Beverly Hills IV, California Landscape Painting
11/28/2012 1:10:18 AM
Sources say (link), Los Angeles gets 18 inches of rain per year (the US average is 37 inches); The number of days with any measurable precipitation is 26. On average, there are 284 sunny days per year in LA. No wonder almost always when I go and paint in Los Angeles, the sky is either sunny or hazy.
Once in my workshop, I painted a LA downtown scene on a rainy day for my class. As a demo, the painting turned out the way I had planned. But it was kind of odd to see a wet road in it as it [...]
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Loving You the Way I Do by Ron Savage
11/26/2012 12:00:42 AM
I am pleased that my watercolor "Torino, Italy II" was chosen as the cover art for Loving You the Way I Do, a new book by Ron Savage (ISBN: 978-0-9826364-3-5; Black Lawrence Press, New York). The book is now available online.
"We don't love each other the way we'd like. We love each other the way we do." - Ron Savage [...]
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Beverly Hills III, California Landscape Painting
11/24/2012 5:02:30 PM
The sun just set. Nearby streets were full of people doing holiday shopping or just enjoying strolling when I walked by a luxury hotel near Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. The hotel has an outdoor cafe-bar and it started filling up with their well-dressed clients, perhaps for before-dinner cocktails.
What caught my eye first, however, was not their cocktails, but tall palm trees reflected on shiny tables at this sidewalk cafe. For a second I was wondering what these people were ordering, but soon I forgot about it and started drawing in my mind - with these tables first and designing everything [...]
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Beverly Hills II, California Landscape Painting
11/23/2012 9:29:40 PM
One of the popular themes taken up in the workshops I teach is how to capture light and atmosphere in watercolor. In those classes, I keep telling my students to always think where the light source is in a painting. Unless you are painting a scene that is pitch-black (then, why you bother to paint it?), there's always the light coming from somewhere - even on a very cloudy day. Natural or artificial, finding the light is the first step and an important one in the process. But sometimes the light is not in an ideal location. Then, I'd say, [...]
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Beverly Hills I, California Landscape Painting
11/22/2012 11:42:34 PM
Is it the excitement of knowing that celebrities live just around the corner or the influence of a certain image conjured up by popular movies and TV shows? For whatever reason, Beverly Hills always looks prosperous with brand-name boutiques and restaurants as well as expensive foreign cars and international tourists toting shopping bags.
In fact it almost feels like visiting a movie studio when you walk on a tree-lined, posh street here. A stretch limo stopped in front of me while I was waiting for the green light. If there was a famous Hollywood actor behind the tinted window of the limo, [...]
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Konak, Izmir, Turkey II
11/21/2012 4:35:05 AM
Konak Square is probably the busiest part in the city of Izmir. With the city's symbol Izmir Clock Tower in the middle, this square is always full of people, and pigeons alike, walking about in all directions. The tower was built in the Ottoman architectural style over a hundred years ago. On one evening, rain had just let up and the beautifully-silhouetted tower looked as if it rose from a mirror.
One of the important buildings near the square is the state-run Izmir Painting and Sculpture Museum where I just finished my solo exhibition (read related post). I woud like to take [...]
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My Solo Exhibition in Izmir, Turkey Closes on November 21
11/19/2012 4:23:39 AM
It's been wonderful three weeks since the October 30 opening of my solo exhibition in Izmir, Turkey. I am extremely grateful that I was invited to show over 60 original paintings of mine of Turkish and Japanese landscapes and cityscapes at the Izmir Painting and Sculpture Museum (İzmir Resim Heykel Müzesi Ve Galerisi). Many people, including my friends and their families, joined me at the opening reception, and many more have visited the exhibition in the days after that. I also spent three days painting in my workshop with talented painters who came from all over Turkey and overseas.
Originally, my show [...]
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San Diego Watercolor Society Workshop Finished
11/16/2012 6:50:21 PM
I just finished my 4-day workshop at the San Diego Watercolor Society. As with all the painters I met in my previous workshops, everyone who attended my class in San Diego was seriously hard-working and fun-loving people, and we painted furiously for 4 solid days, exhanged art tips, laughed, shared meals, etc.
I wouldl like to thank the SDWS for organizing and executing an extremely professional workshop and everyone who spent the last 4 days painting with me. Hope to see you all again.
Demo (Balboa Park, San Diego)
Media: Original watercolor on paper
Image Size: 20 x 14 inches (51 x 36 cm)
Frame/Mat: No
Purchase: [...]
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