Archive: Watercolor

Watercolors are merciless. It looks like I must have got a small set of them in late '73 or so and did these few pieces. It was one medium I didn't want to pursue.

A few years after I did the big painting for Tom's Schwinn I did some smaller paintings for Placentia Schwinn. This is a color study for one of the larger paintings.




This was done in the spring of '74, a pastoral portrait of Jeanne and Dick on their patio.



This was a Christmas gift for Jo. She was on World Campus Afloat and wrote about an amazing experience she had horseback riding in Fiji. This was my interpretation.



A Film About Jimi Hendrix came out in '73 and this was a painting that graced the album cover and posters for the movie. A bunch of us went to the opening night, which made for some great stories; and of course I had to do my version of the promo painting.


Saylor has always been the guru of alternative ideas. I guess this looks like he's got the ol' noggin' cranking away. This is dated '74.



Brant at an O'Neill park kegger in the same period of time. That's really his signature.

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One of the reasons I never pursued watercolor is it can have an anemic quality, I liked stuff to be pretty intense back then. So later I tried painting watercolor style with ink instead of gum arabic based paint. This was better suited to my eye, but it is still a very unforgiving process.



A little looser, gestural, than most of my stuff, but I try to keep my drafting right on. I figure you can do anything with color if the drawing is solid.



This was for Scott's 40th birthday invitation. I did a whole bunch of portraits in this ink wash method, but since I didn't keep records back then this copy of the actual invite is all I have from this series.

Archive: Los Angeles Art Center

When I was in high school I received a scholarship from Art Center. It was an incredible score that I had almost no appreciation for. I figured art to be more or less free form an didn't understand how school could help. I went anyway, started while I was in high school on Saturday classes, then regular classes after graduation. I have very little from my lack of efforts there, but I'm pleased with what I did there and the way I drew as a kid.

The teachers there were very cool. In my first classes I found different teachers had differing approaches to drawing. I saw this as inconsistent and it made them less credible in my young eyes. I could smoke in class and that was a very important part of my acceptance of higher education.

This guy was a teacher named Carlos.

I didn't spend much time on faces in class. Sketches were quick, thirty seconds for the warm ups and twenty minutes for the long pose.

This was a typical scene. Model on the stand, apparently on a blanket, an alarm clock next to her head while the teacher points out all the things we should be paying attention to.

Drew was my favorite, the only teacher I really remember. Although every teacher had a lot to offer, he's the one who caught my attention; he also discovered I was ambidextrous. I didn't think about him for several decades until I took a class from Marshall Vandruff who was singing the praises of an artist named Drew Struzan. I remembered a teacher who drew named Drew and showed these to Marshall who confirmed the identity.

Archive: More Drawings

These are a bit later, mid 70s and on. They're more technically proficient but I feel like I lose some of the gesture in the process. I like the way I drew as a kid and work to recapture some of the freshness from the early days.

Roy Disney



Frank Wells




Jacke and Cheryl Crump

Around the mid 80s I started drawing people related to Ferrari cars and eventually the cars themselves. After these, most of my drawings were done as preparation for paintings; people wouldn't shell out money for pencil or charcoal work but they seemed slightly open to buying paintings.

Enzo Ferrari

Phil Hill and Enzo Ferrari

Phil Hill

Sergio Pininfarina


An Early 50s car in the process of being built.


The first test drive.


The first Testa Rossa being weighed in before racing at Le Mans.

Archive: Collaborating with Scott

In the formative years I was fortunate to collaborate with my great friend Scott Gladden. Scott and I have similar interests, temperament and artistic sensibilities. Scott has an easy and natural bias toward creating that I've always admired. Every day we would sit and draw, listening to loud music, dutifully consuming the plentiful variety of substances on hand that were used as a call to inspiration.

We learned silk screening from our high school art teacher Ilona Rymer. She would divide school printing needs between us, Scott did some and I did others. But most our time, definitely our creative time, was spent in his room making art.

We made a lot of silk screens together. All of them were hand cut from our own drawings, often sitting knee to knee with a common drawing board across our laps, busily carving away at the lacquer film. His portion was often carved out upside down and I was amazed he could draw expressive parts like hair and fabric with a knife.

During the printing process he would experiment with different colors of paint on the same stencil, and coming back to hand detail parts of the screen with his finger. He has always been fearless in his approach to everything and gave me confidence to go way passed my perceived limits (in many aspects of life).

There are few survivors from this period of work from 1970 ~ 72; what I could find is represented here. The earliest dated one is Jimi (in front of the amp) from ’71, but they are all from the same basic time and each of us had a hand in each one.

Below is a charcoal picture of Scott and me at the card table in ’72 or 3. Musicians Ken Rhoads and Mike Rafnel, artist Bill Jacobi and producer Mark Ferree had rented a house at 1208 E. Commonwealth that became (among other things) a poker palace. I imagine Bruce Beckman took the photo, but it could have been Joey Viles, both had cameras on hand at Rhoads house regularly. The drawing was done in ’73 and I probably lost the hand.

Itty Bitty Show

The Gallery on Birch Street Promenade in Brea is doing a show of Itty Bitty paintings for November and December 2010. All the paintings are 3 1/2" square wood panels and they are all fun and unique. I have 20 pieces in the show, all portraits. Here they are all bunched together:

They sold well during the show and a few are still available, drop a line if you are interested in one.

1st row: Jimi Hendrix , Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, Jack Kerouac, Elvis Presley

2nd row:Keith Richards, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, George Harrison, Jimi Hendrix

3rd row:Neil Young, Jim Morrison, John Lennon, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison

4th row: Jimi Hendrix, Ringo Starr, Neil Young, Jerry Garcia, Neal Cassady

Santa Ana College Portrait Show

Curator Phil Marquez has announced a portrait exhibition to be shown in the Santora Building near the end of the 2010 summer. He is planning on having all sorts of media in the show from traditional to abstract. The show will be in the Santa Ana College Gallery on the second floor of the Santora (207 N. Broadway).I will have four pieces in the exhibit and encourage you to come to one or both of the receptions. They are on Saturday August 7 & Saturday Sept. 4 from 7-10 pm.The Santora is in the heart of Santa Ana's art scene. On the first Saturday of each month all the studios and galleries have an open house. If you haven't been, you need to. If you have, you know to come early to get a table in any of the cool restaurants in the area before they fill up.

Here are three of the four entries (the forth will make it's debut at the show):

Deb

Junior

Torn Circus

Orange County Fair Art Competition

I've been encouraged to enter the Art Exhibit at the Orange County Fair. They allow up to three entries per artist and all fortunately all three of mine were accepted. The fair runs through August 15th. If you're in the neighborhood stop in and check it out.

These are my entries:

Parts is Parts
The Happening

Access

P.S. On August 5th the painting "Part Is Parts" was awarded the 2nd place ribbon.