Painter of Southern California's
Changing Vistas

Here you'll find my blog tracking the latest work from my easel as I paint the beautiful and constantly changing vistas of southern California, from the Pacific Ocean all the way to San Diego's back country and on to the desert.

Contact me by email at justpleinair@hotmail.com.

To see my gallery web site and find available paintings go to: www.DianeWeintraub.com

 

Also on this site and of interest to the plein air artists are these articles:

Five Tips for the Plein Air Artist
Painting From Photographs

Read the Story of Tom's Commission and See Progress Photos

This landscape painter is in the middle of a larger painting (see more in previous post) and needed a change of pace. I was Googling around the old internet and stumbled upon some abstracted landscapes that sparked my interest. Well one thing lead to another and out popped two small abstracts based on the ocean and the other on the hills of the back country. While it sure was fun, it's not a direction I'm committed to.

There was, however, a third canvas that I played around with... and that's another story. I like what happened there and am now working to develop that direction. It's hard to describe in words and it's too soon to show anything here. Maybe it will work out and maybe not: sometimes you feel like a nut and sometimes you don't, as the candy commercial said;)

Been so long since this landscape painter posted to my blog here that I almost forgot how to do it;) Been sprucing up the house including a re-do on the guest bath and that's got me making way too many trips to Home Depot, or just The Depot as we've come to call it. If you've been through any kind of remodel you know how it goes and all the seemingly endless decisions that must be made... and the tile guy for sure does not want to hear me say. "I don't care what kind of back-splash goes in there, just let me paint!"

Have been working on a larger painting of a location I love down at Otay Lake. It's a spring view and 24 inches by 36 inches. My studio is kind of crowded at the moment so I have to move and adjust everything in order to make my way from one end of the canvas to the other. Really need to move the studio around but that will have to wait until the bath, which is next to the studio, is finished.

I've come to a stopping point on the lake painting and my instinct tells me that it needs to be turned to the wall for a while so that my eye can look at it afresh. Here's what I have so far and it has a ways to go.

Can I just take a moment to share how disruptive it is to have home improvement projects underway?? Was to go out painting last week but had to cancel because the guy needed to come back. I keep repeating over and over, "it will be nice when it's all done!" (That's true, isn't it?!)

It's been a little while since this landscape painter posted here on my blog. There have been some system problems since the server guys sold to another provider, yadda, yadda. You know how it goes. The issue for me has to do with changing a post because that causes all subsequent posts to disappear! Think I've figure out a "work around" so here goes with an update on what I've been working on in the studio.

The 20 by 36 inch painting of Borrego Badlands in springtime is finished and so here's a photo of it. I really liked working on this one so it's a little sad to see it finished... is that strange? The desert in bloom is not to be believed... makes you consider all the miracles that happen around us every day!

"Borrego Badlands in Bloom", 20 by 36 inches, oil on canvas.

Here's a real kick and a good reason for me to clean out the studio more often. Was organizing the finished paintings according to size and checking which still need a final finish coat, and found a painting that was almost but not quite done! Have not the foggiest idea why it got in the finished stack a bit too soon! But have to say that I really like this one of the fall sycamore trees at Mission Trail Park. So here it is.

"Sycamore Trail", 14 by 18 inches, oil on canvas.

Have started a 24 by 36 inch painting of a back country lake that's turning into a lot of fun to paint. I shouldn't jinx it by saying that and the fates will probably get me back later;) Will post some progress photos in a while as soon as it looks like something I'd want anyone to look at.

This landscape painter has been spending many an hour finishing up a 20 by 36 inch painting of the Badlands area in the Borrego Desert. Not one to be drawn to desert scenes - usually too forbidding - I found that the desert in bloom is too magical to resist! This particular location is near Ocotillo Wells in the southern area of Borrego and when it blooms it comes in later than the northern section and with different wildflowers. On a good year with a lot of winter rain the lupines are plentiful!

So here it is for your amusement. I took this snapshot as it stood on my easel and a more professional image will surely follow in a couple of days... so I make no promises about color accuracy! But at least this newly finished painting already has a title and that's a real event for me!

"Borrego Badlands in Bloom", 20 by 36 inches, oil on canvas.

All at Once

As a landscape painter I rarely get blocked. Some artists, and I saw this a lot when I was teaching at the college, get blocked in their work frequently. Not me. Quite to the contrary, there doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day to do all that my active mind envisions! Sure, sometimes when I have the sniffles or just need a day off, the brushes stay in their big ceramic pots waiting. But most of the time very little gets between me and the tubes of paint.

I appreciate my luck in this regard because I see how some of my artist friends struggle with blocks. We're all thrown a road block what with active family lives and the demands of attention and time from those who depend on us. Some excellent artists I know have day jobs in addition to family responsibility and that puts the largest limit on time left for art.

Psychological blocks are the most fascinating to watch play themselves out. I often told student facing blocks that art is a great big mirror into ourselves and that the problems that block our creativity are the same problems that block our lives. Learn to overcome your art block and you have a coping skill that will serve you in life.

Just another reason why art should be taught in schools!

 

This landscape painter has a lot going on right now, or at least that's the way it feels. Been painting out on location a lot at the moment... and why not with the spring weather so perfect and those wildflowers all blooming! Here's a quick study done at Torrey Pines Reserve recently with the ocean off in the distance.

The challenge of course is to catch in paint the feeling of the location and the light, and in this case it was morning light from about 9:30am to 11, in a very short period of time. When you're painting on location, which I love with a passion, all of your skills are tested to the max. You must make good decisions fast... and the decisions you make during the first 10 to 15 minutes of the session often dictate what happens later and if the painting is to be any degree of successful. This is a scene I could have worked on all day but once the sun moves you have to give it up.

Meanwhile back in the studio the waves in the seascapes roll on! Here are just some of my recent efforts as I come to an even deeper understanding of this really complex subject matter.

As yet untitled! 18 by 24 inches, oil on canvas.

Also untitled... I am so bad about titles!! 12 by 24 inches, oil on canvas

"Sunset and Tall Palms" 12 by 24 inches, oil on canvas.

 

I did something to my left knee, the one that was injured in the car crash a year ago. I can't tell you what exactly what I did. Woke up at 2:30 last Tuesday morning to, ahem, use the "facility" and could barely walk on it! It was swollen and hurt like heck. Saw the ortho nurse and she recommended RICE: rest, ice and elevation.

Now I have to say that this landscape painter is used to being very active but I've learned from experience over the last year negotiating the long-term health of my knee that I tend to over-do if I don't watch myself. So this time I've really done what the nice nurse recommended to the letter. And guess what? It worked like a charm. Still have some swelling and lack of mobility (not to mention pain) but am getting back in the studio! Yippee!

There's a slow drizzle of rain going on outside at the moment so it's a fine Sunday afternoon inside catching up on laundry and the like. The weather forecasters here in San Diego are rumored to have the easiest job on earth: sunny and 65 degrees... all the time. But I don't agree. I think it's very difficult to predict the weather due to air masses coming at us from the Pacific north west or the Gulf of Mexico not to mention the southern Pacific ocean.

The easiest way to know what the weather is going to be is to simply look out your window. But then again, take this morning. At 8AM it was sunny and we could see a bright blue ocean and a sky that hosted just a few clouds. Now just before noon, what do we have? Rain!

See, a landscape painter's life revolves around the weather. The weather conditions determine your day to a great extent. Is it nice and sunny? OK, then I'm going out to paint. Is it raining? OK, then I'm for sure working in the studio!

This landscape painter has been working quite a bit in the studio of recent days as I figure out the ocean and all of her moods and faces. From morning to night, from sunny to rainy, it's all different at the ocean. I swear the Pacific changes her mood about every 15 minutes or so!

In preparation for studio painting I spend hours staring at the ocean, the waves, and the sky, making sketches or taking notes, and backing it all up with photos of what I observe. It's a wonderfully entertaining and challenging adventure... and far from over:)

Here's my latest painting fresh from the easel, and as you can see this composition is fast becoming one of my faves: the angular look down the beach with breaking waves. If I paint it a hundred thousand times, each painting will be different... as is the ocean every 15 minutes;)

"Pacific Beach Afternoon", 12 by 24 inches, oil on canvas.

UPDATE: 4PM: The sun is out and it's a perfectly sunny post-storm afternoon! The water is a 1000 shades of green from lightest and most delicate teal to deepest emerald. Can't wait to paint that!!

I love to paint but the next best thing is watching someone else paint. If you look over a painters shoulder while she's at work then click on this link any Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday from 10:30 to 1PM, PST, to watch Denise Rich painting live. Other times you can play the tape of the last session.

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/denise-rich-cow-and-western-painter

This landscape painter loves her paint brushes! Most of the painters I know leave their brushes for a good soak in a solvent after a session painting. Most just retrieve the brush from the soaking pot and wipe it dry before starting to paint again. Not me!

To set the record straight, I've had some of my brushes pushing 20 years now. Still have a few Edgar Degas by Grumbacher that must go back to at least 1990! Now that was a great brush: hog hair bristles from China (back when an import from China had a different meaning and they were known for the very best hog hair bristles) and a wooden shaft that fits the hand like a glove. Too bad I can't get those any longer.

Now I really like Isabey's Special made in France. They keep their shape well and can take a bit of abuse if I want to scrub in a wash to start a painting. The shaft is pretty good but not quite as curvy as the Edgar Degas. I did have one ferule (the metal part that holds the bristles to the shaft) separate from the wood... but Super Glue worked fine as an instant fix.

Good brushes are expensive! And with the cost of everything creeping up now it pays in the long run to take extra good care of your investment in brushes. Here's my method.

After a painting session I wipe as much of the oil paint from the brush as possible. The most difficult bit of paint to get at - and the one that will make your brushes lose shape fastest - is the paint that creeps up to meet the bottom of the ferule. If it dries there it pushes the bristles apart and that causes loss of good shape in the brush. So I wipe and scrub as best I can in that area... think of it as washing behind the toddler's ears;)

Next, I let the brushes soak a while (an hour or two) in Gamsol, an orderless mineral spirit (OMS) by Gamblin. I like it because tests show that it releases fewer solvent particles into the air than others making for a more environmentally friendly studio.

After the soak I again wipe the brushes as best I can with Scott paper towels. A lot of painters prefer Scott because of the low particle leave-behind. They're good!

Next the brushes get a bath using The Masters Brush Cleaner and Preserver and warm water. That takes care of removing any left-behind solvent or paint.

It's a complex ritual but it pays... my brushes are always sparkly clean and ready to preform as well as they did the first day I used them!

So what are my brushes busy doing lately? Catching the rough water of winter before spring takes over entirely... which should be any minute now! Here's the latest two paintings off my easel for your review.

"Winter Waves", 18 by 24 inches, oil on canvas

"After the Storm", 12 by 24 inches, oil on canvas.

This landscape painter has just come back from a quick trip to the desert and I gotta say, it's in bloom! I really look forward to going out to Anza-Borrego to check out the year's crop of desert wildflowers.

From December on, which is the beginning of our rainy season, I watch the weather report like others might follow a sports team. Did it rain hard in the mountains? Did the rain make it over the mountains to the desert? How much fell there? Are the days between rains hot enough  - but not too hot - so as bring out the flowers big-time? Have the blooms started yet? What's blooming right now?

This year's bloom is pretty good and worth the trip for sure. But last year's bloom was just a bit bigger. What's missing are the desert sand verbena, that purple ground cover. Don't know why they're not out but they sure are in shorted supply.

If you go, stay overnight because the desert sunrise is well worth it! I'll just have to paint that!!

Studio paintings of the desert will have to wait for a stretch because my attention is still all wet... continue to work on the ocean and sunset series. Here's the latest off my easel.

"Waves and Rocks", 16 by 20 inches, oil on canvas.

This landscape painter, as you can easily see by recent posts, is thoroughly infatuated by the place where land, ocean, and sky meet here in San Diego. You ever notice that the ocean will not stay still? It's in constant motion? If I were a portrait painter I'd tell it to "sit still for a while!" But I'm not and the ocean isn't listening to me... it's just doing its thing.

So the motion of the ocean is one aspect of this particular subject that fascinates. And then there's the light... through water. And reflections. And changing atmosphere or amount of moisture in the air to diffuse that light. Could drive a painter mad! Or at least fascinated;)

"Casa Beach", 12 by 24 inches, oil on canvas.

This landscape painter got an email a while back from a painter who was curious about what paints I use, or as artists say, "what's your palette?" Have to state that I hardly ever met a tubed color of paint I didn't like and find some use for. Also have admit that I never use colors right from the tube. The urge to mix is great within me... and that's not a bad thing;)

So if you are curious too, below is a list of the paints I'm using at the moment for this romp with sunsets and seascapes. 

Mostly I stick with Rembrandt, M. Graham, and Gamblin brands because I like their consistency and texture. So here goes: ultramarine deep, cobalt, cobalt light, cerulean. Also in the blues I'm trying out Prussian and indigo for the last 3 weeks... like the indigo and might keep it. Manganese, pthalo blue and green, veridian, and sometimes good old sap green are on the palette.
 
Here are my yellow-reds: cad yel light, cad yel med, Indian yel, cad orange, cad red med. Trying out and loving: perm rose, quin rose, quin violet, diox violet. Always present are aliz crimson and yellow ocher. Right now am trying Payne's gray instead of ivory black, and like it.
 
When I paint on location it's the basic 9: ultramarine deep, cobalt light, cad yel light or lemon, cad red med, aliz crimson, yellow ocher, burnt sienna, ivory black, white.

Now I ask you, how could I resist this scene? The sky was wonderful and the three tall palms on the left seems to be a crowd stretching to get a better look at the show;) One can only assume there were plenty of tourists up front blocking their view:)

It's sunny and 60 degrees this Saturday and a good day to paint the coast so that's where I'm going. If the high clouds hold it should be a fantastic sunset too. Ya gotta love So Cal!!

"Happy Hour #3", 18 by 24 inches, oil on canvas.

This landscape painter usually loves to blog about what's going on in my artist's life... but not so much lately. Been too busy painting.

When painting in the studio, I don't waste time when I paint. By the time I sit down at a fresh canvas the scene I'm after is fully formed in my mind's eye so I can get right to it. At the first sitting the basic layout is roughed in. It's at this point anyone who sees it might say, "what's that?" But all of the blobs of paint and brushstrokes mean something very specific to me... my painting shorthand, if you will. (Does anyone remember shorthand?!)

The next time I sit down to work I start at the sky and work my way down the canvas fleshing out all aspects of the image as I go. This is the step that takes the longest to accomplish. When I reach a stopping point and step back to take it all in, I'll then decide how much of a mess or a success I've got going there;) Sometimes it's almost done and sometimes there are corrections to be made!

I don't see corrections and adjustments as "mistakes". Once had a professor who pointed out that so-called mistakes were just another opportunity to figure out yet another way to get where you want to go. I like that!

The final phase of work on the canvas is a meditation in restraint. I can see other opportunities and other solutions in the work before me but I know that I need to save those for another painting... otherwise I'd end up repainting an almost finished work. Just bring it on home as best I can right now. That's the last step. Tomorrow is another day, and another chance to paint.

Here's some recent work and as you can see I'm still playing in the ocean at sunset.

"Sunset and Surf", 16 by 20 inches, oil on canvas.

"Rolling In", 16 by 20 inches, oil on canvas.

"Sunset and Cliffs", 12 by 24 inches, oil on canvas.

Here's a little note for those nasty people in Turkey and Indonesia: will you quit spamming me and trying to attach spam links to this blog?! For Pete's sake!! We don't need any more Viagra over here, honest!

Having a gallery space at a retail outlet is a new experience for me. The thought was that everyone can use some art in their life so whatever I hung there should be reasonably and affordably priced.

I hung the work last Friday and have been fine tuning since. And guess what: the first painting sold yesterday! That was fast!!

I thought that it would take a couple of weeks to get noticed and have the first sale, so I was real surprised. Problem is that I just yesterday took my one back-up painting down and managed to squeeze it in, so now I have no back-up. GRRR!

I gotta paint all weekend at least. Not that I'm complaining. You know me... I love to paint!!

Here's the painting that sold. And if you bought it, enjoy!!

Got my gallery space all set up in Pangaea Outpost on Friday and was there yesterday fine tuning when a couple from Oceanside stopped by to comment generously about all the paintings on display. We got talking about good spots for watching the sunset, happy hour, and how spectacular the evening sky has been lately. I had to say "If I painted that the exact way it is, they'd say it was crazy!" They had to agree. Just to put proof to the point here's a photo from a recent evening!

Now how am I gonna paint THAT?!!

Here's a snapshot of my space at Pangaea Outpost. I hope to have a coordinating gallery page here on this blog so you can see an inventory of what's available there. See post below for more info on Pangaea and a link to their web site:)

I continue to paint the seascapes and sunsets series. Can't get away from it! And why bother when the ocean and sky looks so vibrant this time of year? So here are two new paintings, below, from this landscape painter for your amusement.

Someone tried to scam me recently, but since I read some very informative blogs about this sort of stuff I knew at the first email that something smelled fishy. Here's the text of the last email the guy sent... see if you agree that it stinks. Hahahaha!!!

Thanks alot for the response and i really appreciate for the more information you notify me regarding the work. am OK with the price.Am based here in Den Haag, Netherlands, so in order to make this transaction more convenient , I will take care of the shipping and handling..
. So now this the arrangement, i have a shipping company who am going to refere to you as the shipper who will come for the pickup of the work at your location or in your studio, so now once i send out my payment to you through a check drawn from a U.S bank, i shall email you to notify you.
Also am going to add a little excess funds in which after you receive the check the same day, you will deduct your money from the check and transfer the remaining funds on the check to the shipping company so that they can arrange for the shipment through Western Union Money Transfer. So now in other for me to send out the check to you i will want you to email me back with all this below information in other for me to proceed on sending the payment to you as soon as possible.
Name on Check;
Address on The Check,
Phone Number;.

Once i recieve all this information from you i shall proceeds right away and i will issue out the check to you and i shall notify you as well.
Hope to read from you as soon as possible.

"Happy Hour Sunset", 12 by 24 inches, oil on canvas.

"Sunset and Palms", 18 by 24 inches, oil on canvas

As you can see, this landscape painter does love painting the ocean and lately I can't get enough of it. Guess it's more than simply the time of year, which is picture perfect! I really do love the ocean and how it is constantly changing.

A while back the manager of a large local retail place called Pangaea Outpost invited me to exhibit some prints of my paintings, and they have been well received. So the big news is that I'm getting my own gallery space as of February 5th or so.

It's hard to explain the concept of Pangaea, and to say it's a "mall" with 50 different vendors really doesn't give it its due. There's a lot of quality art and gifts at Pangaea and I have liked shopping there for bithday and holiday presents. Here are some pictures so you can get the idea.

Pangaea Outpost
909A Garnet Ave
San Diego, CA 92109
(858) 581-0555

Anyway the thought is to have a place to show my seascapes and sunsets... Pangaea is one block from the beach so it seems a natural fit. Plus, Pangaea does all the packing and shipping! Did I mention that I dislike packing and shipping large paintings in the extreme?

Bottom line? If you see a painting here larger than 11 by 14 inches it's probably at Pangaea. So just email me if you aren't in San Diego and we can get the ball rolling to make that painting find its way to your wall;)

 

Yeah, OK, I'm guilty! If this landscape painter gets into a subject it's easy for me to become obsessed by it. And right now I'm completely obsessed by the ocean. So unlike me because it's usually the mountains and oaks that have my attention and paintbrush... but not right now.

A couple of artists I know discussed this recently: an artist's obsession with a thing and the compulsion to dig deeper and deeper into it. I think that this phenomenon is true for many kinds of artists such as writers and sculptors as well as painters. You want to explore deeply any subject that fascinates you. From the outside it sure looks like obsession.

Here are the results of recent efforts and as you can plainly see they are all sunsets. And right you are... no titles as of yet. I am so bad with titles!!!

11 by 14, oil on canvas

16 by 20 inches, oil on canvas

18 by 24 inches, oil on canvas

12 by 24, oil on canvas

It's beautiful weather here on the left coast and so I'm out looking at the waves and the winter light. Or at least that's my excuse for lounging at the beach now;)

No, seriously, I'm working... hard! Just to prove it here are three new ocean paintings... and I have another even larger on the easel almost completed.

11 by 14 inches, oil on canvas

12 by 36 inches, oil on canvas

16 by 20 inches, oil on canvas

Boo-hoo... rain! Where is the sun???

This landscape painter is not one for New Year's resolutions... sets me up for too much failure;) But how can one not feel the fresh start start aspect to the days now? So I spent a little time yesterday drawing the bones of this composition. Yes, it's from a photo and some sketches: too cold to stand out there at the moment.

Mostly I jump in and paint in the dark values but yesterday the mood was for my 6B graphite pencil. Next the spray fixative goes on and then the paint comes out. Can't wait to squeeze out the paint on a clean palette and jump in! Nothing more exciting that fresh paint ready to go. I'll try to remember to post some progress images but if it goes fast, well, who knows if I'll remember! You get caught up in the moment of painting and one thing leads to the other and , WOOSH, it's all but done. Honest, I'll try to remember:)

9 by 12 inches, graphite on canvas: state 1.

May everyone all the world round be blessed this holiday season with health and happiness, the warmth of family and friends, and even a bit of good old prosperity in the New Year!

I've had a tooth infection and a sinus infection cramping my usual abundant energy but it seems like it's heading out of town in time for Christmas dinner. Thank you, Santa!

Just got an email asking about more progress photos of the Badlands painting that's I'm obsessed with. So here are two recent photos, one a detail that shows how the first layers of paint are lose and go from sky to foreground. You can also see that the dark values everywhere in the painting are right there in place in charcoal with a light wash of dark paint over. After all, first things first. The other photo of the whole painting needs an apology cause it's poorly lit:) Yikes! I'll take a better current photo as soon as the sun comes out. Studio lighting and my camera simply so not get along!

Detail.

Bad studio lighting... sorry!

Newer landscape painters are always interested in one topic: how to start a painting. How-to magazine articles on landscape and plein air are sure to run through the usual steps in beginning a painting. Rightly so because if a painting is poorly started then you spend the rest of the painting session correcting.

Most painters begin by "drawing" in the defining edges and shadows with a dark paint, giving solid landmarks for painting objects. The next step varies by painter but is usually something along the lines of further developing all of the light and dark areas.

I too "draw" with paint on smaller works and that gets the painting going fast. My approach is different for larger works which are begun with a well developed drawing usually in graphite and then charcoal. In that way I am certain that everything is where it should be (or where I want it) and that the dark areas are fully stated. After that all that's left is the fun stuff of painting!

Here's a project that I've been working on for a while, interrupted with patchs of life and other stuff. The scene is of the Borrego Badlands at Ocatillo Wells. It's a foreboding place and a dangerous one too as many settlers lost their lives out there. When you think of wandering about the desert of the southwest, this and Death Valley are the places!

What especially attracted me to this scene was the fact that it was spring and that set up a nice contrast: the foreboding far distance versus the green life in the foreground. So here it is in the first stage with the drawing almost ready to receive paint. Can't wait to get going on this one!!

"Borrego Badlands", 20 by 36 inches, oil on stretched canvas, gallery wrapped.

This plein air painter sure loves painting out in the field on location. However, there are times when it simply isn't practical, not to mention safe! In mid-November on the way back from the beautiful mountain village of Idyllwild we came to this bend in the road. I had already stopped a couple of times to sketch out the view and make some color notes, so I was probably pushing my luck with the changing light to stop at this location. The view caught my interest and I had to do something, so I took a picture right through the windshield!

Seriously, I never imagined that anything would come of that photo. The downsides - and there are many - of painting from photos are serious and a trained eye can usually spot the mischief made by using a photo as your only source. Don't get me wrong, I like taking photos as much as the next guy. Plus, photos are very useful as a supplement to what your eye sees and captures... but only a supplement.

When I got home and checked my images I was super surprised to see that scene captured fairly acurately. I printed it out and was again surprised by the pleasant results. So I though that with nothing to lose except time and a canvas, I'd take a shot at painting it... not exactly as it was in the photo but as my mind's eye remembered it. Here it is for your consideration:)

"Familiar Bend in the Road", 9 by 12 inches, oil on canvas.

Hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving cause we sure did! Lots of food and a relaxing day ending up with Trooper, our rescue dog, down at the bay for a walk... and Trooper to trying to chase the ducks. "No Troops!! No duck for Thanksgiving!!"

Finally finished up my color experiment that started with a strange violet color (a left over tube of paint someone gave me... mystery violet) and orange. Probably not the best of ideas but you know me, I love playing in color! After some time figuring out where I went wrong - and that took longer than I would have guessed - and what needed to be tweeked, here it is for your entertainment.

"Crunch Under Foot", 9 by 12 inches, oil on canvas.

Started this one down at one of my local favorite places, Mission Trail Park. The big sycamore trees have given up almost all of their leaves and the grasses have turned fall colors too. So except for the random snap of green it's all crunching under foot, thus the title.

I really do need to get back to that large desert badlands painting I started drawing on the canvas a while back but my inclination is to paint some more. Hmmm... what to do: have fun drawing or have fun painting?!

Here's wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving! It's my favorite holiday because it's the "everyone" holiday! Plus it makes a whole day out of giving thanks, and that's got to be good.

May you have a wonderful day with family or friend or wherever you find yourself spending the day.

I never met a tubed color I didn't like.

However, this landscape painter has been working on the theory of "less is more" when it comes to tubes of paint. Let me explain. When you travel out to paint, and I do like to do that, it makes all the sense in the world to trim down what you take with. So a limited palette of 7 to 9 tubes of paint seems about right. You don't usually have a lot of time on location before the light changes so you paint smaller paintings. Logical, no?

Back in the studio, well you are free to do what you please:) There's this theory of landscape painting that says that you should use the same or similar paints back in the studio so as to preserve continuity within your paintings go from plein air painted on location to studio paintings. Also logical.

But then there's this problem I have about loving the tubes of paint. It's not just loving the color but also the fun and challenge of coming up with ways to use each of them and their various admixtures with other colors... and let me tell you, the combinations are limitless.

Recently, a painter friend emailed a YouTube video from one of our favorite artists, Karin Jurick. In it Karin explores her color palette as she squeezes out the paints, one by one. It's a riot to watch! Here's the link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAIs1S_zAMI

It got me thinking about how much fun it might be to paint with all those colors. So I drug out a bunch of tubes I don't usually paint with. I did a small painting just to see if it was as much fun as I thought... and it was! Here's the painting I worked on, below. After that I went to the garage and found a tool box of paint tubes given to me by someone who no longer worked in oil. I opened it to find the most unusual colors so I got another canvas and did the under painting in a violet and orange I never touch! Cool!! Am I having fun;) I'll post this second painting as soon as it's dry enough to photograph. It's nice to shake things up every once in a while. Meanwhile here is the first color experiment... and it looks very normal, if I do say so.

"Pines of San Jacinto". 9 by 12 inches, oil on canvas.