8.29 Bishop

This is the oil I did this weekend up in Bishop. Gorgeous day but I've got a wicked farmers tan from this one...

8.27 Along the 395

Hung out in Bishop this morning. We drove up to find Jack's hammock right where he had left it at the campsite. Pretty cool that someone camped there this weekend and actually left it. We drove around & found some amazing paint spots above Bishop. I did an 8 X 10 oil and then we left for home. Everytime I drive the 395, I always wonder where those little side roads go. This time I took my time coming home and explored a few:


Big Pine


Off the 395. Near a resevoir.

Oh and this is a landmark one because it is the last painting on the last page of my sketchbook!! Time to crack open a new one!

8.26 Mammoth

I went up to Bishop this weekend to crash my brother's fishing trip. I drove up after work and found him in a hotel ( he had a bit of a tent malfunction which didn't go well with high winds). He's one of the last people in the greater LA area without a cell phone. I just happened to call my mom on the way up, just to say hi...otherwise I would have been wandering the Bishop campsites looking for a red truck.

We decided to get up at 4:15am the next morning so we would have plenty of time to eat breakfast and drive up to Mammoth because we wanted to be at Devil's Post Pile by 6. Amazing. We were ready to go and out the door by 4:30. We hiked, Jack fished and I painted. Later we drove up to June Lakes. I did a really crappy color sketch there (won't torture you with that one...), and then some pencil sketches.


Rainbow Falls, Mammoth CA


Jack Fishing at Devil's Post Pile.


One of the Lakes and Jack fishing (June Lake area, can't remember which lake.)

8.22 Airway, 7.30pm

8.20 wow. longer than I thought...

Yikes! I Lost track of time...
Today's piece:

8.6 Redondo Beach

8.6 color sketch from MFA

I took one of the pencil sketches and made a color sketch:

Boston: Little Italy

I woke up REALLY early and went out to paint before breakfast on Friday. Unfortunately I had just started to sketch when it started to rain. I ended up sitting in a cafe watching people watch workers on a crane remove a large air-condtioning unit. One of Boston's Finest was there to direct traffic and make sure no-one stood underneath.

8.4 Boston: MFA Americans in Paris

The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston has a show right now: Americans in Paris. Lucky for me the MFA is open late so I got to see it. Twice. Its worth the trip to Boston just to see it. Cecilia Beaux, Whistler, Homer, Sargent, Pearce, ... about 100 paintings by some of my favorite artists. Heaven.

I like drawing the people at the show rather than the artwork. Its a part of the show that is as interesting to me as the artwork itself.


There were two Sargent's on the wall in front of me (Mrs. Henry White and Madam X.). To the left were two Cecellia Beaux paintings ("Ernesta", and "Sita and Sarita").
The drawing on the right has a little girl with her older brother. She saw me drawing and then about 10 minutes later came up and asked if one of my drawings was of her and her big brother. When I told her it was, she threw her fist in the air and said YES! and then ran away. She must have been around 6 or 7, SO cute!







The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit. The MFA displayed the actual vases on either side of the painting.



I stayed in this room with Sargent's "The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit" for a long time. Almost too long I guess, because I overheard two guards talking about me. The first guard told the second that I had been in there a really long time and was asking if he should tell me to leave. The second guard had already seen me in the Madam X room and said "no... leave her alone." Whew.