Follow Your Bliss

This was painted for the Calypso Moon Artist Movement challenge, Art in Music. It took me quite a lot of consideration to pick the music and an image. I wanted to pick some slightly obscure music that you probably haven't heard, in the hope of giving you something new to like. The inspiration is Po' Girl's song, Follow Your Bliss. It's roots music with lyrics that say something. The painting is in a slightly primitive style in gouache on watercolor. There's a line in the song referring to that wonderful fact about stars - they are so far away from us that by the time we see them they might be gone. I think moths are sad and beautiful in the same way as distant stars. They are fragile and short-lived. Some even have no mouths. They don't eat; all they do is seek a mate. Nobody knows for certain why moths fly toward light. Theories are that it guides them in their navigation and brings them toward a place of safety or other moths. Perhaps it is because the light is beautiful and brings joy to the moths. Follow your bliss sums up a philosophy of doing the thing that you love, and harmony, success or whatever you need will derive from that. Painters mostly get that. Musicians get it too. Go on. Shine.

I was stumped trying to figure out how to embed the YouTube video, so I'm accepting tutoring. Here's the link.

Wound Up

You may not remember, but I remember. I said I'd find this piece sometime and post it, and now I have. I did this for my two-dimensional design class as a young college student. Based on a wind-up toy. I'm sorry about the reflection; it wasn't only laziness, but lack of technical acumen that made me leave it in the frame.

I still like this piece quite a bit, although it wouldn't look right on the walls I have now.

Sunny Blues

There must be a song by that name. This piece is more old stock, because I haven't posted much of that lately, and because last Saturday's plein air painting was a bomb. I tried to do a watercolor of the spectacular Lummis Home in under an hour and a half, and ended up with two little papers that look like nothing. I'm working on something from a photograph I took there, but I'm not sure it's really going anywhere either.

The pictorial offering today isn't all that interesting. I'm pretty sure I did it just because I had a scrap of illustration board. It is a pleasing color, and seems to capture a whole range of sunny skies.

Mission Bells

This is another small three-color painting in gouache. I took a photo of the bells at San Gabriel Mission several weeks ago, and while I liked the image, I couldn't think of a good thing to do with it. So I think this is an interesting treatment. It's less Gustav Baumann woodcut and more Andy Warhol paints mission bells, only of course a lot less fabulous.

Ordinarily, with smaller images, I scan rather than photograph them. However, our old reliable printer/scanner is out of commission right now. It's quiet in blog world; is anybody out there?

Walk in the Arroyo

On the day I painted the bridge from the Lower Arroyo, I saw this lovely pathway across the road from the parking lot. I considered painting there for a moment, but I realized of course someone was going to park right in front of it any minute, and they did. If only I'd had an orange cone in my car. An orange cone is going to be my next piece of plein air equipment.

Instead I took a photograph, and just last night I made a painting from it. This is in gouache. It's certainly not a masterful painting, but I like how the limited palette of contrasting colors and the wide borders make it look like a block print. I'm not likely to be making any block prints, but I really like the look. Even if there's only one of them. It's probably plenty. I'm going to try more of these little paintings.

Passion Flower

At the request of my younger son, here is a passion flower. We are fortunate to have these adorning our back fence. I painted it with a combination of transparent watercolor and gouache.

Rounding out the weekend

Here is my under-represented younger son, doing what he might be doing right now, although he hasn't answered my e-mail.


An experiment in gouache on black paper. Turns out looking a little like sumi brush painting meets sixties blacklight poster, and they don't hit it off.