At my 2nd Opening of my Eurpean Travelogue in Paint show this past First Friday, I did watercolor portraits of anyone who could sit still for 10 minutes. It was a blast!!! So freeing. No time to mess around or overwork.

With my setup….and the shot of bourbon.

Above is Mik, who was my last portrait of the night, after about 3 shots of bourbon that the gallery owner, Jayne, kept plying me with. Mik is a fellow physical performer who I have known for….over 30 years. Crazy.

Dear Travelblog reader….and artistic confidant-

Last night was the Opening of the show at Caffe Vino Olio on Vashon island…..and a windstorm!!! But those who braved the elements enjoyed warm conversation and warm mulled wine and the visual heat of Spain and Portugal that shone through the paintings.

(If you are reading this through email, click on the Original Post link below to see the video)

All these paintings and drawings….lugged through airports and trains while packed in a discombobulated rucksack, scattered in various states of unfinish for months, came together as one long, beautiful well framed story. It was a joy to behold: My journey’s vision come together in one place, one place that captures so many places. It is a visual tale worth retelling.

It was wonderful to watch each person slowly progressing from painting to painting; taking the journey. It is different from many art shows, where people are often judging the art on it’s artistic merit or just the impact it has on them. This show has the layered meaning of taking you on a journey; showing you places that connect chronologically, that maybe you have been to before, where the light changes with each painting, with colors that tickle the eyes like exotic spices.

I may sound overly romantic here….but this is the effect these paintings have on me. Each painting is a delectable dish of sensations and associations. And each one has a distinctly different flavor.

Michael Meade, Islander, friend and reknowned mythologist, stayed ‘til the end of the opening helping me to finish the last of the wine. I always look forward to our conversations about life, the world and philosophy, with many laughs mixed in. He mentioned that the ultimate goal of art is to “Make whole”. That a person’s level of engagement with an art piece is determined by the sense of wholeness they feel when looking at it.

Well this whole show makes me whole. Like a treasure trove of precious jewels, there is vast wealth to be shared.

Thank you Jayne Northon of Caffe Vino Olio! The best Opening Host on the Island bar none. Her parents are artists. She gets it, and weaves a warm web of love that makes everyone want to hang out.

The show goes through December. I hope you get to see the show in person. If you do, let me know which painting brings you the closest to wholeness. I love learning what touches people.

Huge thanks to Carolyn Candy for being the first to buy a piece from the show. It is sales from this show that will make the next incredible journey possible: Mexico City and Colombia…..the most ecologically diverse country in the world.

Hello dear blog readers! Many of you went on the journey with me this past summer. We toured Spain, Portugal and the Nederlands, and much of the art I did along the way happened because I knew I had an audience to share it with….You. You are a big reason this show is even happening right now. If you’re around this next Friday, I would love to share stories and remenise about our travels at the Opening.

Happy Fall and Future Adventures!

Hello! It’s been awhile. I have been super busy teaching Drawing & 2D Digital Environments at DigiPen Institute of Technology AND designing & painting this mural in Poulsbo, WA. It is approximately 65’ x 7’ and the biggest mural I have ever done.

This guy below, Mike Burns, engaged me in the spring before I went to Europe about doing this mural on the new apartment complex he was building in downtown Poulsbo. He wanted to honor the history of the codfishing industry in that town. The Pacific Coast Codfish Co. was one of the last commercial Schooner fleets on the west coast, with the last sailing being in 1950.

He gave me a book called “Salt of the Sea” by Capt. Ed Shields, who was the son of the owner of the Pacific Coast Codfish Co., Capt. J.E. Shields. I got a lot of the inspiration for this mural striaght from this book . And from the Maritime Museum in Poulsbo.

I also learned a lot from this guy, Dave Shields, who is the son of the author, Ed Shields. Here he is posing next to a portrait of his grandfather. He advised me on the mural and even provided an original codfish hook as reference.

The people in Poulsbo were so welcoming and supportive. Almost everyone who passed would comment, and ask what it was about or share stories. I love meeting people when I am painting in public. You instantly feel like you are part of the community.

Today, Thursday, Oct. 20th 2022 was my last day. I sealed it with an anti-graffiti coating of silicone, and just when I was cleaning up, the Mayor of Poulsbo, Becky Erickson, showed up. Like everyone else, she was extremely appreciative, and expressed how important she thinks public art is.. There are murals and sculptures and architecture peppered throughout the town that celebrates it’s Norwegian heritage, most of it being created during her 13 year tenure as Mayor.

A local mover and shaker, Bill Austin, would regularly pop by. He is an Englishman, a sign painter, a collector of jaguar cars and responsible for many of the public landmarks in the town. He gave me a book that chronicled these exploits.

Paul came by a few times a day in his electric wheelchair. Sporting tattoos and an american flag, I learned that he was a chef that traveled the country in his former life.

The Big Leaf Maple bakery and kind folks within made the early morings enjoyable. There was just something endearing about this town, which if you passed quickly through, you might pass off as a tourist trap, but there is genuine quality about it. It’s not Seattle or Bainbridge or even Vashon. It’s a place where people feel they belong. And they work towards that end. It was an honor to be able to get to know the people and the place.

Here is the completed painting/commission for Karen du Four des Champs. It is 3’x3’, oil on canvas.

Although I started painting on location, the weather turned and I took it in the studio and worked from a photo.

I feel like the painting is a good reflection of Karen’s personality: Colorful and bold. The shadows and folliage create patterns that glue the whole scene together like a puzzle. The struggle and joy of owning a home; how large a part of your life it becomes. it’s all in there, bathed in morning light. A place of color and comfort.

Nowhere near finished but I like the abstract shapes in this beginning phase. I want to retain a lot of that in the final pass.

“As Above So Below”. Mike Murray’s boat at the Vashon Marina in Burton. Luckily the slip next to it was open! The painting is currently on display at the Snapdragon Cafe on Vashon Island.

Here is a video that goes through the process. I am liking the results that I am getting using the notan process. Last time, with the Raab’s Lagoon painting, I used black on a yellow/raw sienna background. This time I used green on the same background. Two thing sare being accomplished when you start that way:

1) The composition of the big contrasting value shapes.

2) The dominant color relationship. In this case: Yellow and green. The subtleties sit on top of all that.

I am so busy I almost forgot to blog about this. Mounting a show on such short notice necessitates drastic measures, like painting everyday and bringing to life older, unfinished paintings, and showing some previously shown paintings from my Armeggedon series. It is going to be quite the hodge podge!

Opening is 6pm this Friday. And none of it will be the European paintings. That is being saved for the November December show.

Here is a video Demo of a plein air painting I did yesterday at Raab’s Lagoon on Vashon. A friend of mine, Michael Rosenberg, mentioned that he thought this painting stood out from many that I have done, and I would agree.

“Wherever you go, there you are.” Buckaroo Banzai

Attitude is everything, and I had a bad one upon returning to the U.S. I could have easily traveled for another month. So I figured the best antidote to kevetching was to go out and do what I had been doing all along while traveling: Plein air, on site, in public, painting. I mean I literally live in a vacation destination. People come to Vashon to rejuvenate and get that special feeling one gets when hunkered down on a quaint, rural, artsy island in the middle of Puget Sound.

“Chetzemoka” Oil on Canvas. 20”x16”

The ferries are the gate keepers of the island. The is the south end ferry boat, called Chetzemoka. Painting a ferry is right up there with painting light houses. It either signals the ending or the beginning of my painting career. Not sure which. But getting too wrapped up in subject matter is always a pitfall. It’s the painting itself that matters. The process. Standing there as the car lineup rolls past onto the boat, only to fill up again, like the rise and fall of the tides. The sun shifts it’s light with each return of the boat. Curious passers by, tired of scrolling on their phones while stuck in the lineup, stop to talk. Sometimes about the painting….sometimes not. Sometimes people just need to talk. A stranger is just a friend in the waiting.

THE PROCESS - I started with a raw sienna, almost yellow, background. It works wonders when painting landscape. The undercolor informs the layered colors that go on top of it, and it tends to imbue the image with a sense of light. I (an oft arrogant persona-type) tended to avoid tricks and gimmicks like this, mostly out of ego really. Art is just a bunch of tricks that one hopes to put a personal spin on, and this is as it should be. Uniquness is the icing, not the cake. The more tricks the better, just don’t expect them to do all the work.

I will do another today. Maybe go uptown, and spend half of my time talking. Kind of waiting for the marine layer to burn off. But that is not assured this summer. This and many other paintings will be displayed at the August 5th show at the Hastings Cone Gallery on Vashon Island. It will be up all month, but I hope to see you at the opening…..6pm!