Monday, December 31, 2007

The Elements of Style


Elements of Style book reviewed on "The Last Outpost Artbook Review"- link to the right. You can also find links to my sketchbook and a few bits of concept art I've done on various projects in this same column.

Thursday, December 06, 2007

Construction Equipment 2


been seeing some extra large trucks lately.
alias sketchbook pro

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Out the window


Quick sketch of some of the buildings out my window on the 11th floor.

Monday, October 29, 2007

Sketching at The Frick pt1


Rainy day so I hid out at the Frick- I'll try and post the other page tomorrow/below-

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Sketching at The Frick pt2



The Whistler in there is even more remarkable than I remember.

Monday, October 22, 2007

construction equipment


a piece of equipment i may or may not have actually seen.

Friday, October 19, 2007

figure painting


did a quick value study- been a while since i did a bit of figure painting. so far so good...

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

10-10-07


been seeing some neat construction equipment around the city.

Friday, October 05, 2007

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

4th of July


Escaped the SF summer heat and went with a cast of characters to the Russian River for the holiday. Got a quick landscape in while nearly everyone was canoeing down the second half of the river.
5x7 oil on oak panel

Friday, July 13, 2007

Off the wall


Its on the wall. Thanks to Moira and Jimmy G for all your help. Ill keep udating this as the walls and roofs go up....

Friday, June 22, 2007

2nd color group


2nd time around is always better than the first...I should probably do a third round-
....think the top one is the direction its gonna go in-

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Island Colors 01


Working on a company related non work project with a couple people here at the office- Ill post the other page of them tomorrow-

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Memory Lane


Lets take a walk down memory lane shall we?

Friday, June 08, 2007

SF Zoo Tuesday


Got to go to the zoo with my work chums this past Tuesday... Ive never been a big animal artist, but it was actually a pretty fun exercise. SF Zoo isnt as depressing as it was last time I went there in the mid 90's.

Thursday, June 07, 2007

Sf Zoo 2


More animal sketches from the zoo-

Thursday, May 31, 2007

May 24th


Return of the afterwork plein air painters! Im glad to be back...pfew! Easy to forget how rewarding and fun landscape painting is. Hope to have more soon.

Monday, April 30, 2007

2 Fistfuls of Cheeks


I got both volumes of Sean Galloways new sketchbooks- hes one of my favorites, great shapes and colors and everything just looks cool and pop culture-y. 25 bucks each- nice printing job with hard covers- Ill scan in some selected images soon. If you like his drawing and want hard copies of the work Id say support the kid and get one or two of his books- more info can be found in the "More Goods" link section of this blog under Mr. Sean Galloway-

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Freedom To Teach Impulse Buy


My Anatomical man came this week and its really cool. Actually, its really big. Was kinda weird and creepy at first, but over the past few days its really grown on me- makes studying anatomy easy- just cause its so much fun to look at it. I hope they keep making more of these.
Theres a couple versions and although I think the flat gray one is more practical cause you can see the masses easier- the colored one, even though a bit distracting is fun to look at- and I realize the benefit of being able to see the seperation from bone to fascia to muscle. Id say just treat yourself and get the colored.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

4-17-07 lunch in Novato


Havent painted landscape in a while- kinda lost sight of why I was doing it- but yesterday I realized doing these little simple problem solving exercises really helps solve some of the bigger problems I have throughout the day.
The colors up here in Marin have definitely shifted with the season...goodbye luscious green fields...

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Hugo Pratt Art Book Review


New favorite Art Book reviewed on "The Last Outpost Art Book Review".

Friday, April 06, 2007

Ryan Boyle



Went out to the galleries last night with the fellas and spotted these really intriguing paper sculptures hanging in the office of the Steven Wolf Fine Art gallery- Nice girl in there let us go back there and check them out. Super cool looking industrial Paper sculptures. Paper.

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Legion of Honor


About a week ago we went and saw this jewelry show at the Legion. I was rather surprised at how much I enjoyed it- there were some fantastic design by the French artists Lalique and Fouqet, and a few others Im forgeting. Really nice classic Art Nouveau . The jewelry itself was amazing as well- old Cartier cigarette cases and clocks. And lots of diamonds. Good show. Recommended.

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Sketchinbookinzee


Latest page from the sketchbook. Doesnt look like I will have any paintings to post this week and I wanted to get something in here. I really need to do more non work realated work....sigh....

Monday, March 26, 2007

March 22 2007


Second time at this pretty good spot. Last time I painted here it was all hot and dry (see August 03 2006 post)....and I left out the trailer park in the foreground again.

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Charles Bargue Drawing Course



Finally picked up this figure drawing book- Gerome is my all time favorite, and my figure drawing sucks, so obviously Im pretty excited about this one. Its a perfect match for Donald Grahams Composing Pictures- another exceptional academic type of textbook for artists. Both are totally out of print-
The Charles Bargue I found at Bud Plant-
If you want a classic figure drawing book- this is probably one of the best.

Monday, March 19, 2007

March 15, 2007


Forgot how nice it is to get a quick landscape in with the warm setting sun on my back. Full on Spring weather up in Marin- great colors the hour before sunset, and nice to hear the birds and see all the animals emerging as it starts too cool off from the increasingly warming afternoons. Kinda like these little canvas boards- after painting on masonite I now can really appreciate the tooth of the canvas.
7x5 oil on canvas board

Thursday, March 15, 2007

03_12_07

First of the afterwork Spring time series- now that day light savings is upon us, the golden hour of colors is much more accessible to me. Seems though that its still not quite enough time though- I set up and had probably 20 minutes before the sun went down behind Mt Tamalpais. Should continue to get darker later as the days go by. Thank goodness for that.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

3_9_07

This is the last time I dont use a hat when painting in the sun. I always thought it was just to look cool- like youre some southwestern artist with your hat- but now I know why you need to paint in the shade. Kept wondering why my colors were so off and super dark when I brought a landscape home...Not that theyre ever that accurate- but I get it now....

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

03_07_07


Back out for lunch. Was using these little paper towels and made such a huge mess- had to wipe the board and started over about half way through my hour session. Been a long time since I went ahead and just started over. Sometimes you really want to- but after a few moments things start to come together. Im pretty sure this wasnt one of those days-

Friday, March 02, 2007

02_27_07

Another rainy lunch spent under the freeway overpass.

Monday, February 26, 2007

2_22_07


Rainy day so I set up under a freeway overpass. Once again ruined by too much texture being picked up by the scanner. Fun day though painting atmosphere- Im pretty keen to continue painting more clouds in the future- raining today and now out my office window I can see some patches of blue.... Couple hours till lunch and Im out there!
5x6 oil on masonite

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Arthur Streeton


A good friend brought back a fantastic Arthur Streeton (1867-1943) book from his trip down under. Great landscape painting found in here- pick it up if you can find it- I saw it on the internets yesterday so it is indeed out there-

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

After Sargent



I watched the movie Elizabeth I last night- I think it was the HBO version or something- not the old one from the 90's. Not too bad of a film- great costumes-
Anyways- Copied some Sargent while I watched, which seems to always be a good thing to do. Since Im so sick of looking at that last shate painting I did, Imonna post this skecthbook page- which is pretty much the only bit of art Ive done in a week that I can show-

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Memory Painting

Im not sure who it was, but I was blog surfing and this guy from socal was doing these really cool "memory paintings"- since I see lots of gorgeous scenery on the way to work I figured I should give that memory painting a try.
This is this little hill just North of Rowland for all the Marin vets-

Monday, January 29, 2007

Wendy Willrich Collection















Made it to the newly and radically remodeled DeYoung for the last day of the "California Impressionists" show. It wasnt fantastic but I always enjoy looking at some Edgar Paynes- they had a couple Bierstadts and I learnt a few new names of turn of the century plein air artists that I hadnt heard of. Favorites included- Alson Skinner Clark, Marion Kavanagh Wachtel, and Thaddeus Whelch. The one Alson S. Clark was by far my favorite. They have such great Modern Fine Art shows in there, and I cant wait for them to get some A list painting shows as well- hopefully very soon in the future.

Friday, January 26, 2007

Title Page

I've nothing to show lately that Im really that happy about... perhaps its the sudden deluge of rain.

One thing though that I never posted was the spread in the GD magazine from last month... They cropped this image down further and used it in a couple other cool ways on some additional pages. Out of all the art they could of used Im glad they used this one-

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

1_12_07


Gorgeous day albeit a little crisp...
Headin to Sundance this week so, bon voyage-y blog, good ole pal-o-mine- see you next week.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

01_09_ Luchtime


It stopped raining, the clouds parted, and everything was green...
Finally was able to get out and paint for lunch.
West Marin 5x7 Oil on clayboard

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Abandoned Market


An abandoned concept of an abandoned market place-

Monday, January 08, 2007

Tropical Shoreline

A layout test from late last fall. Been enjoying just painting values lately.

I think it was Sergent who suggested to only use 5 values; 3 darks, and 2 lights, plus a few incidental highlights and dark accents.

Friday, January 05, 2007

Old-bot



Not my favorite design, but the colors have some positive aspects.

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

old pictures- new place

I canned my website- moving a few old things to this new spot.