Winning Entry At Juried Art Show

My piece entitled Still life with Snapple won first place in it's category at the Thousand Oaks Art association show. I also previously entered this piece in a juried art show in San Fernando Valley for all the high School art teachers and it won first place. It is hard to know if your intent in an artwork comes across. Maybe it did in this one. 

Members of my family and I visiting the show

My artwork on Display

For More information about the show and the winning entries:

Thousand Oaks Art Assoication website

List of the winning entries for the Feburary 2009 juried show

Series of Paintings at Malibu Creek State park and Surrounding Area

In a recent work I decided to focus on a beautiful area near our home, only 15-20 minutes away. It’s a park called Malibu Creek and it has many beautiful areas from valleys with hills and mountains surrounding, as well as trails and rocky areas. It provides some beautiful subject matter for landscape painting. My interest is to look at the landscape either early in the morning or later in the afternoon when the lighting is such that shadows are formed which create very interesting patterns and shapes. Each image has it's own story of how it came to be and you can find those descriptions below.

Currently these pieces are at the Portico Gallery in Santa Barbara.

The Malibu Creek Paintings

Valley At Dawn

This was a view of the valley at Malibu creek As you walk in there is a large fire road which you can walk along or ride your bike. This valley has a rather large stream running through. You can see across the valley and the light just spreads across, carving out different patterns as it strikes the trees and bushes and spreads across the grass. As I walked along I found a couple views I found very beautiful and used them for my painting.

Malibu Creek

This is a painting that kind of expresses the feeling of the area. This was a view from Mulholland drive. As I was driving along I stopped to walk around and looked down into the park. I saw some light as it was peaking itself out beyond the darker shadows of the mountains and reaching down to the valley floor. From the road it was way in the distance so you could see the light peaking out from different hills. I thought that created a lot of rich shapes and patterns and could do a painting from that. 

                                   

Distant Hills

Another painting that reflects a view into Malibu creek is Distant Hills. In this painting what intrigued me was the shape of the hills as they receded back into the distance. The light that came across the grass from one slopping hill and the sense of whole scene in panorama. The whole scene of light, expresses the a feeling of expanse and the sense of ambiance of light through nature and environment of the mountains and hills. It once again afforded the ability to create patterns and create designs out of the colors and shapes that emerge as the lightspread across the whole area.

Curve Right

This painting was done from the roads leading around the park. It was a painting that expresses the feeling of driving down one of those roads and wondering what’s around the curb, what other view might you come across. In this case there were patterns of shadows going across the street that I thought were very interesting. As you saw the patterns, your eyes moved into the distant curve that was going to disappear around the corner. It had not only interesting colors and shapes, but it had a strong psychological meaning as I stood there looking at it.

Decker Curve

This is another road painting where the shadows move across the street. They also continue in and out of the hills around it. There is a focus at the end of the street where the curve exists. It creates an interesting focus point that directs the eye around, as if you are going to move around into the curb. It expresses the issue of mystery that you feel when you are traveling and wondering where the road is taking you.

The Malibu Creek Park

The recent series of paintings all came from scenes located at Malibu Creek State Park. If you were to ever visit the place, it would be pretty easy to see why it provides such a remarkable location for landscape painting. Here are some other interesting facts about Malibu Creek that hopefully give some more meaning to the paintings

 

• Besides providing refuge to those southern Californians who need the escape of the great outdoors, it is also has been a film location of movies such as Sand Pebbles, Planet of the Apes,Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and many others.It also served as a main location spot for the TV series M*A*S*H.

• Film makers as well as the general public have been entranced with this place and for good reason. Malibu Creek is the home to three natural preserves which includes Liberty Canyon (730 acres), Udell Gorge (300 acres) and Kaslow Preserve (1920 acres).

• Mountain lions, bobcats, mule deer, golden eagles, and southern steelhead are the animals that call this park home.

• Some other interesting places Malibu Creek houses are the remains of Reagan Ranch, the Sepulveda Adobe, and the ruins of Mott Adobe.

• Visit this website for more information about this landmark of Southern California