Flower Market, 12 x 16, pastel, available.

This is one of the paintings that I completed last week during the Sonoma Plein Air Festival. I had a wonderful week of painting barns, tractors and the lovely scenery of wine country.

I have just updated my website with information about my october plein air workshop. If you are interested, please give me a call or write to me. More information.

By the Sea, 12 x 12, oil with palette knife.

I will be in Sonoma this week painting for the Sonoma Plein Air Festival, so my blog will be fairly quiet. On other news, I will be teaching another workshop in Alameda this fall.

October Workshop, Saturday and Sunday, 20 and 21

Contact Erica or Debra at the Frank Bette Art Center, 510-523-6957, for more information.

Tomatoes and Basil, 12 x 12 inches, oil with pallete knife.

Apricots, 12 x 12 inches, oil with palette knife.

Strawberries, ~10x10 inches, oil with palette knife.
Because I was tired of sitting in my studio trying to imagine something to paint, I walked over to the grocery store and bought some summer strawberries. Somehow the act of painting something that I am actually looking at and observing closely is always liberating. After painting something real, I usually feel freed from whatever funk I am in. Real, rather than imagined or designed or altered subject matter always serves as a good touchstone for me.

Apricot Jam. 12 x 16 inches, pastel.

My mom and I made apricot jam for 5 hours last weekend. I loved the color of the jam and included it in a demonstration still-life that I created for the Frank Bette Center Plein Air paintout. What a wonderful reason to use orange!

Cottonwoods, 23 x 26 inches, pastel.

Here is a work in progress done from a photo taken at one of my favorite painting spots in Bolinas. I do not think it is really done yet, in spite of having signed it.

Alameda Crane, 9x12 inches, pastel.

This painting was completed as a demonstration for my workshop in Alameda. The color harmony of the painting is really the point. I was pleased with the fairly original color harmonies in the painting.

For the first time on a trip to visit family-in-law in the Netherlands, I was able to get some painting done! Yay! I also visited the Mauritshuis in the Hague and viewed the Girl with the Pearl Earring among other wonderful paintings.

Here are two sketches from the trip.

Night Study, 8 x 10 inches, pastel