Lundberg Rice Plant Summer

How long does it take you to paint a painting?  That's a frequent question to which I can never give a straight answer.  When I first start exploring a new subject I spend months sketching and painting on location, and sometimes just sitting there and absorbing the sights and smells and sounds.  I've been painting Richvale Rice Fields for seven years and have many impressions in my memory bank.  So, when I travelled into private fields with Bryce Lundberg last summer I was prepared for sudden revelations that would stay with me.

I started this painting of Lundberg storage bins with great energy and rapidly brushed on clouds and water and the bins themselves.  But then I came to the intricate delivery chutes that looked so dramatic against the sky.  Wow, they were hard to get straight and create lines that were not too thick or too thin or too dark or too anemic.  If I spent six hours on most of the painting it took me another eight or so for just that daunting upper section.

San Francisco series Two (2015)

Just by looking at this image can you guess its size?  I'll answer after a couple of sentences.  It's part of my second San Francisco series that I'll be showing at the Chico Art Center in late August.  Did that word "second" pique your curiosity about the "first?"  Over a few decades when I was teaching at CSUC and far too tired to paint much I would sketch San Francisco views on all my trips to San Francisco.  Three years back (and well into retirement from teaching and full time engagement with painting) I made a San Francisco visit that truly thrilled me.  I love really fanciful places such as Venice and San Francisco...so much excess of decoration and improbable views!  So, I launched into "series one" by simply following my impulses.  I started a dozen canvases, rapidly brushing and "knifing" on first ideas and then spent months developing the paintings.  I showed the series at Avenue 9 Gallery and was amazed by the enthusiastic responses from viewers.  All the small modestly priced paintings sold in a couple of days and by the end of the show many large ones went home with people too.   So, now having made four "collecting" visits to S.F. I've got 14 new paintings in various states of completion.

O.K., here's the size....it's 5 x 7 inches, the size of a postcard.  I always paint a few mini paintings because: it's fun; I can try out compositions; I can offer tiny paintings at tiny prices and I love making these affordable (my favorite customer of a bite-sized painting was a twelve year old boy who told me he'd been following my art for a couple of years!...there went his allowance for quite a while).  

Sutter Buttes

"West Side Sutter Buttes, Harvesting"

I have been painting the Sutter Buttes for six years.  Their variety seems infinite.  Views from the cardinal directions, at different times of day or atmospheric conditions or seasons cause dramatic changes. 

Welcome to my studio

Here's my glass painting table, with accumulated accidental gestures. Sometimes I wish I could paint like this on a canvas - think I'll try.