Pink Lady

Acrylic on paper.

Less is More

Painting stairs moss green and Rene Magritte on doors. Split his painting onto doors that face each other across a small entry. Additional whimsy added to the bottom half to compensate for the elongated dimension.

Splashed some of the colors onto paper that became a cat. In the mood for broad strokes.

When Life Gets Too Crazy

"the greatest thing is just to love and be loved in return."
Nat King Cole singing Nature Boy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq0XJCJ1Srw

Doing mostly 4x6 sketches out and about, sketches of sketches and sketchbooks, sort an Escher thing, drawing myself drawing myself.

Fuji-san Slideshow

Enveloped

Pardon my French. Letter to Rene Magritte.


The second envelope painted watching the first episode of Red Shoe Diaries, messy lives.

The woman's beauty stops at the surface.



The Sea of Cortez where the beauty of ocean never stops.

2009 Sketchbook

Some pages from a 4 x 6 Pro Art sketchbook begun December 2008 with my one inch ceramic Santa and his little house that he stays in during the off season. The paper isn't the best for watercolor and the Uniball pen does bleed through a bit, but the size and texture is comfortable and I can sketch while standing or on the run.

The lone pyramid is the on in the opening of CSI Las Vegas. I did a few reference sketches at the library instead of bringing home the books. Now they have more of a travel feel to them. The tiny pyramid glimpsed through the doorway reminds me of the way Hokusai framed some of his views of Mt. Fuji. I think the wall of cobras is from Luxor. The small ceramic fertility statue reminds me of a primitive Barbie doll. Coffee from Border's Books at Long Beach's Pike, built on the grave of the old infamous Pike Amusement Park. It's hard to imagine that downtown Long Beach was a seedy Red Light district 25 years ago when the city started to implement their master plan to give our city a glamor make over in the 1980's and again this decade.

Long Beach dates back to 1890's when the red trolley car made it a glamorous weekend getaway from Los Angeles and Pasadena. The city had rail tracks along Ocean Blvd. Amusement ventures, elaborate bathing palaces were down by the ocean replaced by the marina, Shoreline Village, the Aquarium of the Pacific, lots of new eateries and entertainment. athe current metro rail goes north to downtown Los Angeles and connects to other rail lines. The city was devastated in the 1909 earthquake so most of the older buildings date back to the 1920's. I'm sorry we lost all the grand old theatre palaces along Ocean and Pine during the 1980's renaissance demolition and building boom. Sometimes it's healthier to replant with new rather than try to save the crumbling dinosaurs.

The red Fernand Leger sketch at top is my continuing fascination to study Cubism. Leger is my favorite cubist painter. Here is a sketch done in Belmont Shores, about 3 or 4 miles east of downtown Long Beach.

Tea Time

Tea time. Watercolor and sumi ink. Vintage silk doll made in Japan. Didn't need a potholder but couldn't resist the appliquéd fabric shapes. The petite bowl turned out to be antique lacquer which began to crack when I floated a passion flower in water. In its former life, the bowl probably had a flattened doll's head, a silk tassel. The bowl is painted with a kimono design. My favorite thrift shoppe in Old Town Petaluma would sometimes got Japanese bits and pieces from the 40's, most likely brought home by men in the military.