Botanical Gardens, SF

Today's plein air painting adventure in Golden Gate Park while hanging out with some of the future BFA students from San Jose State. We started out in the morning at the Japanese tea garden, which by the way has free admission on M,W& F from 9-10 am. We finished the painting session at the Botanical Gardens.

Plein Air @ Lake Merced

Today's plein air paintings at Lake Merced with a few friends. They are both painted in oils on a linen wood panel. The first one is 9" x 12" about 2 hours of painting . The second one is 6" x 8" quick sketch about 30 minutes.

Mo' Drawings

Monday's figure drawing at Riley Street art store. Drawings are from 1's & 2's, 5, 10 and 20 minutes poses. Our model for the night was Shawnrey. She has very energetic and graceful poses, which for me usually always makes for a good figure drawing session.

5,10,15 & 20 Minute Poses

Monday's figure drawing at the Riley Street art store. Our excellent model for the night was Chris Matthews. I got there late, which means I missed the warm up of gestures poses. So for these drawings I wanted to keep that loose rhythmic feeling and combine it with a painterly look of shapes illuminated from light. These poses range from 5,10,15 & 20 minutes.

Lafayette Park, SF

Sunday's outing with the NB Plein Air Painters at Lafayette park in San Francisco's Pacific Heights. It was a nice sunny day but very breezy, I ended up chasing my belongings a few times.

The first painting is the view looking towards downtown on Washington & Clay in the early Afternoon. This was my first attempt in painting a cityscape in oils. I found it to be quite a challenge as I was trying to match very specific geometric shapes that I don't normally paint. It was a good exercise and to make things easier for myself I should add a few square flat brushes the next time I paint a cityscape.

My Second painting is the view looking down Octavia street and a partially covered Alcatraz.

Warm Like Loomis

Saturdays figure painting of Jean at the Riley Street art store basement in San Rafael. Hopefully this will become a regular open workshop, maybe every 2 or 3 weeks. This is about three hours of oil painting on gessoed watercolor paper. The way the lighting and warm colors came out remind me of the 50's illustrations of the legendary Andrew Loomis.

Lunchtime Gouache

Today's lunchtime gouache sketch of the San Bruno mountain.