Classical Underground

I have to mention this, one of the coolest underground art/music events happening in Los Angeles right now are the monthly concerts at my good friend Alexey Steele's studio. Every month some of the top classical musicians in LA get together in Alexey's 7500 sq ft Grand Atelier to perform chamber music, sometimes until early morning. Last night David Chernyavsky and Serge Oskotsky played Martinu, and the very sexy Yana Reznik played alone on piano a very sexy Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue.

The Unfinished Painting

This is the 6x8 painting from the video.

Adventures in Plein Air Painting

This is a video from a painting trip in the Sierra's last July. Tony Pro and I paint outdoors, lighting, hail and mosquitoes get in the way and hilarity ensues.

Painting in Maine

This is a little bit of video I shot of some of the guys painting Marshall Point at sunset.

I just returned from a really fun painting trip to Maine. I rented a house with twelve other painters on Marshall Point in Port Clyde Maine. Paul Schulenburg, Frank Gardner, Ernesto Nemesio, Casey Baugh, Logan Hagege, Glenn Dean, Eric Merrell, Colin Page, Lance Walker, Jeff Bonasia, Jerome Greene and Peter Kalill. But before going to Maine, Ernesto and I stayed in NH and VT for a couple days and had an opportunity to visit paint with living master Richard Schmid, Richards daughter Gretchen Schmid was our model.

Ernesto and me with Richard and our paintings of Gretchen. Ernesto painted her too but his painting didn't make it in this shot.

Marshall Point Nocturne 6"x8" oil

I did a small night painting with some of the other guys. Painting at night is always challenging but it's especially difficult when there is no moon out to give you a little extra light and color. You need to use a headlamp to see your palette and your painting, but the light of the lamp is so bright relative to the landscape that when you look up from your painting you cant see a thing until your eyes re-adjust. Eric Merrell and Frank Gardner posted some of their nocturnes on their blogs, and by the way please visit Franks blog and post a comment, I feel sorry for him that he doesnt get any traffic.

Some Recent Press

My painting won first place in the American Artist Magazine Self Portrait competition, there is a short article with my painting in the October 2008 issue.



The American Artist Highlights Masters of Realism has an article on me in the current issue on newsstands now until April 2009.

Representaional Art in the Film: Local Color

I just saw a screening of the movie Local Color, written and directed by fellow So-cal painter George Gallo. I've never seen the French Easel featured so much in a film or a lead actor dropping names like Nicolai Fechin or John F. Carlson, or even talk about local color. The story is based on the director's life, as an 18 year old in the 1970's wanting to learn to paint representational in a time when the art world considered realistic painting old fashioned and irrelevant. The main character finds a bitter old master Russian painter who he persuades to teach him to paint. In one funny scene Seroff (the Russian master) is asked to judge an exhibition of "progressive" art, and after getting an obfuscating explanation about a minimalist painting by the artist, he storms out and gives the award to the air conditioner because "it's the only F-ing thing that works". In another great scene, Seroff shows some modern art paintings to an art dealer who then goes nuts over them until he's told they were made by Down Syndrome kids. So, if you have an appreciation for representational painting you need to go see it when it comes out December 5th. According to George everything in the movie really happened to him.

Check out the trailer on the apple site. You can also see some clips on the movie's website.

Paintings That Inspire

When I was done teaching the workshop at the Grand Central Academy in New York I went to the Met with a group of painters to see some of the newly displayed paintings in the 19th and 20th century galleries. A few paintings I'd never seen were a Sorolla landscape and portraits by Zorn and Repin.

A landscape by the master of color Joaquin Sorolla.

Master of edges, Anders Zorn (detail) Portrait of Mrs. Walter Rathbone Bacon

Ilya Repin (the master of pretty much everything) Portrait of the Russian writer Vsevolod Garshin

Artist David Kassan and friends outside of the Met.