These paintings contain notes, thoughts, and written scribblings for those inclined to read…
Odometer 149.6 miles Got a little sidetracked already. Trying to get just the right angle to paint from the van for the previous painting, my front bumper just grazed the railing on the roadside… and promptly broke, bent, and dislodged itself halfway off. Not wanting to spend this whole drive wondering if it would fall […]
Odometer: 0.00 miles Kicking off the tour of California’s coast with some river time near the Oregon Border. Mornings have a bit of a chill that make swimming sound a little better… later. Like after this quick painting. Took a four hour swim with the family up the river right after this one.
Plein air, but with a twist. Traditional plein air work involves working fast to give an impression of the place at a particular time of day. The changing nature of light throughout a day limits the working time for a single session so larger pieces usually involve multiple sessions returning to the same location at […]
Painted live for a friend’s going away party gift. These passing through series pieces represent something very simple for me: the movement of energy through any medium. I painted the first one live at a music festival in southern Humboldt while on my home from San Francisco. Just passing through. Something resonated with that one […]
Painted live on the radio?Yep, live radio. KHUM with Mike Dronkers in the KHUM studio in Ferndale, CA. Huge thanks to @mikedronkers and @khumradio for letting this happen. If you squint your eyes and stand on your head and sip an IPA while viewing this one you’ll clearly see Mike spinning tunes from the control […]
Plein air, but with a twist. Traditional plein air work involves working fast to give an impression of the place at a particular time of day. The changing nature of light throughout a day limits the working time for a single session so larger pieces usually involve multiple sessions returning to the same location at […]
“Freedom doesn’t exist out there, real freedom is within…” that was a passing thought while painting this one in full art hobo mode operating in a small shady alley in the beautiful town of Ferndale, CA on the fourth of July this year. Pretty random. I think I was trying to paint the American flag, […]
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t hide from a helicopter and duck for cover in the bushes by the train tracks twice on my way to get this view. Graffiti guys deal with this sort of thing all the time, plein air guys not so much. That was fun. Sounds like its been […]
Always dug the graphic road vibes on this one. There may or may not have been boats anchored just to the left of the frame cleaning up* an oil spill from a busted pipe on the side of the highway. Either way, the color if the water in this little cove was incredible. *or just […]
Who wrote this book of etiquette? All of the pages are blankAs though the ink has spilled right off the paperLeaving us to write our own rules with pencilsAnd skinAnd burning eyes After reading from cover to cover we are leftJust as we were beforeSomewhat crudeAnd still rather unrefined
We’ve rounded the corner nowWe’ve foundThe hole in the fenceWe’ve crossed that lineAnd conceivedOf new horizonsNow we stand watchingAndWaitingForThe old roadsTo wash into the sea
Every river flows to the sea… except this one. It flows to LA. Drink up southern California.
This was a recent live art piece I did to benefit the surf and skate club at Trinidad School. I had a few buddies and a handful of kids skating past my paint table and grabbing brushes to drag across the canvas set up a few yards away, then circle back to relay another pass. […]
Painted live from start to finish during one solid set from Absynth Quartet at Redwood Curtain Brewery last Saturday. This was the second event I painted at on Saturday. Never done two of these in a single day before, but I guess they don’t take too long so why not?
Some days are better than others for curiously overheated gas station coffeeMade with the press of a button
With a bucket full of mackerel, he explained why the water was a fancy shade of green.The fancy cats that live in the rocks were only green with envy.
We’ve spent long days hereNorth of the river We’ve spentOur last two dimesOnHeavenAnd wafflesAnd a good night’s sleepShelteredFrom the falling snowUntil the storm blew over And now we ourselvesAre spentWorn outLike the twoRaggedDog blanketsIn the back of the van One more look at the oceanBefore we head homeAnd two thingsBecome clear We’re not going home […]
Unplanned live art from The Accident Lab poetry event last night. Kinda different, maybe someone will dig it… or maybe not. I might be stuck with this one.
So I think I’m going to just start enjoying water more as I do these live art paintings. This one I just relaxed and felt like painting a mix of explosive fire and water. It’s not exactly what I had in mind, but when completing a large painting in just two and a half hours, […]
This was the first time I was given access to this deck on the end of this scientific research pier. I remember being so torn about which view to paint, north or south, that I think I just blew a fuse and split it down the middle with an easterly approach. I figured since it […]
So… sometimes this happens. When I paint at live events, half the fun is not knowing exactly what I’m going to paint. Even as I’m loading my palette with paint I’m usually still wondering what’s going to happen. At RampArt Skatepark last weekend, this is what happened. Not sure what’s going on here, but one […]
It may look like a wave, but if you rotate this piece counter-clockwise it represents the real time wind conditions off the Pacific coast at the time the painting was being created. Check out earth.nullschool.net if you want to see what I’m talking about.
Painted on site with the rising tide sending large amounts of saltwater all over my back and palette as I worked. There may not be blood, sweat, or tears in this one, but there is certainly a good dose of Pacific Ocean saltwater, and that’s almost the same thing from a salinity perspective…
