HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

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This is something I did for my head painting class way back when I was studying at Art Center in Pasadena. I remember this one fondly because after several completely disastrous paintings, I finally started to understand how to control color and value.
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This is a place I visited last Christmas, north of the Great Salt Lake. As always, more travel sketches can be seen at the land sketch link.
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Nightscape
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Another watercolor demo for my sketching class to reference. This one doesn't use any gouache, just some masking fluid to protect the white paper for the flower.
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.This is my demo from this weeks class. Posted as a reference for the students but I hope the rest of you like it too.
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Susan, watercolor sketch.
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Upcoming classes and workshops

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If you're in the LA area and would like to join me for a class or workshop, we have three events coming up.
My next 10 week course is head drawing, starting on Monday, October 22, 7-10 pm.
I'm doing an all day color workshop with lectures, slide shows and painting from a costumed model on Saturday, Oct 27, 10am-6pm.
And Soonest, I'm giving a talk we're calling "From Student to Professional and Beyond" on Monday, Oct 15, 7-9:30 pm. It's for any student or professional artist seeking improvement and will cover the skills, tools, workspace, attitudes and habits of of the successful working artist. I've been working hard on this presentation so I'm gunna go out on a limb and guarantee there'll be at least one thing in it that will make it worth your time and effort. Contact the Los Angeles Academy of Figurative Art at (877) MY-LAAFA, www.laafa.org. Hope to see you soon.

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Fun with gouache.
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Adrienne. Watercolor on arches cold pressed paper.
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.Stag beetle
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Plaster cast. Watercolor on arches cold press paper.
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Warthan Canyon tree on highway 198 in central California. Watercolor.

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My time at PDI/Dreamworks in Redwood City has come to a close. It's back to LA for my wife and I. We loved the area and the studio, especially the PDI art department. You'll never meet a more solid group of artists. These are the people who designed the Shrek world and Madagascar and I got alot out of my time with them.
This gouache sketch was done from the back parking lot of the studio building at sunset. To see more sketches from around the studio at lunch breaks and such, click the Land Sketch link.
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I continue to sketch the waterfowl here in the bay area. I'll post more of those later. This one was done in the studio.
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Here's another acrylic painting from a life drawing session. This was done during the same time and circumstances mentioned in the the last post.
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Wanda. Acrylic on cold press illustration board.

This image is from what feels like a lifetime ago; a life drawing session while we were working on The Prince of Egypt at Dreamworks. Acrylics flowed more easily off my brush in those days; we were working with it 9 or 10 hours a day. Though I do like photoshop for production work, you can see from this blog that it still feels good to splash paint around.

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Some friends let me stay in their beautiful home on a painting trip to Hawaii. I did this gouache painting of the place for them as a thank you. To see more click the Land Sketch link.

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Here's another sketch of the iguana at the LA Zoo.

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Iguana.

The sketch was painted at the LA Zoo and the finish was done from photos. For another view of this guy scroll down to the first post on this blog.

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Lara

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These 3" x 4" sketches are from a recent weekend trip on Highway One North of San Francisco. This particular stretch of road runs along the coast from Muir Woods to Fort Bragg and is a stunning drive if you ever have a chance to take it.
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Brandt. This is oil on canvas.

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I recently moved to Redwood Shores in the Bay Area and have been amazed at the abundance of waterfowl here. This weekend I got out the watercolors with the birds in mind. They don't stay still so you have to be quick but I did coax the swan to hang around with a handful of crackers.

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Redwood City street corner

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Jenny
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Sketches at the Natural History Museum.
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Neighborhood flowers. I've included some pictures to show the painting process. This is watercolor on hot press illustration board.

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Acrylic on cold pressed crescent board.
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Rotunda, charcoal sketch.
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Off the California Central Coast. A small gouache sketch in a heavyweight craft paper sketchbook.
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Switzer Creek. Watercolor on arches cold pressed paper.
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Plaster cast drawings. Compressed charcoal on Rives drawing paper.
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Felicia

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Cow. Compressed charcoal on rives drawing paper.
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Carmel point, central coast California.
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Iguana
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View from my office window at night. That's the glow of downtown LA over the hill.
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