This was a piece I was working on a while back, a study I thought I might take to more of a finish at some point. I like the peaceful introspective feeling it implies with a slightly voyeuristic manor. I am always trying to work looser, and I found an interesting balance between naturalistic lighting and expressive line work with broad gestural paint strokes. Sometimes faster is better.
I do a lot of demos for class and the painting club at school. Whenever I get a chance I try to sneak in another drawing or painting of my favorite writer and poet Jack Kerouac, "Jackie Delouz" as he refers to himself in his semi autobiographical novels. A great writer of immeasurable influence in my life and I owe it all to my childhood buddy Kevin who grew up across the street who one day late in our high school years turned to me and said, "hey man, you should read this novel... its called On the Road". That is where my mad love-affair for the Beats all started. Kerouac and his writing have been a constant soundtrack playing in my head for the last seventeen years.
Last August a fellow teacher Barry Ebner and I took the Painting Club from the Art Institute of California on a field trip to the Marin Headlands. The goal was to take a stab at plein-air painting. Barry, an experienced hand at the traditional artform, gave us an inspiring demo the previous week leaving everyone filled with anticipation. Most of these students were relatively new to painting in general, let alone the long respected tradition of painting outdoors (which can be tricky negotiating the environment and weather). We had a grand afternoon and club members did a fabulous job for their first time out.
It was a typical gray August morning along the San Francisco coast but that didn't slow our excitement. We arrived around 11am and after scouting-out the local terrain, we soon staked our individual claims along a network of pathways that creep over and around the scenic sea-side cliffs. Two hours later we shared our works, played a little frisbee and headed back to the city. It was great fun. Check'em out...
©Copyright 2006 Allison Brown
©Copyright 2006 Trey Gallaher
Arnold Genthe was one of the first (if not the first) westerners to capture images of the first Chinatown and Chinese people in America, San Francisco in the late 1800's. What is interesting is the covert and secretive way he captured a lot of the images using a pin-hole camera (the local chinese were fearful of having their photos taken). His photographs are now a national treasure and were part of the inspiration for my painting series on Chinatown. There is a book you should check out called Genthe's Photographs of San Francisco's Old Chinatown, it is truly one of my treasures. The images will haunt you and take you back to a different time and place. This study I did directly from one of Genthe's photographs of this worker-child who already looks well beyond her years.
Every once in a while a color solution doesn't always seem so obvious. I like scanning in my drawing and working up a couple of variations using Photoshop. It can be fast and informative when establishing a color-cast,values and contrast for the final painting. I still love natural mediums for the finish but the power of the digital tool can be a time saver in the preliminary stages. Here you can see where I scanned in my drawing and produced a digital color comp. It inspired me in a few areas that I took to the finished painting.
I was approached in the spring '06 by a former student Cassandra Voors who was working to put together the upcoming student newsletter B.E.A.T.(Because in Everything Art Thrives)at the Art Institute of California - San Francisco. I was interviewed by a student journalist Bunny LaValliere who I had a great conversation with one afternoon in the summer. After some time and production this newsletter hit school circulation late in the fall quarter '06. It is the first edition that was printed and distributed and I was proud to be featured in this important issue. A BIG THANK YOU to Cassandra and Bunny and all those behind this exciting issue. You guys are great! I wish to only make 2 corrections (I have to they are my favs.). I love the radio station 91.1FM KCSM (best jazz radio in the country to paint by Saturday mornings over coffee) and John Coltrane.
