Painting at Big Bend too

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This pastel painting is on pastel board and measures 24"X35".  This painting took about 3 hours.  The focus for this painting was trying to get as complete a statement in the quickest time.  Although I was painting a little longer than some of the plein air painters I was with, the medium I use seems much quicker than oil painting.  Michael Situ said he liked the compostion but thought there should be more aerial perspective to separate the foreground from the background.  He also thought the foreground should be warmer to increase the aerial perspective.  One of his methods is to compare each corner of the picture.  When he compares them to each other he is looking for the corners in the background to be cooler than the foreground.  He also has different temperatures between the pairs of corners in the front and the back.

Sunset at Irvine Park

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This pastel painting is done on wallis paper with a watercolor underpainting.  This painting measures 25"X17".  This painting is from a visit to Irvine Park in January.  The late afternoon sun filtered through the leaves of the Sycamores.

Painting at Big Bend

This plein air painting was done in Laguna just off of Laguna Canyon road at the Big Bend open space.  It was an amazing day once the morning haze burned off.  After about 2 hours I was finished.  I packed up and took a hike up the hill.

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The painting is done on masonite with an gray acrylic and pumice ground.  The painting measures 24"X36". 

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My second painting of the day started at about 4pm.  I painted for about an hour and a half at Hiesler Park down at the main beach in Laguna.  This is one of my favorite views.  The rocks were changing colors quickly as the sun got lower on the horizon.  This painting is done on masonite with a pumice and acrylic ground.  This painting measures 16"X24".

Laguna Sycamore in Febuary

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This plein air painting was done in the Laguna Wilderness Park on Laguna Canyon.  This painting measures 19.5"X25".  This painting took about an hour and a half to two hours.  This subject was way too complicated for the amount of time I took to paint it.  I think it will serve well for a studio painting.  As an excercise to prepare for quick draw events, there are some obvious short comings for this subject.  The execution  of all the sharp edges would require more time than was available.  The foreground needs to be warmer.  The background should demonstrate the atmospheric perspective better.  There is not enough value difference between the branches and the background.  I should have selected the shape of the tree branches more carefully.

Santa Ana River Wash

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This pastel painting was done en plein air.  The painting was done in the middle of the day along the bike path next to the Santa Ana River in Yorba Linda.  This painting measures 18"x25" and is done on pastel mat with soft pastels.  This painting took about an hour and a half.  I really like the light that I captured in this painting.  The paper was a salmon color which you can see throughout the painting.  I will use this painting to do a more detailed studio effort.

Brilliant Afternoon Rocks at Divers Cove

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This plein air painting was done in Laguna Beach at Divers Cove.  This painting was done on pastel mat with soft pastels.  The painting measures 18"x25".  This painting took about an hour and a half.  The quicker I paint the less second guessing there is.  I am also able to capture the light better.  The goal is to get a complete painting within the quickest time without sacrificing the quality of it.

Sycamore Shadows at Irvine Park

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This pastel painting was done en plein air.  It was done in Irvine Park.  This park has a long history of plein air painting.  The park has been around since 1909.  William Wendt painted the sycamore trees here.  The trees in the park have been there before the park was there.  The sycamore trees are huge.  This plein air painting (sketch) was done in December as the trees were hanging onto the last of their leaves.  The scale of the trees were hard to depict in this hour and a half painting.  The painting was done on pastel mat and measures 18"X25".

Laguna Canyon Atmosphere

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This pastel painting is done on Wallis sanded paper with a water color underpainting.  This painting is from a hike I took in October.  I was in the Laguna Beach Wilderness Park. This painting measures 18"X25".

Santa Ana Canyon

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This plein air painting was done on pastel mat.  It measures 19"x25".  It was done with soft pastel.  As with all of my recent plein air paintings this one was done in under 2 hours.  My goal is to work as quickly as I can to get a complete painting within a short period of time.  There are several reasons.  I have never entered a plein air contest and I want to.  By painting quickly I have to sharpen my ability to see the subject and put it down is such a way that I am saying what I want to.  I believe this will also sharpen my compostition skills.  I want to get to the point where I see the best subject and to be able to touch each area once and step away.  There will be time later for the paintings where I go back to the same spot over a period of time.  I think pastels have a distinct advantage for quick draw contests.  Most of the contestants are painting on a rather small scale.  I want to paint larger and better.  Right now I am painting larger.  I want to get up to some really large plein air paintings.  I also think that the more paintings I can crank out over the course of a week the better chance I have of creating something worthwhile.  When I finally enter a contest I will have some stupid goal for the number of paintings I will want to crank out.  If I have 8 hours of painting in a day I could go about it in a couple of ways.  I could work on a large number of paintings on a daily basis for a short period of time or try to complete 2-3 paintings per day.  I will have to build up to that level of skill and concentration.  So for now I am working on speed.

Clouds From Mount San Antonio

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This plein air painting is done with soft pastel on pastel mat.  The painting measures 19"x25".  This painting is from a horse trail in Yorba Linda.  The clouds were amazing as they rolled across the sky.  The wind was strong and they were changing very quickly.  I would have been better served at painting them from memory once I saw a pattern I liked.  I felt like I was chasing shapes.  The beauty of pastel is that you can go after transitory light and shapes.

Sunlight Through The Eucalyptus Santiago Canyon

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This pastel painting is done on Wallis paper.  There is a water color underpainting with soft pastels over it.  The painting measures 25"X17".  This painting was done from a late afternoon hike.  There was a strong atmospheric effect that afternoon.  The color of the light filtering through the trees onto the dry grass was beautiful.

Amongst The Sycamore Shadows In Laguna Canyon

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This oil painting is based on a trip to Laguna Canyon in early October.  The trees must be over a hundred years old.  They are twisted into unbelieveable shapes.  This painting is on canvas and measures 36"X20".  

Chino Hills Backlit Sycamore and Oaks

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This painting was done from a hike I took in the Chino Hills State Park during December.  This painting measures 28"X35".  It is done on Wallis paper.  There is a water color underpainting with soft pastel over it.  There were several challenges for this painting.  Getting the values of the shadows while still showing the color within them in contrast to the bright colors in the sunlight was difficult.  Another challenge was taking these very bright greens and making them seem realistic.

Dusk From San Antonio Road

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This pastel painting is done on La Carte Pastel Card.  The painting is done with soft pastels.  This painting measures 23"X29".As I prepare to become a serious plein air painter I have decided to develop my skills in quickly rendering my subject.  I am tempted to call this a sketch rather than a painting based on the amount of time I am putting into the painting.  I started this painting at 5:30 pm and finished at 6:50pm.  I have the ability to chase the light with pastels because of their amazing abiltiy to cover the surface quickly.  At the end of this painting I gave final touches all over the surface to reflect the quickly fading light.  To develop this skill I am putting myself on some kind of internal timer.  I am not timing the painting but I know when to stop.  Most quick draw competitions seem to run from 1.5 to 3 hours long.  I have decided to not sacrafice the size of my paintings in these practices; instead I am looking to increase the quality of my paintings within this time limit.  I find myself intentionally going out to paint when there is only a little amount of time left in the day.  Once I feel I have accomplished this goal I will start my next focus.  The next focus will be painting even larger plein air paintings with several return visits.  That will present a whole new series of challenges.

Corona Hills

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This pastel painting was a plein air piece I did a couple of days ago in the hills in Corona at the edge of the Cleveland National Forest.  This was the first time I painted on this surface.  The surface kind of reminded me of velour with a little more resistance to the pasel as I stroked it across the surface.  The name of the surface is called Pastel Mat http://www.pastelmat.com/ I like it enough to continue to use it.  I did think that it did not hold as many layers of pastel as velour.  I did like the feel of the texture of the surface.  I did like the ability of the surface to be covered quickly.  It did hold the pastel better than velour.  This study took about an hour and a half.  The painting measures 18"X25".  I am gearing up for a my first plein air competition coming up in January.

Morro Bay

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This painting is done on Wallis paper with soft pastels over a water color underpainting.  This painting measures 16"X24".  I let the watercolor underpainting take the middle values of the piece and kept it almost all grays.  This way I could really punch up the brilliance of the cliffs with the pastels.

Afternoon Eucalyptus Stand

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This painting is done on Colorfix paper with soft pastels.  The painting measures 18"X25".  The subject for this landscape was a eucalyptus stand of trees near Santiago Canyon.  My daughter's soccer practice didn't start on time so we went exploring nearby.

Winter Twilight In Yorba Linda



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This painting is done in oil on canvas.  This painting measures 20"X24".  This view is about a half a mile from my house on the hills by my daughter's high school.  I think I made good choices in the selection of the colors I used and their relationship to each other.  "Let your idea be not that you are doing a portrait of that place but of that time of day." -Hawthorne



Setting Sun Upon the Hills

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This painting of Chino Hills State Park is one of the more dramatic paintings I have done.  The light of this late afternoon was very intense.  This painting is of a late August afternoon.  It was the dramatic contrast of the colors in the shadows and the highlights on the hills that caught my attention.  This painting is a soft pastel over a water color underpainting.  The painting measures 27"X35".



Santa Ana River

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This plein air painting is done with soft pastels on velour paper.  This painting measures 18.5"X27'.  It was a very bright morning and the trees were backlit by the morning sun.  This stretch of the river is uncontrolled by concrete and the corps of army engineers.  About a mile down stream that all changes.

Into Coal Canyon

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This painting is soft pastel over a water color underpainting.  This painting is done on Wallis sanded paper and measures 28"X35".  This painting is the first thing you see once you walk under the 91 freeway and into Coal Canyon.  I had seen this view for years as I went to work.  I did not realize it was part of Chino Hills State Park and I did not see the entrance until I had hiked along the bike trail running from Yorba Linda to Corona.  This is one of my favorite paintings out of my recent efforts. 

Sun Upon the Hills

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This pastel painting is done on Wallis sanded paper with soft pastels over a watercolor underpainting.  This painting measures 25"X  37".   This painting is from a late afternoon hike throught Chino Hills State Park.  The shadows were growing longer by the minute and the sun was blazing on the steep face of the eroded hill in front of me. 

Coyote Hills

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This pastel painting is a plein air sketch.  This painting is done on velour paper with soft pastels.  This painting measures 18"X25".  In order to work on my quick draw skills I have been painting with time limits.  On this painting I started at 5:30pm and finished at 7pm.  The benefit is that it helps me not lose the lighting when I am painting  because I am able to paint quicker.  It also makes me pull my composition together quicker.  In looking at this painting the way the hills fall off to the left and the way the mountains follow the line of the hills on the left side of the painting is distracting.  I think a better transition from the foreground through the middle ground of the painting would give a better representation of distance.  The colors are something I can use as a study for a studio painting.

Late August Shadows in Chino Hills

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This oil painting measures 24"X36".  This painting is in the Chino Hills State Park.  It was a late afternoon and the hills were covered in warm shadows as the sun pushed through onto the different levels of fields seperated by a ravine in between.  The hills above Coal Canyon are in the background.

Below Scully Ridge

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This is a pastel painting done in the studio from a hike through Chino Hills State Park.  This pastel has a water color under painting on Wallis paper and measures 27"X35".  It was the end of August and the scrub had just lost its last bit of green.  The shadows were starting to lengthen earlier in the afternoon and the shadows were hazy with humidity.  

Newport Beach Sunset

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This painting is 14"x18" and is oil on canvas.  This is from a stay down in Newport Beach.  We went down to the beach and walked along the bike path down by 58th street.  The glow of the sunset as it lit up the water was supernatural.

Shadows on the Hills

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This pastel painting was done en plein air in the Chino Hills State Park.  It is done on velour paper with soft pastels.  The painting measures 18"x25".  The shadows that day were amazing.  The time of day and the time of the year and the atmosphere all worked together.  There might be 20 days a year that all of the elements come together like it did that day.  I felt lucky to be at the right place at the right time.

Newport Back Bay Bluff

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This is the plein air painting I did from the last entry I made.  This painting is on velour which I really like for plein air because of the ease with which I can quickly cover the surface.  It is a relatively fragile surface for holding the pastel but the number of layers it can handle is impressive.  This velour is attached to museum board which gives it a lot more stability outside.  The overall size of the painting is 18"x25".

Last Saturday the LPAPA had a paint out at the Newport back bay.  Paul Kratter was the signature artist who was there hosting the paint out.  He did a one hour demo which I missed because I was on the wrong end of Back Bay road.  I hiked in 5 miles to find the group already painting out of the backs of their cars.

There were about 10 artists who showed up for the paint out.  There was one other pastel artist.

This was the subject we all painted.  The cliffs are one of the more painted scenes in the back bay area.  Since I had traveled the whole length of Back Bay road I had the chance to scout out other painting locations. 

After four hours I was finished.  I was not the last to leave but it was getting close. I thought Paul did a good job.  He spent time with everyone.  I thought the type of advice was well considered to the skills of the painters at the paint out.  He even let one painter use his set up                                                            

Here are some pictures from the opening of "In the Light of Day".  It was a nice opening.  The curator did a good job at organizing the hanging of the paintings.  The opening was well attended and it seemed like I had a number of interested people in my work.

Laguna Canyon in October

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This pastel painting is done on Wallis paper with a soft pastels over a underpainting of watercolor.  The painting measures 24"x34".  I was inspired by the more visible shape of the sycamore trees and their foliage.

Afternoon Tide

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This painting is done on Wallis paper with an underpainting of watercolor.  This painting measures 24"x34" and is completed with a finshed application of soft pastel.  This painting is at Salt Creek.  This painting demonstrates some of the growth I have made as an artist in the last year.  I did an earlier version of this painting which at the time represented my current level of skill.  I think the biggest growth is in my handling of the color and value of the painting.

Black Star Canyon Oak

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This pastel painting is done on Wallis sanded paper with a water color underpainting.  This painting measures 18"x24" and is done with soft pastels over the under painting.  I feel like I have made a break through in the quality of light that I am capturing.  In addition I am happy with the values in my paintings at this time.  It seemed like I was stuck with these dark paintings.  It was a morning around 9am when I took the reference photos for this painting.

Santa Ana Canyon Eucalyptus

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This painting is from a trip through Santiago Canyon in the morning a week ago.  This painting is done on Wallis sanded paper and mearsures 24"x18".  It has a water color underpainting with a soft pastel finish.  The sun and shadows in the foreground was what initailly attracted me to this subject.  I also liked the quality of the sky through the eucalyptus trees.

In the Light of Day

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This is the show card for the upcoming show that I will be participating in.  I have been outside painting a lot lately.  I dropped off my paintings on my birthday and got a preview of the show.  My daughter and I walked around looking for a spot to set my paintings down.  There  are couple of people I look forward to seeing at the show's opening. Rick Delanty http://delantyfineart.com/