Yesterday's demo at Tempe Center for the Arts

Here's my model Christy - Oil on linen, 18" x 14" - great model and very nice person. I'll be doing another life demo in two weeks, same time, same place.

"Shadows of Unrecorded Trees"

I'm (slowly) working out a system where I can work on multiple paintings, most importantly, landscapes, at certain times of the day, returning over and over again to the same locations at the roughly the same time to take advantage of fleeting light conditions. Since I live in Arizona I can pretty much count on sunshine nearly all of the time, but on the rare day that it's cloudy, I hope I'll be painting (you guessed it) clouds.

So, for example, this is the corner of a wall that catches shadow patterns from trees from roughly 8:00am to 9:15am. I worked on this for around two weeks, using binoculars when I felt the need to examine something more closely (and of course just walked over to it whenever I felt like it). When 9:15 came along, I packed my gear and moved on to an indoor still life which caught a certain light at a certain time of the day.

There is so much to recommend in this sequential method. One big plus is that I can work on larger canvases - at least, larger than the small 8" x 10" or so plein air sketch size. I'll write more about this later on.

More on the "Faces" show at the Tempe Center for the Arts

Thanks again to everyone who braved Tempe Octoberfest traffic and came to opening night of the "Faces" show last weekend. The show will run through Feb. 6th and will feature periodic demos by local artists, including me (Oct. 24th and Nov. 7th, from 11:00am - 1:00pm) - for more information and a map please visit www.tempe.gov/TCA/gallery .

Here's a photo of my three paintings hanging in the gallery. Tempe framer Dave Owen of Montgomery Frames (http://www.montgomeryframes.com/ ) did a fantastic job with these - it isn't easy to find high-quality handmade circular frames. Thanks, Dave!