Lincoln Heights, hidden paradise.

Oh no no, Don't think palm trees and beaches. This is a rust and cement paradise as only the mangled urban planning in urban America can manage. The kind of planning that converts the original floor of the town into a basement. Jennifer, Eric and I had a blast painting in this area which is about to explode with lofts and gentrification. For now, it is full with the carcases of giant hangars and railways to nowhere, bridges and graffiti.

Global Warming is here

Los Angeles reached 110 degrees last Labor day weekend. It was miserable. And yet, Iwent out to paint. Besides shifting light, plein-air painters are exposed to the weather. Can you capture weather in painting? If you ever saw a Miyazaki movie you know weather can be evoked. In his movies, the landscapes are more of a character than any of the humans that populate them.


Little witty tid-bits aside. This is what I managed in the 100PLUS weather. It is a view of an Altadena road. After painting this I have observed cars more closely. Nothing in a landscape can be brighter than the metallic reflection of the sun on a car's body on a sunny day . Not even the sky. From now on, I'll keep this in mind to be able to evoke the specular glints that make cars so distinct.

A purchase

I was surprised my partner Armando took to like Jennifer McChristian's art so much. Armando and I have such different tastes in painting. That is a testament to the fact that good art tends to be universal. So we bought the painting we are standing by. We are officially collectors of McChristian's work now.

Non-descript urban

I painted this Glendale bridge in an outing with mega-talented Jennifer McChristian. We stood on a freeway ramp in the summer heat.

If you have to travel for 100 miles to find some pristine area of majestic natural beauty, you are painting something less and less people get to see on a daily basis. That is unfortunate, but it is a fact of our time. Today's urban painters might have no money for gas to travel to Wyoming and be "pretend-cowboys" for a month and appeal to real estate developers with large canvases of mountains soon to be developed, crouching cougars and long-gone scenes of native-american nostalgia with silly titles like "Sorrow in their eyes" or "Warriors of the plains." Carl Rungius, Clyde Aspevig, Howard Terpening, Bill Anton and others have earned their place in art history for sure but can this retro kitsch be held for long? Same goes for european traveler wannabe aesthetes inflicting yet another Tuscany SingerSargent-y farmhouse watercolor on the world. It sells but ... it leaves you with that vanished world emptiness, you might as well have painted the Roman Forum in its full 30BC splendor.

I see a trend to paint what it is in your backyard, even if it is a freeway. The time will come when it also becomes difficult to paint a beautiful industrial/urban wasteland but for now...

Why I hate Los Angeles in summer...

The model fell asleep in the 100 degree heat....and my studio is sweltering and lacks ventilation so I can't finish anything until the temperatures fall or I'll die of heat exhaustion and fumes inhalation.

Labeling Cuba 20's style

I am done! I am done! I successfuly finished this long drawn-out commission of a painting: The island of Cuba, yes, the map of Cuba. I consider this more of a "label" than a true painting. It has the national bird, flower, coat of arms and a couple of scenes from Camaguey and Habana. In the last minute I added a poem form Dulce Maria Loynaz in the bottom (not visible in this pic) that reads "Rodeada del mar por todas partes, isla asida al tallo de los vientos..." or "Surrounded by the sea all around , island knotted to the winds' stem..."

Sheesh, it's hot.

I made this painting while escaping from a tumultuous family reunion in Palm Springs. I started it late so as not to be killed by the heat. Light conditions changed fast. A lady called Diana stopped her SUV and commented "Good, I'm glad you are documenting the natural beauty around here before it all starts looking like Los Angeles."