Opening!

This past Friday was the opening reception of the group show I'm in, "Characters Welcome," at the Artist Xchange. It was a lot of fun, a bunch of people came out, and I got to see strangers look at my art, even chatting with a couple. The time flew by and I didn't get very many pictures, so pardon the lack of diversity.

Here's my wall! It was so cool to see them all together and nicely framed.

Mom, Casey and me- aka, Verizon, more bar wherever you are. Oh yeah, Mom came out for the week. A bit of a spontaneous trip and it was great getting to show her San Francisco and for her to see my first group show. Hope you got some good photos of the city!

And here are some kind people deep in thought over my art. Actually, they are all friends kind enough to give me a "candid."

The show is up until the end of the month, so check it out if you get a chance!

Group Show

I'm going to be part of a group show in April!!! I found out a few days ago that I'll be showing a few paintings at the Artist Xchange as part of their group show "Characters Welcome" for the month of April. Since then, I've been busy getting to work together and making it show worthy. Here's the details:

Opening reception: April 2, 2010 7-10PM
@ Artist Xchange, 3169 16th St (cross Gurrero St.)

I hope you all can make it to the opening. If you can't make it that night, the work will be up till the end of April. All the work should be on the website as well. Tell you friends too!

Yosemite

Last week Casey's parents, Brad and Carol, were in town for a visit. They spent a few days in the city before we all headed down (actually, a straight shot east) to Yosemite for some time in nature. Needless to say, it was down right beautiful there and refreshing to get out of the city. The trip was short, but we made the best of it and had a great time.

Deer!!! One of the first things we saw as we entered the park were deer, apparently eating dinner. They were on the side of the road, just posing for us! I took this shot with my 35 mm, which is why it's a bit grainy. Brad even backed up the car so we could get a better shot and they still didn't move. It was what I would imagine going on safari would be like, except with snow, coniferous trees and very tame animals.

We got to the park around dinner time, so we basically explored around the lodge a bit, ate dinner, and went to bed early to rest up for the following day.

And THIS is what I woke up to! Casey pulled the drapes open to reveal that it had snowed that morning and everything was covered in it! It was like the movies. Somehow the air seemed fresher and everything had a cool silence to it, even with the squawking birds.

After a quick breakfast, Casey and I started on a hike up to Upper Yosemite Falls. When I had read the trail description, it said it was 3.2 miles, 2-3 hours round trip. That sounded like a nice, slightly challenging day hike. BUT, as we approached the trail head, we learned that I was looking at a different hike and that this was actually 3.4 miles one way. Hmmm. Well, we went on!

This was the start of the trail. How beautiful is that?

As we got more into the hike, we cursed ourselves for wearing so many layers. Even though there was snow out, we were hiking pretty hard and it was such a sunny day. But the trail soon got colder and snowier.
Here's a shot at one of the points we thought about turning back, but persisted on the fact that we were close enough to continue and finish. The snowy top on the right is where we ended.

Here's a shot as we neared the stop. Gorgeous.

These pictures are a bit out of order, but along the way, before we got to all that snow, we saw signs hinting as to what was up ahead. Icicles on green leaves. Crazy right? It's such a cool juxtaposition and a nice shot encapsulating the changing of seasons.
This was about 1/3 of the way up. This was taken with my 35mm and somehow the film got overlapped and double exposed. Not sure how Casey did it, but I like the effect.

There was one point off the trail where you could hike down a bit and see all three tiers of Yosemite Falls, which we learned after hiking it that it is the tallest waterfall in North America! This is a monster of picture and we ended up at the top of the left crest of the waterfall.

Ok, back to ordered, chronological sense.
This was taken near the top as we took a break from hiking the trail, which at this point was completely snow. It did take some mental endurance to get up there. But we did and it was totally worth it to see this...

Untouched snow that was probably more than 6ft thick. We made it to the top, but probably not to the official end of the trail. We were walking on a lot of snow and after talking to a few folks that made it up as well, we decided it was best not to explore to much near the waterfall. But that was alright, because the view up there was amazing.

We took a few pictures of each other and of the landscape.


And then we headed back down. Luckily, we walked down with a guy who seemed pretty familiar with the hike. He gave us tips on how to get down - one of which was to just slide down the steep, snowy parts (which we did, happily!). He also gave us his trail mix. What a generous guys. It totally helped us out since we hadn't prepared for this lengthy of a hike.

So, in total, it took us 6.5 hours to climb the 60 switchbacks that make up the 6.8 miles of Yosemite Falls. I think climbing around SF prepared me for that since my legs didn't ache much the next day. Speaking of which, the next day turned out to be a beautiful sunny day. What luck with weather!

We spent our last day enjoying what we could and taking photos. I swear, Yosemite wanted us to see its good side. We couldn't have asked for better conditions.

Casey, Carol and I took a short walk through the woods and then through the meadows.

On the drive out, we stopped to take a look at El Capitan, the giant rock formation and a popular sight in Yosemite. Here's the Newlins, basking in the sun in front of the granite giant.

I want to thank Brad and Carol for this trip. It was really nice to spend some time with you both and see Casey with her family. I know you've been seeing snow for months now, but it was a real treat for me to see it again, especially like this. I had a great time and it was so generous of you two. THANKS!

JELLO

I wish I could blame February being a short month for my lack of posting, but there have been just as many days in this month as it would have any other. I have no idea where the days in this month have gone, but I do know a bunch of it went into this painting.


For now I'm calling it JELLO. Oil on canvas, 22 x 44 inches. It's a painting for my good friend Britt and I have no idea how I'm going to get it all the way over to Nashville unharmed. Being so big and so complicated, this one took me a bit more time than I had anticipated. But I learned a ton from painting it and now I reference jellyfish more than ever. There are a few things I'd like to tweak before I send it off, but those details probably wouldn't show up in a picture anyway.

Hope you all like it. I do! I can't really give you a heads up on whats next, but hopefully it will be posted sooner that it took me to post this one. Saluti!

Underlayer

As I mentioned in a couple posts ago, I visited the aquarium while I was home. It had been such a long time since I'd been to the aquarium and I forgot how magically foreign things underwater were. I've recently been to the underwater exhibit at the Academy of Science in San Francisco, but the beauty didn't compare to the aquarium in Waikiki. It was something about the colors and the life of tropical sea life that held on to my attention.

One image in particular just stuck out in my mind and every time I thought about it, I felt compelled to paint it. So I did!

I'm calling this one Underlayer and its 20 x 16 inches, oil on canvas. Lots of detail (which is probably why I felt compelled to do that last piece) and a great learning experience of spacial pushing a pulling. I'll probably be doing a few other underwater scenes due to a commission I'll be starting on soon. Maybe this will turn into a body of work?

Leftovers

Being the "neat" person that I am, I clean my palette after each painting session because I can't stand starting a new session with a mess. This sometimes results in wasting more paint than I'd like. This was the case the other night, so I decided to do something with it.

It's a pretty big departure from my normal work, but whenever I do paintings like this, I really enjoy it. I don't know if it's because it's refreshing to do after detailed work, or if its a new style emerging. Either way, I think I'm going to explore this more and play with aesthetics more than details. Can't hurt right?

A Week at Home

I just got back from spending a week with Casey in Hawaii. We saw most of the key spots, ate lots of ono food, saw my friends get married, and got through it all with somewhat of a tan. It was way too short of a trip, but it was awesome to be back.

I just wanted to put this up before the Hawaii pics.

This is my latest painting which I gave to my friend Shelly for Christmas. Its a Tree Sparrow!

Ok, on with Hawaii. As I said, my friends got married! This is early January 2, 2010.

There is Lauren with her maid of honor Denise (in the foreground) and bride's maid Randi (sounds like a Barbi doll) They all looked fantastic, besides the stomach confining dresses.

Here's Lauren and Pa going down to meet Brandon. As you can see, it was probably the most beautiful day one could ask for.

After a few words from the pastor and a few tears from everyone else, they were pronounced! Congrats you two!

After the ceremony we headed over to Kaimuki for the lunch reception. The food was delicious and the vibe was awesome.
Here's Lauren chuckling after her first attempt at throwing the bouquet ended up smashing against the ceiling. In the words of her mom, "It's not Judo Lauren!" Well, the second attempt was a bit better, this time just smashing into Casey's face. I guess that counts as a catch!

Here's the gang. I swear, every time we take one of these, we look older and older. Is there a trend going on?

The rest of our time in Hawaii was mainly spent on the beach. Diamond Head, Sandy's and ....
Lanikai! I love this beach. I wish we had gotten there a bit earlier to see all the sun as it tends to hide behind the Koolaus (one of the two volcanoes that made up Oahu) on its way down. None the less, it was still a gorgeous day.
I don't have any pictures of it, but after dinner we headed back to see the stars. It was a bit cloudy and we could only see a few stars, but that disappointment was overshadowed by the rising moon. At first I thought it was a cruise ship, but the dull red light kept rising and we soon realized it was a giant moon. What a sight!

We also got to climb Diamond Head, the remains of a giant volcanic eruption. Here's Casey looking like a true local girl with the plumeria in her left ear, showing that she's spoken for (by ME! haha). This is on our way up.

And this is up. At the top you have a 360 degree view, over looking Diamond Head beach, off to Waikiki followed by Honolulu, around to Manoa, Kaimuki, and Palolo and in the distance Koko Head, Makapu'u and Aina Hina. If these words are foreign to you, then substitute them with "a lot of towns on the island." Either way the view was awesome. My only complaint was all the vog, brought over by the Kona Winds. Its usually a lot more clear.

On our last full day, we headed up to the North Shore to check out the massive swell that was building. We stopped to grab breakfast and headed to Waimea.
Here's the parrot of the only guy that was out in the water, sponging his way down the 8ft surf.

After Waimea, we headed over to Pipe to see the waves there. You could tell the swell was building in the short time we were there. The waves were huge and it was a great way to enjoy our last day in the sun.

This is a picture of the waves at Waimea in the morning. Spectacular!

On Wednesday, we ate breakfast at Diamond Head Grill and headed to the airport. Luckily things were on time and we didn't have to linger at the airport like we did on our way to Hawaii.

Walking back to my house, which is directly in the background of this picture, I was this. Let's just say the chilliness of this picture kind of describes how cold I felt.