Art For Life Donation

My donation painting this year at Art For Life, Sonoma Counties gala fund raiser for Face to Face the local AIDS hospice, will be this 14" x 20" oil on linen piece titled "Fall Oak". It's a view of Mount Saint Helena in Napa County from a vantage point on River Road in Fulton, California with an old Valley Oak in it's autumn color and the vineyards in between. Starting bid will be $400. for those of you who like this and will be attending the event.

3 more hours

If you compare this photo of Bastoni Vines with the last one I posted you'll notice subtle differences that are starting to bring these vines into focus. Every stroke counts! Taking one color at a time on a brush it gets built up slowly, but with patient intent. Happy Painting! Mahalo for checking in. Aloha, Timo

Back to Bastoni Vines

I suppose that it's because I have too many unfinished paintings in the works and I'm trying to keep them all advancing towards completion, that this one has stayed in the group gathered against the wall for so long. So anyway it came out a few days back and got some rigorous attention for a couple of hours anyway. The canvas almost has all the gesso covered at this point, but I've made a new promise to myself to be more generous with the pigments in bringing it up to the finished piece. It is a fairly large canvas at 28"x 52" so there's lots of room to play with colors. Mahalo nui for stopping by. Aloha, Timo

Non-Objective panarama

This painting has continued to distract me from my other projects as it gathers more daubs and strokes of whatever pigment I have left on my brush from working on a portrait or landscape that is more what is expected of me at this stage in my career. It has taken on a life of it's own! I find myself just sitting and looking at it as if there were a message of some kind hidden within all that color. Interesting!

Slow Portrait Progress

I lost my good print of the reference photo that I'm using for this portrait of My friends Eddie & Vina Tanaka on Moloka'i, Hawai'i. I have it on digital file so I can use it as wallpaper on my desktop, but I can't run a good print of it because I'm out of inks. I have to figure out a way keep my desktop up longer before it goes to my screensaver pictures. Or something...

Changed Ana's tail...

My friend Gary brought back the portrait that I did of his dog Ana Maria to have me change the position of the tail to this because he thought it was more what the judges look for in that aspect of the conformation to the ideals of the breed. So I complied and then worked on the vineyard here and there some more and I think it is better now. She wasn't full grown in the reference photo so there are differences in her proportion between then and the current photo that I used for the new tail position. It's interesting to see the changes that come with maturity.

Painting Opalescence

Patience is the one of the qualities needed to sort out all the colors that play on the inner surface of an Abalone shell. Courage to begin the project in the first place. Trust in your skills and vision to carry it through to completion. Love of the freedom to play at your work.

Working Outdoors at the Big Easle

I moved my big easle outside about a week ago to take advantage of the light. Four different painting projects have been occupying my time lately; this large portrait of an Abalone shell has gotten most of the attention in the last couple of days. The colors are so illusive in this changing natural light, but it's fun trying to catch them as I can. Doing this one makes me want to do another very large format piece of a different Abalone shell that is really spectacular. I like painting outside except for the wind.

Pencil sketch from Life

I got a good start on this quick pencil sketch of the lead singer in the band that my friend Tommy was playing with at a billionaire's birthday party a few weeks ago. Then I was asked to move from where I was working because I wasn't part of the bought and payed for entertainment of the evening and moneybags was afraid I was going to steal some of his thunder. I moved and wasn't able to finish this one. I did enjoy the music though. I was just there as Tommy's guest and to carry his amplifier to and from the stage.