Like any other year, Fall has brought a nice relief from the stifling heat of our greater Los Angeles area. Cooler temperatures in the evenings have made painting outdoors a little more brisk, but beautiful for sure. I have a ratty old sweater that I refer to as Charles Grodin (long story) and he keeps me snug in the Autumn air most of the time. I'm not the fastest painter outdoors (in actual fact I'm a dreadfully slow one) but there's still enough light that I can at least get a good jump on a new plein air piece. Word has it that the next full moon is on Halloween, so I guess it will be me and Linus out in the Pumpkin Patch this year.
Charcoal drawings serve as a way to prep for oil paintings I have planned. I've decided to make them for sale on the site from time to time, they're a nice option for the collector who may find an oil painting a financial stretch, and are sometimes a little more detailed than the final oil.
I've been traveling around a lot lately from the coast to the inland desert, taking photos and coming up with some ideas for short series of smaller watercolor and gouache paintings. We'll see how they turn out. I will let on that at this point I'm taking a lot of source of roadside memorials and also abandoned home ruins.
Depicting a roadside memorial is something that I want to approach with a great deal of respect. The High Desert of California is full of these markers, so full in some areas that you could see 4 or 5 in the span of a mile. So far I've only seen one such marker that seemed to have been visited with frequency. Often, people speed past with little regard to what they signify. They are both beautiful and sorrowful, significant and easy to miss. Despite the sadness there's beauty there.
I'll be out painting, have a great All Saints Day and save me a little candy corn (don't you judge me).
Damian
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