Malibu.

A sketch made in Malibu this weekend.

Art Scam Alert

I had a sobering experience this week with some "collector" from overseas that wanted to purchase a painting, or so he/she claimed. "She" signed under the name of lindas_maicon@yahoo.com , clearly and alias, and claimed to be convalescing in London or some such garbage. She sent me a fraudulent check for some outrageous amount of money and expected the "excess" to be sent back to her. While the original letter she sent sounded plausible, I quickly assessed it was a scam but decided to confirm it waiting for the check. Also she expected me to receive some "movers" at my house to collect the painting. Sure, I'll be waiting with my dial on 9-1-1.

# Never respond to scams. Of course the trick is sometimes to be able to distinguish.

# Do not let the "sale buzz" (greed, excitement) overwhelm your "scam alert" sense. Cool heads prevail.

# Never send a check of your hard earned cash, excess or otherwise.

# Avoid at all costs giving personal info. Including addresses, phone numbers.

# Bad English or strange syntax. Red flag.

# Email your friends when you suspect a scam. Email account providers like Yahoo at abuse@yahoo.com with the whole email the scammers sent you.

# Wait for checks clearance between committing your art to shippers, movers or anybody else.
This can take a while.

# Always talk to your clients , not just email. A phone call can save you money.

# It is OK to be wary and "drag things" as much as they need to be dragged.

# Use PayPal or other secure payment services.

Happy sales.

Pages of the Journal. Trip to Spain

I enjoyed myself in Madrid and lLisbon. I even had a few minutes here and there to sketch. I finished my first journal and even started another. Here are some pages.

Ending the year in Sorolla's Museum

While vacationing in Spain, I had the opportunity to visit the new and improved Sorolla Museum. I frequented this museum before but the remodeled version is magnificent. What a treat to end 2008 with a visit to this museum, the house where Sorolla lived and created some of his masterpieces.

I include here some pictures of the entrance to the museum and the studio. In the enormous room that served as Sorolla's studio I enjoyed the detail of Velazquez's print of Inocencio X in the wall, a print of the painting that inspired the model to exclaim in annoyance:"troppo vero!" . I am sure the artist was greatly inspired by it despite the lack of color. The museum displays also the work-bench and palette Sorolla used and the many objects he collected, including the beautiful ceramic jars he used to place his brushes, many ceramics and sculptures of friends like Mariano Benlliure.

Noteworthy was the dining room which he adorned with his own wall paintings much in the manner Goya did albeit with much happier themes of garlands and his wife Clotilde and daughters peeking through the leaves. The garden , which he painted many times is samll but gorgeous and draws a lot of inspiration from Sorolla's native Valencia.

Whittier Narrows

The California Art Club had a paint-out in Whittier Narrows. I was curious about the location so I decided to go. It is a riparian environment with lots of lagoons (if it ever rains). Because there was not much water, I abandoned the main group and walked down to the San Gabriel river.
I painted this while situated in the middle of a dam. The water rose quite a bit in the evening and covered the path I had come by. May be that is what the docent that conducts tours for groups around the Nature Center was gesturing about when she kept staring at me for about 30 minutes. And I thought she was upset because I was disturbing the birds (I wasn't , I swear. If anything, I was disturbing an eclectic group of individuals that inhabit these banks) . It was quite a walk back to the car.

The Japanese influence

John Byram and I tried to go see the Fealing Lin and Tom Fong watercolor show at Alhambra City Hall. It was closed and the schedule is "office hours" . Needles to say I was disappointed as I don't have a lot of time to go to shows. I moxied over to Nucleus Gallery in Alhambra , a gallery and an outpost of hyped-up heavily asian-influenced artwork which I like to browse from time to time. I am not particularly fond of the self-centered attitude and peter-pan-ish charm of a lot of the artwork but sometimes a burst of wonder pops out. They had a wonderful exhibit of drawings for starters. Browsing a couple of books ("The Totoro Forest Project" and "Three trees make a Forest") I hit upon two marvelous artists: Tadahiro Uesugi and Eric Tiemens . The first one had the most stylized and wonderful illustrations of women in this anonymous but poetic environments. Eric had some classically strong and romantic gouache and watercolor landscapes. I will keep track of them both I am adding them as links.

The Arroyo Seco Re-discovery Art Walk

I think this is the fourth time I do the Discovery Tour along with the Mt. Washington group at the Ziegler House . The sales were ok ( the economy is certainly in everybody's mind) but this had to be the best displayed, better advertised and 'minglier' show ever. Everybody that showed up stayed a while and it was truly a very pleasant experience. Here is a pic of Chris Zambon proudly displaying her art with a very schoolgirlish pose.

After the show we all moved to Roderik Smith's house who was also featured in the Art Walk and where Linda, Rod's wife, treated us for dinner and Rod had all his recent pieces on display. If you think you have seen the Dodger Stadium or Catalina Island , you need to check out his amazing renditions of these two locales. He layers his oils thickly in a scintillating array of hues without ever loosing a strong sense of composition. You can check his artwork at www. rodericksmith.com.