Drakes Estero

Can't seem to stop things from sloping to the right.

Paintings in process

All oil on canvas. Sizes vary from 28"x52" to 20"x28". Top to bottom: my grandfather shooting a gun in Mexico in the 70's, muni depot after a storm (bad photo - the whites are not so bright), and a view of the bay and Oakland from Marin (from memory) with freaky fog and haze.

Rocks and fog

The fog painting works as an icy landscape when it's flipped over.  Freaky.

Even more watercolor

More watercolor

Plein air again today.  I'm learning to slow down with the watercolors.  The crazy skies looked like a mess of high clouds and low fog with a bright blue background. Gave me a chance to experiment with how to work with wet on wet.  All are 9"x12".

Bolinas Lagoon plein air

Plein air oils!

Plein air paintings done over the last few days. All are oil on canvas or canvas panel, and most are about 14"x18" (the bottom one is 20"x28"). This is my first week of plein air oils. Watercolor on location now seems easy by comparison. Most of these will be reworked at least a little bit in the studio. Still learning how to handle all that wet paint on the canvas and keep it from turning to mud.

Figure drawing

I finally made it out to one of the figure drawing sessions down in the mission. All drawings are pencil or conte. Poses range from one minute (sketches at the bottom) to twenty minutes (sketches at the top).

Rowdy jay style

Back to drawing birds at the California Academy of Sciences. It's been a while since I've done any drawing with sharp pencils (last time I drew the birds was in November), so I thought I might start with conte. It was messy and kind of like making sculpture. Lots of fun and pretty surprising at the same time.

More plein air

Plein Air in the Headlands

Process

This is a painting from memory of the fog coming in just below the top of Mt. Tam last week. It looked like someone had pulled a large curtain around it. Very strange.

More from China Basin

Process shots

Plein air in Dogpatch