Art Class

Started the Spring Semester at Beverly Hills High School in Portraiture. It's a terrific class with many talented people. We joke around about politics, sex, medical B.S. and of course, art. We kid about the class having 20 teachers and the poor (real ) teacher doesn't have a chance The class is very much like a TV sit-com...... Would probably make a great script....... We have live professional models every week.... This week we had a beautiful girl (6'4" plus high heels!!) in a very sexy polka dot dress.....We used to have occasional nude models (both male and female ) but that had to stop, especially during the day when the high school students always tried to peek in ... They still do have nudes but only in the evening classes and I think they keep the doors locked......

Perris, CA Project

Progress is slow on my year-long PERRIS, CA project. If you recall, I'm doing a series of nine paintings depicting the downtown area of Perris, CA (all 3 blocks of it ) with mostly empty stores....I was struck by the emptiness of the site. Empty stores that are decimated by nearby big box stores - literally putting small businessmen out of business......I'm sure a sight repeated all over America in small towns everywhere....The ninth painting will be a wonderful old movie house called "The Chief”. It's been closed for what appears to be many years and has one of those 3-story pylons pointing to the heavens and adding a little bit of show biz to the building. This will be a separate painting and probably the last in the series. The other 8 paintings will all be only nine inches high by various lengths from 18" to 52" running horizontally.

I've painted the sky on all eight wanting to get consistent color between the paintings. I masked off the buildings upper profile so as not to get the sky color overlapping the structures. I'm using acrylic paint on the sky, but I might decide to use oil paint for the buildings.

Back From Scottsdale Art Fest.

Just got back from Scottsdale, AZ attending the OPA (Oil Painters of America) show /conference / convention in what turned out to be a full-blown 4 day convention of 200 artists plus artists' freinds and relatives. I submitted 2 paintings for the show at the Legacy Gallery (April 30th to May 31st ) but I had no idea how extensive and intense this event would be.....It kicked off with a reception and cocktail party Thursday nite at The Scottsdale School of Art, a fully-accredited school devoted strictly to the arts with a full calender of classes.

Friday started off with a painting demo by Nancy S. Crookston, a famous "Plen- Air painter. It was followed by a panel of gallery owners explaining how they decide on which artists they would represent and how an artist should approach a gallery. Three very articulate local gallery owners contributed quite a bit of useful information......

Then, of course, came the main event. The show was from 5 pm to 9 pm and was held on the second floor of the Legacy Gallery which is 9,500 sq. feet of magnificent paintings and great lighting. It was then I found out that there was a total of 2800 submissions from Canada, U.S. and Mexico and fewer than 200 were chosen (check them out by clicking here)... So even if I didn't win any prizes, I feel honored that I was accepted .......There were about 500 -600 people attending with some very serious collectors in the room. About 15 to 20 Paintings were sold the first night.....No..... mine hasn't sold yet, but we still have all of May. The winner was "Model On Break" by Mary Qian.

Saturday included several panel discussions on framing, finance and several painting demonstrations including one at the Legacy Gallery.....The framing panel was interesting ...... The framers were from Utah and their prices were about one-third the prices found in L.A. Frames were mostly standard sizes, ready made......There was a wonderful interview with Harley Brown, a distinguished artist who was highly motivational and animated in his message of "Believe in yourself " stuff ...Really enjoyed him......Saturday night was the closing dinner outdoors at the Tortilla Factory, sponsored by The American Collector Magazine... Pretty good food too..... Everyone was very social and I met some nice people from Portland, OR and one young lady who just up and left her husband the previous day and was literally hopping the next plane to Kosovo!!!! There was a bicycle race thru the downtown streets of Scottsdale on Sunday ..... Pretty Cool......Some very serious bikers....... Colorful outfits .... Going very fast and I'm outa here.....