shape of a clamshell. It can also be done with a light above and a reflector below. The overhead light is the key.
A side light from a big window can also create very flattering portraits. Large windows provide soft-looking light with gradual and subtle shadows. As this type of lighting is most flattering for portraits, it’s what a painter wants to aim for when positioning the subject.
On a final, less enjoyable topic, I have found a couple more paintings of mine, copies of which have been offered for sale online without my permission. “Winter Fruits,” an original still life, is offered through Amazon as “wall art.” At least in this case, Amazon attached my last name to the piece. My “Dogwood Canyon Cabin in Fall,” an original plein air painting of our family’s cabin, is sold on Amazon as “Cabin in the Woods,” with no mention of me as the artist.
“Winter Fruits”
“Dogwood Canyon in Fall”
March 5, 2024
I am nearing completion of my painting, tentatively entitled “Mutual Devotion.” Feel free to suggest an alternative title, as I am not wedded to the one I came up with.
“Mutual Devotion”
Meanwhile, the recent rains prompted me to take an alternative painting to class. There was so much rain, that I couldn’t figure out a way to arrive for my lesson with a 24×18-inch piece, “Mutual Devotion,” without getting it terribly wet. My painting of Grace fits nicely into a covered plastic box, so working on that painting seemed like my best option. Grace is a model I painted twice last year at the Los Alamitos portrait workshop. I finished one painting of her and had it accepted to a prestigious show in the South Bay, CA 101. It was titled, “Farm Girls Supper Club Member.” I had seen photos online of a group of women who formed a club with this title, and thought that my model would have fit right in. She is lovely, wholesome, and of course sporting a hat.
Unfinished Painting of “Grace”
Lance told me that I had created an impressive head featuring Grace in a different pose. I could see that he was as taken with the pose and model as I was. The painting is going to be fetching, and is already most of the way there, or Lance and I wouldn’t have been so excited about it. Lance teases me about liking to create paintings that viewers tend to respond to by feeling that they are seeing something life-affirming, whereas Lance’s paintings tend to be cryptic, supernatural, and dark. See below a painting in The Broad Museum alluding to this issue, although I’m not choosing my subject matter in order to make money. I simply think that people are more interesting as subjects than anything else.
“The Broad Painting”
I applied for my second art show of the year: Weekend of Art, in Los Alamitos. I entered “Shopping with Mommy,” “Farm Girls Supper Club Member,” and “Children Branching Out.” Last year, I learned about this show through my participation in the portrait workshop run by Ying Liu. I entered two pieces, and my painting, “Daydreamer,” won the 3rd place prize.
“Shopping with Mommy”
“Farm Girls Supper Club Member”
“Children Branching Out”
February 10, 2024
On February 10th, Mike and I made it home from three weeks in New Zealand in time to attend the Destination Art show reception on that same day. I had a landscape painting accepted to this juried show, titled “Laguna Lake, San Luis Obispo.” The painting outing that resulted in this piece was one of two in which I teamed up with Shelley, an artist friend of my usual painting buddy, Harvey. We had recently lost Harvey, so Shelley and I teamed up to paint together, with him as a bond between us.
I almost never enter my landscape paintings in shows, because I have little training in this area of painting. My landscapes have been created by dabbling at creating a good composition and hoping to make something decent. I have learned a few strategies from painting more than three dozen landscapes, reading books, and watching instructional videos. Yet, for me, landscape painting has almost entirely been a means of spending some time outdoors with artist friends. I don’t expect to compete with the products of professional landscape painters, who have spent as much or more time and effort mastering their craft as I have devoted to becoming a skilled figure painter.
Tricia and “Laguna Lake, San Luis Obispo”
January 4, 2024
Happy New Year! Mike and I were making rather merry during December, so I took a vacation from painting, for the most part. I did continue working about 12 hours on “Mutual Devotion,” which is nearing completion. I still need to work on the hat and background, toning down both, and to add some texture to the clothing.
“Mutual Devotion”
My painting, “Daydreamer,” was on display at the Palos Verdes Library during the months of November and December. I’ll retrieve it in a few days.
My older brother bought “Dalaram’s Aria” and I gave him “Sweet Dreams,” a painting of his only grandson, as a present for his 75th birthday. He likes the painting, but I’m not sure he is as fond of it as I am. I enjoy the highlights in John’s blond hair, the convincing look of relaxed slumber on his face, the flow of the lines directing the viewers eyes around the painting and then back to the toddler’s face, and the way the word “Awesome” undulates on his shirt. It was the last portrait I completed before beginning my studies with Lance Richlin. When I showed this sample of my work to my new teacher, he said, “Well, you’re not a beginner.”
“Sweet Dreams”
I’m looking forward to attending the Saturday portrait workshop, which resumes this month. Four-and-a-half of my paintings in 2023 began with live models in this portrait workshop (one is only half finished). I don’t think I’ll be able to attend the workshop until mid-February, as I am arranging a celebration with Mike’s family and a few friends in honor of his 70th birthday, on his actual birthday, Jan. 13th. A week later, Mike and I will head for New Zealand for 2½ weeks. I’m not sure there will be a February blog message; certainly not one early in February.
December 4, 2023
My final show for the year won’t end until the week of January 8th. Until then, my painting, “Daydreamer,” and the rest of the show can be viewed at the Palos Verdes Library. The address is 701 Silver Spur Road, Rolling Hills Estates, CA, US, 90274.
Tricia and “Daydreamer” at Palos Verdes Library reception
This month, I decided to refine my painting, “Una Mujer de México.” It was fun for me. I wanted to subdue the background tapestry above the model’s head, so that it wouldn’t compete for attention with her lovely profile. I also felt the need to make the model’s head more three-dimensional, as well as emphasize the dramatic light effects. I’m going to show you the “before” and the “after” versions so you can decide for yourself whether my time was well spent.
Holiday Sale
Most of you have seen my house and know that it isn’t huge. I am out of wall space, so, this month, I’m offering for sale some of my landscapes: “Goldilocks and the Three Oaks.” “Bridget’s Apple Tree,” “Descanso Gardens in Spring,” and “South Coast Botanic Garden in Fall,” are available for half price–$200 framed. These are all 11×14” paintings.
“Goldilocks and the Three Oaks”
“Bridget’s Apple Tree”
“Descanso Gardens in Spring”
“South Coast Botanic Garden in Fall”
Two framed portrait paintings are also available for nearly 75% off, or $300 each. “Double Devotion” was inspired by a mother I observed at one of the Polliwog Park summer concerts in our neighboring town of Manhattan Beach. She was a mother tenderly embracing her toddler son, which made an interesting contrast with a full-sleeve tattoo of bright red roses on her arm. I don’t care for tattoos, but I thought recreating the scene would make for an edgy painting. I didn’t wish to invade the privacy of the people I wanted to paint by taking a photo, so I decided to recreate it as a concept, making up my own figures and the tattoo. This is a 24×18” cotton canvas, in a custom frame.
“Delaram’s Aria” was created based on a video I took of an opera singer at one of artist Alexey Steele’s Classical Underground concerts. I was quite taken by Delaram Kamareh’s elegant and animated presence as she sang for us. This is an 18×24” cotton canvas, framed.
“Double Devotion”
Finally, I have selected some framed paintings from early in my effort to become a serious painter. As I do with all of my art, I spent many hours on these paintings, working to refine them to the best of my ability. These are available for $100 each.
“Austrian Alps” 18×36” oil on canvas. Summer, 2014 (This painting is unframed, but the painting of the scene continues around the painting’s edges, making it a finished piece.)
“Winter Delights: Poinsettia, Apple, and Almonds” 14×11” oil on a Belgian linen panel, framed. Fall, 2015.
“Mime and Monkey are Friends” 12×12” oil on canvas. 2016
“Abalone Shell and Seminario Vase with Flowers”
Mike and I thank you for your interest in our joint project. I do the painting , he created and maintains my website.
November 5, 2023
I was pleased to have my painting, “Daydreamer” accepted to the Palos Verdes Library District annual show. The reception will be on Friday, November 10, at 7:00-8:30pm. It is my 16th show for the year. This will probably be my last art show this year. The holidays are upon us—yay—and painting time gives way to making merry with others. The Anaheim show ended Nov. 5th with a closing reception. My paintings of Gustavo Dudamel and Alice Paul came home.
I continued slogging away on “First Love” (my temporary title—until you or I come up with a better one) and also resumed work on a portrait from life that I began in the portrait workshop I started attending from time-to-time this year. In this workshop, artists have three hours to capture the essence of a live, clothed model, either in a drawing or a painting. I painted a model named Grace on two occasions, and had the portrait I completed accepted to the CA 101 show last summer. I am including a photo of that painting, alongside the one I’m still working on, hoping that you’ll find it interesting, and that you’ll see a resemblance.
“First Love (Unfinished)”
I ran across a list of qualities for assessing artwork that I found interesting. When I was a college teacher, I worked on a committee, and even ran it for a few years, that helped faculty in various fields define and measure what they were attempting to teach their students. The two most difficult fields of study that I remember grappling with were art and philosophy. The philosophy faculty insisted that two of them could teach their introductory course, have no overlap in content, and both faculty members could be doing an excellent job. I thought about this comment for about 10 seconds, and then asked whether they thought it was important for students to take the Introduction of Philosophy course, and they universally agreed that it was. So then, I asked why. I thought that question would help us get to the essence of that course. Apparently, the essence did not involve content. So maybe it had something to do with honing thinking skills. I didn’t get an answer to my question that day.
With the art instructors, I also found a firm resistance to defining what they were trying to impart in their students. I have taken college art classes within the last 15 years, and I could write quite a few stories about the confusion I experienced from a student’s point of view as to what was expected of me. I’ll merely relate one experience (not the most outrageous tale, but the shortest): I was taking a summer school class in beginning oil painting. It was the second-to-the-last day of class, and I casually asked the teacher, “So Carolyn, (I used a familiar form of address, because she wanted her students to address her this way, and also technically, since I out-ranked her on our campus, as she was a part-time instructor.) how does a student get a grade in this class?” She answered me in her usual slow drawl: “Well, if you attend class…and turn in your assignments…” I wonder whether every student who did that received an A grade.
I felt sure that criteria could be formed that would be useful in identifying what art faculty wanted students to learn, which could be formulated in such as way so that these criteria would be useful in assessing whether students had made progress. Our art faculty refused to do this. I deferred to them, but got to thinking about the matter and came up with three or four criteria of my own, such as skill and creativity. I was delighted when, after I retired, I read a book that outlined a set of criteria. What follows is the list that I came across in The Art Instinct by Denis Dutton. The main idea is that what constitutes art is universal, not culturally bound.
- Direct Pleasure: The art object is valued as an immediate source of pleasure in itself, not essentially for its utility in producing something else that is either useful or pleasurable.
- Skill and Virtuosity: The making of an object or performance requires and demonstrates the performance of specialized skills.
- Style: Objects and performances are made in recognizable styles, according to the rules of form, composition, or expression.
- Novelty and Creativity: Art is valued and praised for its novelty, creativity, originality, and capacity to surprise its audience.
- Criticism: Wherever artistic forms are found, they exist alongside some kind of critical language of judgment and appreciation.
- Representation: In widely varying degrees of naturalism, art objects, including sculptures, paintings, and oral and written narratives, and sometimes even music, represent or imitate real and imaginary experiences of the world.
- Special Focus: Works of art and artistic performances tend to be bracketed off from ordinary life, made a separate and dramatic focus of experience. A work or art or artistic event, is an object of singular attention, to be appreciated as something out of the mundane stream of experience and activity.
- Expressive Individuality: The potential to express individual personality is generally latent in art practices.
- Emotional Saturation: In varying degrees, the experience of works of art are shot through with emotion.
- Intellectual Challenge: Works of art tend to be designed to employ human intellectual and perceptual capacities, at times stretching them beyond normal limits. The full exercise of mental capacities is in itself a source of aesthetic pleasure.
- Art Traditions and Institutions: Art objects and performances are created and given significance by their place in history and traditions of their art.
- Imaginative Experience: Objects of art provide an imaginative experience for both producers and audiences. The experience of art is marked by its decoupling imagination from practical experience.
In Southern California, where I live, I would estimate that Items 4, 9, 10, 11, and 12 above are often viewed as being the most important criteria of merit. I’m thankful that the aspects where I have strength, Items 1, 2, 3, 6, and 9, are sometimes recognized by judges at art shows. I’m well aware that my work is out of sync with current trends in art.
October 5, 2023
Both paintings that I submitted to the Anaheim Art Association 59th Juried Open show were accepted: “LA Philharmonic Orchestra Conductor Gustavo Dudamel” and “Suffragist Alice Paul.” These are two of my best paintings, and yet neither one got so much as an honorable mention in this show. You may recall that my painting of Dudamel took a first-place award last month at a comparable show. That was the first show in which I had entered my painting of Dudamel, so I hoped that the painting might also get noticed at the Anaheim show. My painting teacher told me to pay attention to whether my paintings were accepted to shows, but not so much as to whether they won awards. In part, he holds this view because he is convinced that awards are often given to cronies.
“Gustavo Dudamel”
“Alice Paul”
This is the third year in a row that I have submitted two of my best paintings to the Anaheim show, and had both accepted. We artists are all trying to figure out what criteria judges use to determine the merit of a painting. For most art shows, judges are rotated. As a result, one year my work might be accepted, and even earn an award, but the next year, it might not even be accepted to the same show. For me, it seems wise to keep making paintings that are meaningful to me, and to not take the rest of the process of getting my work seen too seriously.
Mike and I took a vacation this past month, so much of my typical painting efforts were suspended. However, I can provide a peek at the serious piece I am currently working on. It is one of my mother/child series. I don’t have a name for it yet. Feel free to suggest one.
September 1, 2023
I was delighted to win a first place award for my painting of Dudamel at the Carlsbad Oceanside Art League’s 71st Annual Open Juried Show. Mike and I hadn’t planned to make the lengthy drive to attend the reception and awards ceremony, but changed our minds at the last minute, given the situation.
Tricia and “Gustavo Dudamel” at COAL show in Carlsbad
The Torrance Cultural Arts Center show morphed into an opportunity to have my painting of Alice Paul displayed in the Del Amo Mall for a month. There was a reception at the mall with the artists, as well as the mayor and other city government officials.
Tricia at Del Amo Show Reception
I attended the Saturday portrait workshop twice during August. On both occasions, I drew a portrait instead of painting one. The first time, I had intended to paint, but forgot my palette. A fellow artist gave me a piece of paper, a pencil, and a drawing board😊. The next week, I decided to draw again, because it had been fun the previous week.
Meanwhile, I have been working on my next “main event” painting, which is a double portrait of a mother and babe, with a landscape behind it. It has been progressing well, in spite of a couple of logistical issues. For one thing, the faces are in shadow, so the mother’s teeth need to look more gray than white, without looking as though they are decayed. The second challenge is that the values have a fairly narrow range, which can make it difficult for the viewers’ eyes to rest on a focal point. Oh, and one more thing—the forest in the background is lovely, yet distracting. I’ve got these and no doubt other challenges ahead of me.
My painting, “Farm Girls Supper Club Member” is in the CA 101 show, which is open until Sept. 10th. This show is one of the most extravagant and creative shows in the South Bay area.
Tricia at CA 101 with “Farm Girls Supper Club”
August 8, 2023
This month, I ran across a French painter’s website with a version of my painting that he had painted! Again, I don’t think he improved upon my version, and he cropped the infant out of the scene! Hmm—the guy claims to be a French painter, yet his website is in English. Maybe that’s fake too. At any rate, this is the fourth person I have discovered duplicating my painting.
My painting, “Farm Girls Supper Club Member” was accepted for the CA 101 show. This is a special event in the South Bay, and this will be the last one. The show has been held annually for 10 years.
“Farm Girls Supper Club”
“Almost Shirtsleeve Weather” is currently in an excellent online show featuring portraits. The Show is called “Portraits,” which is run by an outfit in Canada. https://www.gallerium.art/p/portraits-2023.html?TP=artworks&PN=7 The same outfit accepted “Shopping with Mommy” for a show entitled “Children of Men.”
My portrait of Alice Paul is hanging in the Del Amo Mall, on the second floor, near Dick’s Sporting Goods. I’m thankful that it is hung quite high on wall, so that passersby can’t touch it.
“Alice Paul”
The portrait I painted of Gustavo Dudamel was accepted for the Carlsbad Oceanside Art League (COAL) 71st Fine Art Open Annual show. The show has opened and will run until Sept. 2nd. The reception will be on August 13th from 3-5pm at 300 Carlsbad Village Drive, Suite 101, Carlsbad, CA.
“Gustavo Dudamel”
July 3, 2023
My painting “Shopping with Mommy” won an honorable mention in the Destination Art Associates Show. As usual, the reception was a lively affair, with loads of good food and wine. I was delighted that a dozen of my friends accepted my invitation and attended the event. Destination Art is not only a fabulous venue, thanks largely to Robin Johns, who joined the staff as Vice President in 2020, but also DA puts on the best reception of any show I have attended in Southern California. Mike contributed to the fabulous food by making a batch of granger cookies from a much-loved and often used recipe of mine that dates back to my babysitting co-op days. One of the co-op mothers found this recipe and it soon became a favorite of the entire group.
Tricia at Destination Art Reception
If you haven’t done so already, please go to the Destination Art website by July 7th and find the Associates Show for 2023. Vote for your favorite art piece in the “Art Lover’s Choice” section. I have two paintings in the show, but don’t feel obligated to vote for one of mine. There are 90 other paintings in the show. https://www.destination-art.net/associates-show-2023
This month, I attended four sessions of the three-hour Saturday portrait workshop in Los Alamitos. I don’t expect to finish each portrait, since I have been creating a new one each Saturday. For me, this is an unsustainable pace, since my lifestyle diverts my attention to other matters.
I have finished my painting, “Farm Girls Supper Club Member.” I submitted a photograph of it to a show this past week. This woman was one of the models at the portrait workshop.
“Farm Girls Super Club Member”
Besides my “Farm Girls Supper Club Member” portrait, I also began and finished “Kayla Goes Casual” this month. I have been enjoying creating portraits with intensely detailed faces and hands, combined with forming the hair and clothing in a looser and more painterly style. This gives the painting a sense of movement and vigor, it seems to me. Lance, my portrait painting teacher, would heartily disagree. His skillfully rendered paintings are impressive, and yet, there is something still or static about them. A good example of how my style is departing from Lance’s is my painting, “Shopping with Mommy.” I painted it myself. Then, I showed it to Lance and he suggested ways to refine the face and hands. After that, I snatched the painting away from him, because I felt certain he would want to have me homogenize the wild hair and other aspects of the painting that I created in a looser manner, and liked very much. The DA show judge, Paula Vukmanic, who awarded this painting an honorable mention in the current DA show, wrote her thoughts about my painting on the award certificate: “This little portrait was so skillfully rendered. Strands of hair balance the delicate features and warm joy in the face. Beautiful, intimate color harmony and composition.”
“Kayla Goes Casual”
I discovered that my painting, “African Mother in a Yellow Dress” has been plagiarized by three different companies, with prints being offered for sale online. At first, I thought I should confront the outfit that was offering copies of my painting for sale, so I went to the website, and under “contact us,” I wrote a message telling them that they had plagiarized my painting and needed to take it down from their website. As soon as I did this, I noticed that two other business enterprises were also selling copies of that same painting of mine. What’s almost humorous is that one of the outfits had paid someone to paint a horrid copy of my painting, so that I would be surprised if loads of copies of that one have been sold. It would have been so much easier, not to mention more honest, and probably more successful if these people had contacted me for a high-resolution photograph and offered me a share of the profits.
“African Mother in a Yellow Dress” (my painting)
“Fake African Mother”
The Friends of the Redondo Beach Arts (FRBA) is having a fundraiser on behalf of the last CA 101 show (this fabulous event has run annually for 10 years). The show is going to be held (as it was last year) at the Redondo Beach Historic Library, so I donated my plein air painting of that building to the silent auction that will be held at the fundraiser. I found a decent frame for it, which I happened to have on hand.
“Redondo Beach Historic Library”
June 5, 2023
While Mike and I were in Europe, I had some paintings accepted for shows. “Shopping with Mommy” was accepted to the “Tears and Smiles” show through CaFé.
“Daydreamer” and “Shopping with Mommy” were invited to the “Bellissima!” show through CaFe’.
The “Precious” show offered through CaFé, accepted my “Portrait of Alice Paul.”
Mike and I returned from our trip on May 20th. Since then, I have spent half a dozen hours working on my painting, “Farm Girls Supper Club Member.”
Meanwhile, I have had the two paintings that I submitted to the Destination Art Associates Show accepted. Those paintings are “Daydreamer” and “Shopping with Mommy.” The reception is on June 10th from 3-5PM. Destination Art is located at 1815 213th Street, Torrance, California.
I am hoping to arrange a trip in June to see my brother and his wife in Oak Park, my daughter and her husband in Santa Barbara, and my longtime friend, Kathy, in San Luis Obispo, was well as a new plein air painting partner, Shelley, in SLO.
Unfortunately, I did not manage to take photos of interesting Europeans during our trip in May. There is an embarrassment factor that gets in the way of good shots, both from my position of wanting to respect the privacy of others, and that of the local people, who might consider a photo to be an invasion of privacy or to have religious beliefs that forbid such photos. At any rate, Spaniards and the Portuguese look and dress as we do, so obtaining scenes from times past were not typically on offer.
April 27, 2023
This update is being posted early, since Mike and I are leaving for Europe on April 28th. Wish me luck on snapping a few painting-worthy photos.
“Suffragist Alice Paul” was accepted for a show in Thousand Oaks. I dropped off my painting with my brother George and his wife, Alicia, to be delivered to the show after Mike and I are gone. “I get by with a little help from my friends,” as the Beatles put it. Thank you!
This month, I worked on two portraits using live models at the portrait workshop. I haven’t finished either, but I’ll show them as they are so far. This portrait class continues to be great fun.
Ta-da!—My portrait of Dudamel is finished! I only took me 10 months! Of course, I worked on several other paintings in the meantime, because I often became sick of looking at “The Dude.” I mentioned to Lance Richlin, my painting teacher, that while learning more about Spain in preparation for our trip, Mike and I saw video of a church known as the Sistine Chapel of Spain, which contains elaborate dome and ceiling paintings that took the famous artist who created them an entire sixteen weeks to do them. Not to compare myself with one of the best painters in Spanish history, but it is pretty deflating to spend nearly a year working on one portrait painting, when that guy managed to paint maybe 50 figures on a dome in a few months! Lance’s reply was that those artists who painted on cathedral ceilings could get away with sloppy work, because no one is able to scrutinize their work up close. Oh, yeah, that must be the explanation 😉.I won’t be doing any painting for the three weeks of our trip to Europe, so next month’s blog entry will be rather short or non-existent.
April 1, 2023
I hope you had a fun St. Patrick’s Day and weren’t hit too hard this past month by nature’s waterworks and other surprising weather patterns. In California (as most of you know), we had so much rain that I couldn’t keep up with the weeds in my yards. Therefore, a couple of weeks ago, I paid my gardener extra to pull out about a thousand of them. I haven’t see him since, and he generally comes weekly. He’s probably still recovering from the effort.
During March, I attended two Saturday morning, three-hour painting workshops of a live model. I find these events simply delightful. About a dozen artists gather, and most draw the model. The woman in charge of the workshop, Ying Liu, puts on a lovely playlist of music, and we are all in our bliss for three hours. The set of portrait workshops Bridget Duffy and I attended is over, but a new session is due to start on April 15th. Due to my participation in these workshops, I was invited to be one of six “demonstration artists” at the Los Alamitos “Weekend of Art” show. I also had two of my earlier portraits from the portrait workshop in the show, “Una Mujer de Mexico” and “Daydreamer.” “Daydreamer” won 3rd place in the show.
I haven’t been plein air painting in 10 months. The portrait workshop Bridget Duffy and I have been attending is really my thing. People fascinate me more so than lovely gardens. I enjoy flowers and unusual-looking plants, but don’t feel much desire to paint them. It’s a social occasion for me. I had planned a five-day car trip from March 31st to April 4th, which would have included some painting time with a friend in San Luis Obispo. Unfortunately, my daughter caught a non-Covid type of cold, so I had to postpone my visit.
This past month, I drew my own hand and painted the hand in “Daydreamer,” so I’m counting that as practice too.
March 5, 2023
My painting, “Shopping with Mommy” was at a Thousand Oaks show of the California Art League during the month of February.
My brother George made some suggestions to me about my landscape painting projects. He thought that since I’m an artist who likes to put in details, perhaps I should steer away from plein air painting. The time limit inherent in plein air painting practically demands an impressionistic painting style. Something George wouldn’t know about, but which is also a limitation of plein air painting is that it isn’t feasible to lug along a mall stick to hold my hand steady while painting, or a slew of tiny brushes for delicate detail work. George thought that if my landscapes weren’t done out in the field, I could use larger canvases which would allow for more detail and the finished paintings would also be more commanding of attention, as he put it “worthy of a living room wall.” I told my figure painting teacher about this idea and he agreed with George.
These ideas made me think about what I could do differently. It’s true, I could take photos and paint from them. To some extent, I’m already doing that, as I generally finish my plein air paintings back in my studio from reference photos. However, photographs don’t capture the actual shades of color in a scene; in fact, they look shockingly different from an artist’s view of the scene when painting en plein air. The shadows in a photo are darker than in life and more uniform. The highlights are also problematic, because many photos are over-exposed so that the highlights are so large that they obscure the midtone areas, which reveal the true color of an object. On every object, there are highlights, midtones, and shadows. All three of these are distorted in a photo. The colors caught by the camera cannot be trusted. For one thing, most cameras don’t do justice to the vivid red colors one can see in real life. For this reason, I like to at least begin a landscape painting outside.
I could consider making larger paintings, since I don’t carry my equipment on my back and I don’t feel pressured to complete my painting before packing up. Even though I find it challenging to work with the 11”x14” size I use now, I could at least bump the size up to 12”x16”. In that case, the only drawback is that there aren’t many readymade frames in that size, but I usually order custom frames anyway, so that is a minor concern. I have not gone on plein air painting outings with my figure painting teacher, but on the rare occasions when he could be prevailed upon by his other students to teach them plein air painting, he has insisted that they use an 8”x10” canvas! I mention this because the size I have been using is about average.
A further drawback to plein air painting with a large canvas, is that if there happens to be any sort of wind, the canvas can act like a sail and either fly off the easel, or, if secured properly, topple over the easel as well. Most easels used outdoors are lightweight, so that they are less burdensome to carry. Some landscape painters make a small draft of a scene outdoors and then return to their studios to make a large painting of the same scene, probably using reference photos to remind them of details.
Last month, I spent no time at all painting landscapes. I devoted fewer than 10 hours trying to finishing up my portrait of Gustavo Dudamel. I am tired of working on that painting, so I mostly spent time on other pieces.
My friend, Bridget Duffy, suggested I accompany her to a live model drop-in portrait drawing/painting workshop on Saturday mornings. We went together twice during February. Back in my studio, I finished the first painting quickly, using a reference photo. Since the model was from Mexico, I titled this painting “Una Mujer de Mexico.” I was reminded of how tricky it is to use a reference photo compared to painting a person from life. The colors and lighting are completely different, just as with plein air painting.
The second painting I made is an unrefined study at this point, so I won’t include a photo of it in this blog. This model wore a full-length black dress and a large-brimmed black hat. Since her long hair was also jet black, my painting of her is not all that colorful. I decided to make her hat and dress navy blue, but that didn’t help much. In my mind, I’m calling this unfinished study “Elvira,” since the model reminded me of her, sans the deep cleavage.
Since I had a family get-together to attend on the following Saturday, Bridget went without me. She sent me a couple of reference photos of the model that day, who was so lovely that I painted a study of her from the reference photos Bridget sent to me. I managed to complete a painting of her in 10 hours, and submit it, along with my “Una Mujer de Mexico” to the Los Alamitos City art show. Artists attending this live model drawing/painting workshop were offered an opportunity to submit their pieces to a juried show at no charge. Painting 18×14 portraits from life is challenging for me but also quite thrilling. Our “teacher” (she paints the model alongside the students and thus doesn’t do much instruction) puts on a fabulous playlist of music from opera to mellowed versions popular rock-n-roll oldies. I told her how much I enjoy her music. I added that painting a figure while listening to gorgeous music—it doesn’t get better than that!
As you look at the two paintings below, you can get an idea of the differences between painting a live model and painting from a snapshot. Notice the dramatic light effects in the painting done from life.
I completed two drawings of hands this past month, and am nearly finished painting Dudamel’s hands.
February 1, 2023
I was pleased to have my painting, “Shopping with Mommy,” accepted for a California Art League show in Thousand Oaks during February. The opening reception will be on Saturday, February 4, 2022, from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm. The address of the Thousand Oaks Community Art Gallery is 2331 Borchard Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. There will also be a closing reception on Sunday, February 26th from 12:00 pm to 2:00 pm.
This month, I was a bit distracted by preparations for a birthday luncheon I decided to put on to celebrate Mike’s birthday with his ample family and a few of our friends. After the party, I got back to my art projects. I was weary of working on my portrait of Gustavo Dudamel, so I diverted my attention to a plein air painting I had begun with my artist friend Bridget Duffy last summer at the South Coast Botanic Gardens. I’m far from being an expert in landscape painting, yet I enjoy these outings because of the companionable aspect, as well as the freedom it allows me to employ artistic license to alter the actual scene in nature to create a pleasing and interesting composition. I don’t seem to be able to complete a painting on the spot, so I have learned to take reference photos, in order to finish the paintings back in my studio. Below is the painting I finished up this month.
For me, plein air painting is an especially challenging struggle when the scene in front of me is an array of green plants of slightly different colors, with no particularly attractive shapes and contrasting colors that present themselves. I get into this predicament in part, because I go on painting expeditions with a companion and for that reason don’t always get to select a spot that I find compelling. Bridget is good about sharing the decision as to where we’ll set up, although we often pick different aspects of the scene to paint. She is a superior landscape painter, having had about 45 years of professional work as a set painter in Hollywood. I get the impression that she despairs over my shortcomings in this style of painting, but she patiently tries to tutor me—being a good daughter who was raised by two teachers😉 Below is an example of a painting for which I had to create some interest when the scene before me was pretty much a mass of uninteresting shapes of green.
I made a plan with my figure painting teacher to spend two hours a week drawing body parts, in order to become more familiar with the underlying bone and muscle that result in convex surface bumps and concave surface areas. Since I am working on Dudamel’s hands, I have drawn hands for the past two weeks. This has been surprisingly fun for me, because, once again, I am challenged to create the drawings as I see fit.
January 2, 2023
Happy New Year! Each year at this time, I make resolutions. My artistic goals have been the same over the past couple of years–to enter at least 10 shows and to produce a dozen paintings. I generally exceed the first goal and struggle to make the second one, often coming up one painting short. This is partly because, as my skills improve, I often pull my older paintings off the wall, take them out of their frames, and repaint them in a more polished form.
This happened last month. Two of the four paintings that I offered for sale in December were purchased. The buyer bought three paintings in total. Luckily, I felt quite finished with two of the three paintings, after having spent dozens of hours revisiting both of them to get them to where I could see no further improvements that were needed. As it happened, the remaining painting was one on which I had changed the background color and pattern twice before and still was unhappy with it. I got the buyer’s permission to make changes. Of course, it makes no business sense to work on a painting that has already been sold; in fact, it could be risky. I could alter something that the buyer likes about the painting. None-the-less, after I softened the background color and made it more varied, I started to see portions of the face and hands that I could improve. Twelve hours later, I was finally ready to let the painting dry again, and I am much more pleased with it. Below are the “before” and “after” photos, so you can decide what you think. I purposely left Joshua Bell’s shirt untouched, trying to figure out how John Singer Sargent varied his style within his paintings from detailed realism when depicting a face to impressionistic renderings of less important aspects of the painting, such as the garments worn or the room’s furnishings.
I was disappointed that I didn’t quite finish my portrait of Gustavo Dudamel. Everything looks good except that the hands could be refined. My work on it was slowed by holiday socializing and preparations for Christmas. I was also sidetracked by reworking my portrait of Joshua Bell. Below is a peek at the almost-finished piece.
December 4, 2022
I completed a small, new painting: “Alaskan Adventure,” which I gave to my friend, Ken Root as a parting gift. He moved to Henderson, Nevada last month. Ken is an avid kayaker who has practiced his hobby in Alaska twice.
My painting of Gustavo Dudamel is nearly finished. I am still refining his hands.
Women in Hats
I like wearing hats. I think they look nice, but the reason I wear them is that Southern California is a sunny place, and I need to protect my skin. I seem to find women in straw hats rather fetching, as I have three among my small collection of portraits. The first was “African Mother in a Yellow Dress.” I approached her hat somewhat intuitively, whereas I spent many hours laboring over the folds in her dress, and I found that both efforts worked out well. The second was “A Day in Paris,” a painting inspired by the film “April in Paris,” starring Doris Day. This was the rare occasion when I created a painting specifically for an art show called “April in Paris.” I used as my model, a horrifyingly bad image from one frame of the movie. Doing this pretty much insured that I would end up with an impressionistic painting rather than a highly detailed one. I cropped it so that it looked as though she were drinking a glass of sherry or wine by herself, although in the film, she was sitting with a male companion. In the film, her handbag rested on the table, obscuring her arm and hand, but I decided to disappear the purse and imagine her arm and hand. More recently, I painted “Shopping with Mommy,” in which the little girl is wearing a large-brimmed straw hat. I expended most of my effort on her face and hands, thinking about John Singer Sargent’s work. He would often paint detailed faces and then finish less important portions of his paintings, such as his subject’s evening dress, in a much more abstract manner. The combined effect is delightful. I decided that the girl’s hat, hair, and shirt could be more abstractly rendered, as they were meant to be in the periphery of the viewer’s attention.
Holiday Sale:
During the month of December, the following four paintings are available for nearly 75% off, or $275 each.
“Flamenco Dancer”
“Double Devotion”
“Joshua at Play”
“Delaram’s Aria”
November 3, 2022
The Anaheim show ended on October 30th, and I retrieved my two paintings. I was accompanied to the closing day reception by my artist friend, Bridget Duffy. She engaged in a couple of interesting conversations with some of the top artists in the show, which made my experience of the day all that more worthwhile. This may be my last show this year, except for possibly one at the Palos Verdes library. I have had paintings displayed in 10 shows during 2022.
In October, I finished “Laguna Lake, San Luis Obispo.” I began this piece, on a plein air outing with Shelley Lawrence, back in August. I set it aside until October, when I decided to finish it using reference photos. I may have a buyer for it before the paint has had time to dry.
What am I currently working on? I am finishing my portrait of Gustavo Dudamel and am perhaps halfway through creating a small, 8×8” painting for a friend who is moving to another state.
So many artists in our local community are retired people. It seems to me that the most effective ones paint the scenes around them. Last Sunday, Bridget and I talked to a fabulous artist, who freely made use of his granddaughters as models, to a wonderful effect. Since I have no grandchildren, I have found that I need to cast about for youngsters as subjects, since I do enjoy painting them. My sister-in-law, Alicia, generously provided me with a variety of photos of her grandchildren, which resulted in “Child’s Play.” My brother, George, shared a photo of his grandson, John, who had fallen asleep with the family’s cat, and his mother snapped a photo to commemorate that sweet moment. My brother named the painting I created from that photo “Sweet Dreams.”
My most award-winning painting so far was developed to represent my sister-in-law’s daughter-in-law with her daughter. These two are related to Alex, who is depicted in “Child’s Play.”
While an untrained artist, I attempted a couple of self-portrait drawings (of me in my teens and 20s not shown here), as well as two drawings each of my two daughters. Following are one of the colored pencil drawings I did of Megan, as well as one of Kristy. I also drew my niece, Kathy.
Eleven years ago, I did a drawing as a homework assignment in my first life drawing class, by using myself as a model. I didn’t agonize over making the image look as much like me as possible, since that wasn’t the purpose of the assignment. I liked the drawing well enough to make a painting of it later, which I called “Dancer at Rest.” I recently made another quick study of my face (last year), mostly as an attempt to capture light effects.
This year, I painted a portrait of my cousin’s granddaughter, Autumn, named “Shopping with Mommy.” My goal for next year will be to paint figures with a strong implied narrative.
October 3, 2022
The Anaheim Art Association’s international show has been going on for a month and will continue throughout October. “Almost Shirtsleeve Weather” and “African Mother in a Blue Dress” were entered and both paintings were accepted. The in-person reception/award ceremony will be on Sunday, October 30th from 1pm to 3pm. Mike and I plan to be there, so please let us know if you are going and might wish to get a ride with us to the reception.
The location of the Anaheim show is MuzeO Carnegie Gallery, 241 S Anaheim Blvd., Anaheim CA 92805 (corner of Broadway & Anaheim Blvd.). There is limited parking on Anaheim Blvd. and Broadway. If you park on Center Street Promenade, check the parking signs carefully. It is easiest to park in the parking structure off Center Street Promenade. Go through the gate on the second floor of the parking structure and get a ticket. There is a walking entrance from the Center Street Promenade to the Gallery.
I had two paintings accepted for the California Art League’s Gold Medal Exhibition, Mankind/Nature. This is an entirely online show. The opening reception will be on October 15th, 7-9pm Pacific time via Zoom. The exhibit will also be online at CAL’s website www.californiaartleague.org. My paintings were a bit of a “family affair,” since I was depicting three people across the two paintings, all belonging to the same family. The paintings are “Child’s Play” and “Almost Shirtsleeve Weather.”
A few months ago, I lost one of my plein air painting buddies, Harvey Cohon. I decided to look back on our delightful outings together. Following are nine paintings I painted with Harvey, and in some cases, I happened to have a photo of the painting he made on our outing.
Greengate Farms, San Luis Obispo: This was our first painting. I was still using watercolors when I traveled, but painting with oils at home. Soon, I decided that our painting expeditions were serious enough so that I should paint in my accustomed medium.
Righetti Ranch Road (off Orcutt Road), San Luis Obispo: This was a delightful outing, because we found shade where we could set up. There was a horse and a calf present in the scene, so I decided to try my hand at capturing them.
Pismo Beach Butterfly Preserve: This plein-air painting was made in the place where Monarch butterflies rest annually in a Eucalyptus grove on their migration to Mexico. Harvey and I went to this site on a misty, moisty January morning. The light that filtered through this grove of trees appeared to be almost lavender. Just before we got started, I snapped a photo of Harvey at his easel. Eventually, we had to pack up, when a light rain began to fall.
Shell Beach Dinosaur Caves: The day after painting at Pismo Beach, Harvey and I went out again. We had only an hour before fog completely obscured our view. I finished the painting using reference photos I had taken as soon as we had set up our easels.
San Luis Obispo Barn on Miossi Ranch: Harvey and I painted this barn twice. Normally I am not interested in painting the same scene more than once, but the color scheme was so different on these two occasions, because the first painting was made in summer and the other was created in winter, so that I was okay with giving the scene a second look. In this—the first—version, I left out the distant mountains, because they appeared to have the same value as the trees, which I thought would have made the background less well-defined.
Chamisal Vineyard in San Luis Obispo: Harvey and I approached the manager of the tasting room, which was not busy, to ask whether we could set up and paint the vineyard. We had a great time capturing the grape-laden vines as well as the colorful leaves strewn on the ground.
San Luis Obispo in January After Rain: After a generous amount of rain, San Luis Obispo and surrounding areas become transformed from hills covered with golden grasses to hills blanketed in wild flowers and kelly-green grass.
Morro Bay Inlet: To capture this scene, I had to drag my small-wheeled cart of equipment through soft sand for a tortuous distance in order to follow Harvey to a site he thought would be a good one for us to paint. When I saw it, I agreed with him. Within a year, I revisited the scene with another artist friend, Bridget Duffy, and we painted this scene from the opposite bank. Instead of having the sailing boats in the foreground and the canoes in the background, my new painting depicted the canoes in a fair amount of detail with the rest of the foreground, and the small sailing boats in the distance.”
Sycamore in Islay Park, San Luis Obispo: This was created on my last painting outing with Harvey. One of his plein air painting friends, Shelley Lawrence, and my plein air painting buddy, Bridget Duffy, joined us on this occasion.
September 1, 2022
I entered “Alice Paul” and “On the Beach” in the Carlsbad Oceanside Art League’s 70th Annual Open Show. The COAL Gallery is at 300 Carlsbad Village Drive, Suite 101, Carlsbad, CA. Both paintings were accepted. “Alice” won an honorable mention. The show closes on September 4th.
The SFVACC “Women Artists Making Their Mark” online show accepted “African Mother in a Yellow Dress.” The online reception was impressive, in that many women artists infused their art with a concern over the environment and protested the Supreme Court’s recent overturning of Roe vs. Wade. I felt admiration for their passion and ability to channel it into an effective piece of artwork. I wondered whether I was being tone deaf for endeavoring to crank out scenes of sublime human experience “while Rome burns.” I also found it interesting that my portrait of suffragette Alice Paul was rejected for this show, which leads me to hypothesize that this group is looking forward rather than backward in its concerns about women’s place in society.
Anaheim Art Association’s international show is about to commence. “Almost Shirtsleeve Weather” and “African Mother in a Blue Dress” were entered and both paintings were accepted. I dropped them off on Friday and was impressed with the quality of artwork I saw all around me. The in-person reception/award ceremony will be on Sunday, October 30th from 1pm to 3pm. I’m batting 1,000 with this art group, since the two paintings I submitted last year were also accepted.
The location of the Anaheim show is MuzeO Carnegie Gallery, 241 S Anaheim Blvd., Anaheim CA 92805 (corner of Broadway & Anaheim Blvd.). There is limited parking on Anaheim Blvd. and Broadway. If you park on Center Street Promenade, check the parking signs carefully. It is easiest to park in the parking structure off Center Street Promenade. Go through the gate on the second floor of the parking structure and get a ticket. There is a walking entrance from the Center Street Promenade to the Gallery.
On August 22nd, Shelley Lawrence and I ventured out to paint a scene at Laguna Lake, San Luis Obispo. I did not complete my painting, and was gratified to say, when more than one person asked to see my unfinished painting, that my painting teacher, Lance Richlin, had advised me not to show any unfinished work. I know that paintings often look weird and disappointing as they are taking shape. I confess that I don’t always follow Lance’s advice, but on this occasion, I was happy to do so. I took several reference photos of the scene of our plein air outing, so I’ll be able to finish the landscape painting when I can spare the time. I haven’t completed a painting in two months, so I may elect to finish one of three landscape pieces I began this year but haven’t completed.
This month, I’m offering a sale on some of my landscapes: “Goldilocks and the Three Oaks.” “Bridget’s Apple Tree,” “Descanso Gardens in Spring,” “Chantal’s Garden in Blueberry Season,” “South Cast Botanic Garden in Fall,” and “Redondo Beach Historic Library Building” are available for half price–$200 framed or $100 unframed.
Meanwhile, I continue my efforts to complete a portrait of Gustavo Dudamel but have been waylaid at times by my four-day trip to Oregon in July, a five-day trip to visit my people in California to the north in August, as well as several days preparing to host people at home this summer on three occasions.
On Aug. 29th, I volunteered for four hours for the CA 101 preparations. The show is going to be engaging. Curator Nina Zak Laddon has done it again, producing a magical experience. The reception is this Friday, Sept. 2nd from 5-8pm, in the Redondo Beach Historic Library building in Veteran’s Park, in South Redondo. I’ll be pouring wine during the reception from 6:30-8pm, so please consider dropping by if you are local. The CA 101 Show is located at 309 Esplanade, Redondo Beach, CA 90277.
August 1, 2022
My painting of “Suffragette Alice Paul” was awarded an honorable mention certificate from the judge of the Destination Art Associates’ Show in June and July.
There is a YouTube video of me discussing my painting, “Children Branching Out,” which was also featured last month in the Destination Art Associates’ Show: https://youtu.be/kPkQ-r2kDEk
“Suffragette Alice Paul” and “Shopping with Mommy” were accepted to an online show with “Artopia”, put on by the San Fernando Valley Arts and Cultural Center, which runs from Aug. 1st through August 31st. View the show at: https://sfvacc.org/events/artopia-2022. The virtual artist’s reception is August 7th, from 5-7pm PST.
The Carlsbad-Oceanside Art League (COAL) show accepted both of the portraits I entered, “Suffragette Alice Paul” and “On the Beach.” The reception will be Sunday, August 7th, from 3-5pm. The show runs from Aug. 3rd through Sept. 4th. The location is 300 Carlsbad Village Drive, Suite 101, Carlsbad. Let me know if you would like to ride with Mike and me to the reception or meet us there for dinner.
“Shopping with Mommy” was accepted for the CA 101 show in September. The in-person reception for this show will be Friday, Sept. 2nd at the Redondo Beach Historic Library building.
This month, I’ll be adding “Bridget’s Apple Tree” to the store.
My current project is a portrait of LA Philharmonic conductor Gustavo Dudamel. I have been told I shouldn’t show an unfinished painting, but one of my girlfriends expressed an interest in my painting process, so I’m including a photo of the unfinished painting. I first drew Dudamel and then proceeded to paint over the drawing.
The Story of My Painting, Almost Shirtsleeve Weather (See Page 1 of Store)
I had just finished a painting of my older brother’s step-grandson, Alex, and decided to try a new one inspired by the same family. I found an image that, if modified, would be the spitting images of the mother and older sister of Alex, the boy in my previous painting, which I named “Child’s Play.” I made up the background for the new painting, which depicted a typical British Isles landscape, with clouds, fog, and a hint of blue skies. My figures were in shirtsleeves, so I decided to title the painting “Almost Shirtsleeve Weather (ASW),” to capture the enthusiasm of folks living in cold weather when they encounter the first hint of spring. I had a bit of fun with the lower left corner of the painting, where I imitated a landscape squiggle that is like the one in the lower left corner of the “Mona Lisa.”
“ASW” won 3rd place at Front Porch Gallery, which was the first time I had entered the painting in a juried show. It was accepted along with both of the other paintings I had entered, “Child’s Play” and “A Muse.” The Judge was Nancy Hillis, MD, a psychiatrist who creates non-objective (abstract) paintings, so I was surprised she liked my hyper-realistic painting. That same year, I entered “ASW” in the 2019 Torrance Artists’ Guild’s annual show for members, and it won The Higbee Award, an award with a cash value that Judge, Bob Mackie, gave to paintings of some merit, but not in the ranking for place winners. In that same show, the other painting I entered, “Soy Nativo de California” won second place in the show. “ASW” was also accepted to The Pasadena show this same year. The Pasadena show did not offer awards.
Subsequently, “Almost Shirtsleeve Weather” was accepted for the CA 101 show in 2019. It was also accepted to a Carlsbad Oceanside Art League’s show in 2021. That same year, it was shown in the Associates Show at Destination Art in 2021. The judge was Desmond O’Hagan, who awarded “ASW” first place in the Emerging Artists’ division. The other painting that I entered in that show, “Child’s Play,” won the Art Lover’s Choice Award.
This year, “ASW” was accepted to the Thousand Oaks Community Gallery show in May 2022 and the South Bay Festival of Arts/TOCA Fine Arts 2022 Juried Show for June 2022. “ASW” is about ready to retire, since most shows require that paintings entered be completed with the past few years.
July 1, 2022
I completed my painting of the Redondo Beach Historic Library building, only to learn that contrary to the past two times when I participated in this activity with the same group, on this occasion, the paintings weren’t collected from the artists to be sold at auction. Instead, publicity was generated by the plein air event and posted on the FB website. This was what the Friends of the Redondo Beach Arts group was after. The artists are free to do whatever they wish with their paintings. It could be yours for a couple hundred—lol.
The second painting I finished in June was “Shopping with Mommy.”
I had paintings accepted into two shows in June. The South Bay Festival of Arts, put on by the Torrance Cultural Arts Center, took place on June 25th, and I thought the collection of paintings was remarkably good. There were a handful of wonderful portraits, which is unusual for a local art show. My piece, “Almost Shirtsleeve Weather,” was in good company.
The other show is still ongoing. It is at Destination Art in Torrance, and can also be viewed online. I have two paintings in this show: “Suffragette Alice Paul” and “Children Branching Out.”
Destination Art made videos of artists discussing their paintings in the current show. They published the video clip of me discussing my painting, “Suffragette Alice Paul.” The link is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjbUsOxWi-c.
The Destination Art show has an art lover’s choice award. I hope you’ll take time to look at this show and possibly vote for one of my two paintings, “Suffragette Alice Paul” or “Children Branching Out.” Feel free to choose another painting if you prefer it. To vote, go to https://www.destination-art.net/associates-show-2022 On the screen that pops up for the Associate Artists 2022 Exhibition you’ll see a turquoise blue box that says “Art Lovers, Click Here to Vote for Your Favorite Painting.”
Bridget Duffy and I enjoyed a plein air painting session June 22 at the South Coast Botanic Gardens. We spent a lovely afternoon painting, but unfortunately, I don’t yet have a finished painting to show.
June 2, 2022
My art activities for May included showing my paintings in two shows, one virtual and one in person. The in-person show was at the Thousand Oaks Community Gallery and was put on by the Thousand Oaks Art Association. The online show was sponsored by the California Art League, a group I joined during the pandemic. This show has the theme, “Reflections,” which I chose to interpret as the inner musings of a person. Both of the pieces I entered in this show were accepted: “Suffragette Alice Paul” and “A Day in Paris.” The second painting is an older one of mine, but last month, I reworked some aspects of Doris Day’s face, hair, and hands with which I had grown dissatisfied.
“Almost Shirtsleeve Weather” was accepted for the Thousand Oaks Art Association Show.
“Suffragette Alice Paul” in the California Art League’s Show, Reflections
“A Day in Paris” in the California Art League’s Show, Reflections
I was accepted to two additional shows that will take place in June. One is the Destination Art Annual Associate Artists’ Show in Torrance and the other is The South Bay Festival of Arts show in Torrance. Both shows are in-person.
On May 28th, I participated in a plein air painting event with a dozen other local artists. We all painted the Redondo Beach Historic Library located in Veteran’s Park. This event was a fundraiser for the Friends of the Redondo Beach Arts. The artists agreed to donate their paintings for a silent auction, intended to raise money for the CA 101 show in September, which is put on by The Friends of the Redondo Beach Arts. The last time it was held, in 2019, this show was cited by our local paper, The Daily Breeze, as the best art show in the area. I have to agree that each year the show has been spectacular. The silent auction will be held on June 10th at a lovely Redondo Beach home. Details can be found on the Friends of Redondo Beach website.
The Redondo Beach Historic Library was designed by architect Lovell Pemberton and opened in July of 1930. A three-story building, the library has a combination of Spanish and Dutch colonial styles with arched windows and gables on its north and south wings. Art Deco moldings adorn the front facade, and windows are set in almost every wall to allow unrestrained views of the bay. The library served Redondo Beach residents for sixty years, until a new library was built on Pacific Coast Highway. A Moreton Bay Fig tree to the left of the building is itself a registered landmark.
April 26, 2022
This month, I completed two paintings: Suffragette Alice Paul (4/12/22) and Moon Rising Before Sunset at Harbor Lake (4/19/22).
In 2020, I ran across a remarkable sepia photo of Alice Paul, circa 1915. I was quite taken with Alice Paul’s determined gaze, combined with her frilly outfit and slim waist. There seemed to be a dynamic tension between her fierce expression and her delicate femininity. I wanted to capture that. I cropped the photo and began my effort. Eventually, I decided to add color. I had learned through Wikipedia that Alice was known for her violet eyes. I used Elizabeth Taylor’s famously violet eyes as a model for the color. The background in the photo was so blurred and odd-looking that I decided to alter it somewhat.
Alice Paul lived long enough to play a role in the writing of the Equal Rights Amendment. In 1923, in Seneca Falls for the celebration of the 75th anniversary of the 1848 Woman’s Rights Convention, Alice Paul introduced the first version of the Equal Rights Amendment, which was called the “Lucretia Mott Amendment” at the time. In 1972, the Equal Rights Amendment, designed to guarantee protection against sexual discrimination for women under the law, passed both houses of Congress and was sent to the individual states for ratification.
On April 15th, I had an opportunity to join members of the California Art Club to paint a full moon that was expected to rise before the sun set. I had not tried painting a landscape in potentially dim light, but was excited about trying it. My painting buddy, Bridget, and I sat side-by-side, with half dozen other painters within a 20-foot space. It was challenging to make something interesting out of a lake shore lined with non-descript trees and other greenery.
My painting, “Almost Shirtsleeve Weather, was accepted for a show in the Thousand Oaks area. I’ll be at the reception on May 15th from 1-3pm.
March 25, 2022
” Two new paintings were completed in March: “Naked Coral Tree at South Coast Botanic Gardens” and “La Familia Ranch, San Luis Obispo.”
February 2, 2022
During this plein air outing in August of 2021, I was with my artist friend, Bridget Duffy. There was plenty of yellowed grass in the open fields, but the area around the creek had plenty of water, which turned it a lush green. In the distance is Morro Rock, in the middle-ground you see a Snowy Egret, which I think may be my favorite bird, because of its long, slim, elegant look and its intriguing movements. The Egret was not in this position. It was facing the two ducks and behind them far enough to be out of the scene, but I so much desired to place the bird I admired into this painting.
I abandoned this piece for several months to work on other paintings and then picked it up again in January. It was completed January 31, 2022. An artist friend of mine, Shelley Lawrence, described this painting as having some dreamlike qualities to it. I love that depiction and see that quality in it myself.
January 21, 2022
One of my paintings was selected to appear in the 2022 Cheap Joe’s Art Stuff Reference Catalog. (Click inside the box to scroll down through the paintings.)
CJAS_2022-Art-GalleryJanuary 13, 2022
Palos Verdes Library District Annual Community Art Show – November –December 2021
My painting, “African Mother in a Blue Dress, ” was given an honorable mention.
October 30, 2021
Our friends, Ray and Dale, accompanied us to the Anaheim Art Association’s annual show, where I had two paintings accepted: “Jane Goodall and an Infant Chimp” and “Soy Nativo de California.”
October 26, 2021
Our Torrance Artists’ guild art show reception took place on October 23rd. Our photographer took photos of the award winners. I’m pictured with my painting, “On the Beach.”
October 18, 2021
The Palos Verdes Library District Art Show 2021. November 10-December 31st., 10am-4pm. 701 Silver Spur Road, Rolling Hills Estates, CA 90274. The two pieces of mine that will be in the show are “African Mother in a Blue Dress” and Chelsea on the Verge”.
October 19, 2021
The Torrance Artists’ Guild’s annual show is online now and will be available for viewing throughout October. I invite you to see what our artists have been creating. Please be sure to visit and vote for your favorite painting.
Torrance Artists‘ Guild Online Art Show Dates: Monday, October 4 through Sunday, October 31 (view through the Destination Art website at www.destination-art.net), with an in-Person Show Reception: October 23, 2021, 1-3pm (at the Torrance Civic Center Garden Rooms, 3330 Civic Center Drive, Torrance, CA) There will be refreshments and live entertainment. A slide show of the online entries will be running on a large-screen TV and the winning artwork will be present “in person”.
I have two paintings in this show: “Children in a Tree” and “On the Beach” As the current president of this art group. “On the Beach” won an Honorable Mention award, so it will be at the show.
Honorable mention award winner.
October 11, 2021
I had two paintings accepted for the Anaheim Art Association show. The in-person reception is on Oct. 30th. My two paintings that were accepted for the show will be on view until Nov. 7th at 250 E. Center Street, Anaheim CA 92805 . These paintings are “Jane Goodall with an Infant Chimp” and “Soy Nativo de California”.
September 23, 2021
My painting, “African Mother in a Yellow Dress” was accepted for an online art show put on by the California Art League, with the theme of Light and Shadow. I became a member of this group when they accepted my painting, “Child’s Play” for their spring 2021 show, which had the theme: “Sublime”.
The current show will be available from October 1st through December 31, 2021 on the California Art League web site, www.californiaartleague.org. After that date, the exhibit will be in CAL’s archives.
ARTISTS’ RECEPTION: There will be a virtual (on-line) reception on Friday, October 8, 2021 between 5:00 and 7:00 p.m. on Zoom Video. All participating artists are invited to attend. Each exhibiting artist will be given approximately 1 minute to talk about their work. Details will follow.
September 15, 2021
I had one painting accepted to the Carlsbad-Oceanside Art League’s 69th Open Juried Fine Arts Show. That painting is “Almost Shirtsleeve Weather” and can be seen in person from Sept. 1st-Oct. 3rd at
Carlsbad-Oceanside Art League,
300 Carlsbad Village Drive
Suite 101,
Carlsbad, California
June 15 2021
People’s Choice Award Winner
In addition to winning First Place in the Destination Art annual show, with “Almost Shirtsleeve Weather”, I won The People’s Choice Award in the same show for my other painting, “Child’s Play”.
June 12, 2021
TAG Award Winner
My painting, “Righetti Ranch Road, San Luis Obispo (off Orcutt Road), won the People’s Choice Award for the month of June, 2021 in my art group’s competition among members. The group is called the Torrance Artists’ Guild, and I’m its president this year.
This painting was done “en plein air” and is part of a series of scenes in the San Luis Obispo area. Other paintings in the series include “San Luis Obispo in January After Rain,” San Luis Obispo Barn on Miossi Ranch,” “Chamisal Vineyard in San Luis Obispo,” “Wolff Winery in San Luis Obispo,” Pismo Beach Butterfly Preserve,” Greengate Farms, San Luis Obispo,” “Montaña de Oro State Park,” and “Morro Bay Inlet”.
May 24, 2021
The Destination Art Emerging Artists first place winner was Tricia Alexander, with Almost Shirtsleeve Weather. The artist judging the artwork was Desmond O’Hagan, of Denver, Colorado, who is a familiar figure to Southern California artists, as he frequently offers workshops here and at other locations across the country.
The show is online and in person through June 12th. Destination Art is located at 1815 West 213th Street, Suite 135, Torrance CA 90501 (You may reserve your time and date for an in-person viewing by sending an email to LocalArtists@destination-art.net) For online viewing, go to https://www.destination-art.net/
May 8, 2021
California Art League’s show “Sublime” accepted “Child’s Play” and “Almost Shirtsleeve Weather” for their online show. The show runs from May 5th to June 5th.
May 7, 2021
I had “Child’s Play” accepted to the Ode to Spring online show at the Huse Skelly Gallery. It begins on May 8th. See it at https://www.huseskellygallery.com.
I had two paintings accepted for the Associate Artists 2021 Exhibition at Destination Art. The show goes from May 3rd through June 12th. The paintings are “Child’s Play” and “Almost Shirtsleeve Weather”.
It is in the gallery and online.
Destination Art
1815 West 213th Street, Suite, 135,
Torrance, CA 90501.
April 16, 2021
I had two paintings accepted to a show with the theme “Models in Motion.” They are “Joshua at Play” and “Child’s Play.” Please visit the exhibit at www.sfvacc.org any time between now and Friday, April 30. This will be exclusively an on-line exhibit.
April 13, 2021
My painting, “African Mother in a Blue Dress” won the People’s Choice Award this month in my art group’s monthly competition. The group is called the Torrance Artists’ Guild.
This painting was part of a three-painting series of African mothers and their infants. The other two paintings are “African Mother in a Yellow Dress” and African Mother in a White Dress”. Later, I expanded my series to include mothers and infants who were not African.
