Blue, Yellow, Red

Toward the end of this gorgeous summer day Tuko, Cosette and I converged on Opihikao to paint the spectacular view of the coastline with its many outcroppings glowing in the sun behind a row of graceful palm trees lining the road. It is a wonderful place to hang out, on a knoll overlooking the road, covered in soft cushy grass, in front of the 10 acre estate belonging to nice folks named Bernard and Gloria. Bernard kindly took us on a tour of his property which includes many well preserved rock walls dating from Hawaiian village days and lots of abundantly fruiting trees.

It's hard to tell from the photo but it was amusing to notice all three of our painting starts are in different primary colors: mine in blue, Cosette's bright yellow, and Tuko as usual exploring her cadmium red outline technique. I have been studying Cezanne and so am floundering a bit, caught between my habit of painting what I see and the desire to push the compositional elements as the Master would have done.

We were having some beautiful weather down here in Puna, and the days seemed endlessly long and beautiful. With the exception of a couple of afternoons when we got rained out of our current painting spot in Opihikao. Cosette finally joined us after weeks of travelling and not painting, but it started to pour minutes after she got her easel set up.

I spent way too much time painting a banner on a sheet for my longtime friend and model Poni, who is throwing a first birthday lu'au for her first baby. I hope it stops raining tonight.

Some Portraits

I had several portrait commissions last week. I usually try to do portraits only from life since that seems to give an ineffable quality that doesn't come from copying a photograph. Plus it's so much more fun, as copying is such a bore. However, when the subject has a hard time sitting still it can be a real challenge to get all the features situated properly on the head. Also most people can't hold a pleasant expression for the length of time it takes for me to paint them so the portraits can have an uncharacteristically grim demeanor. I used a photo to do the portrait of the two men, Bob and Dana, because of the extra complication of posing the two of them together. The two women were done in single sittings of about two hours, with plenty of breaks.

More Pink (less pink....)

I am supposed to ship this painting off tomorrow morning. Wouldn't you know it, I got somewhat inspired to make big changes in it at the last moment this afternoon. Since I used lots of liquin I am pretty sure it will be dry enough to wrap up. I hope the folks at Queen's Hospital like it!!

Painting in Pink

My client in Honolulu thought the Diamond Head painting for Queen's Hospital didn't have enough flowering trees in it, that the trees I did have were too scary and skeletal, and also wished to diminish Diamond Head which she thought is too "touristy." So being a stubborn cuss I decided to just stretch a new canvas rather than making so many changes in what I considered to be a decent effort in itself.

So then I struggled with composing a whole new set of imagined trees, which in a way is a much bigger challenge than basing the studio work on a previously done plein air study or photos. Here it is in its latest state which I have already been told is too pink, which I can see.... but it does seem to have a Renoirish feeling about it.

This Week's Project

I spent a season on O'ahu way back in 1999, when my friends the Kloningers had a guestroom available for me in Kahala. That year the shower trees put on an exceptional show of flowering and I spent day after day at Kapiolani Park trying to capture the beauty in an impressionist style. I did several versions, at different times of day, of the view from street level right in front of the Colony Surf.

This year I got a belated benefit from all that effort, when Fran Obayashi of Obayashi Design Group contacted me for a large version of one of the paintings for a new admitting room at Queen's Hospital. The challenge is to do something that will lend tranquillity to a place that could be stressful for new patients. Here's my progress so far, plus two of the original plein air prototypes.

A Day at the Gallery & What I Shipped....

Last Saturday I finally locked the gallery door behind me and was on my way to get a sandwich for a late lunch. By Finagle's rule of course, a few seconds later a very nice couple from Berkeley came to the door and peered through the glass. I doubled back and let them in, whereupon the woman proceeded to pick out three very charming paintings by Cosette and Tuko, all paintings of the Kalapana-Kapoho road (the famous "Red Road"). Turns out the lady had grown up in that area and had owned a home in Kalapana that was destroyed by the lava flow in '89, and wanted to surround herself with these reminders of an idyllic time.

On the same day I shipped those to her, I also shipped off a portrait I'd done of Bobbo Jetmundson, a colorful southerner from Georgia, along with a big scene of leaning Kamani trees (tropical mahogany) and a moonrise painting.

While I'm at it, here are some photos of the gallery. I'm thinking it might be time for a make-over!

My Maui Paintings

I'm not sure why it took me so long to post these little pictures. I kind of like their raw quality, so it's not like I've been laboring over them in the studio, other than to mount them and start framing them. Once they are framed I'll show them in the gallery -- but of course it can be hard to sell Maui paintings in Hilo. I like them though, they remind me of our wonderful week with the plein air gang over in Hana!

My O'ahu Paintings

Just for fun I uploaded all my recent plein air paintings from Maui and O'ahu, with some comments on how beautiful those islands are. Unfortunately the computer ate the posting so here I go with a smaller version in hopes it doesn't disappear! These paintings are from O'ahu, which is an amazingly spectacular place to paint in spite of its overdevelopment and chronic traffic.