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In case anyone is curious about what I’ve been up to, here’s the latest. I was contacted by a book publisher in the UK a couple of months ago and asked if I would consider writing a book on composition in painting. I decided to go for it and I’m now busy writing and planning. It’s not a sure thing though, the process has tight deadlines and needs further approval before (and if) it get published. I’m thrilled to spend so much time researching composition in painting and even if the book doesn’t get published it will have been worth it. The down side is that I have no time to paint and constantly wanting to throw my computer out the window!

Just putting the finishing touches on my website to compliment the start of my new affiliation with the Noel-Baza Fine Art gallery who will now be representing my work in San Diego. Their gallery will be putting up a two-person show this October, which will include many of my landscapes painted in Italy this summer as well as various recent landscapes and cityscapes of San Diego.

This 2-person show will also be showing the terrific abstract paintings by Theresa Vandenberg-Donche.

An opening reception is planned for Thurs. Oct. 10th 6:30 – 9:30pm. also, there is another reception for the general public the following evening (Kettner Nights), Friday Oct 11th 6-9pm.

I recently returned from six weeks of painting in Civita Castellana, Italy with the Jerusalem Studio School summer program in Civita. This was my second time visiting this amazing town about an hour and a half north of Rome near Monte Soratte. The country side around Civita Castellana is fantastically beautiful with its gorges, tufu rock formations, forts, castles, ancient ruins, pastures and the towering Monte Soratte looming over all. The town dates back to pre-Roman Faliscan civilization and has many medieval structures and streets. Since the the 17th century Civita was an important Grand Tour destination for landscape painting north of Rome. Many important painters such as Corot, Ingres, Valenciennes, and Turner painted here.

I stayed in two locations, the first was a wonderfully large home with a delightful host, a few miles outside of town. It had amazingly luxuriant accommodations, even a large swimming pool, very rare for the area. Regretfully I decided the commute with the unreliable local mini-bus was too formidable and I eventually moved to the center of town to a 4th floor hovel with only the barest of necessities and a maddening 4 sets of keys to unlock rickety ancient doors to get through the steep stairwells. However,my new place had a magnificent patio overlooking a great view of Monte Soratte and the rooftops of the town – where I made several paintings. As I get the time I will post some photos of where I stayed and visited.

Painting everyday full time, without the interruptions and distractions of daily wired life was a godsend. Critiques and discussion from Israel Hershberg and others were extremely valuable in helping me go forward with new directions with my work. I was also videotaping footage of the JSS program that I will be editing over the next couple of months to about the area and many aspects of the program.

Here are a few samples of work from Civita this summer. Titles, size, etc are available in the Italy section of my website as well as larger views.

I will be leaving for Rome in a few weeks where Liz and I will see great art and great eats for several days and then go to Sorrento for a few more days. She will then fly back to San Diego while l go off to Siena to join a workshop with Israel Hershberg, Stuart Shils, Ken Krewley and Lennart Anderson for four weeks.

I decided to not bring a laptop with me, instead I plan to bring an iPad. I am testing out the iPad right now, the typing is a bit clunky, with typing directly on the screen but half the problem is that I need to trim my nails! I’m also using this as a test to see if I can post to my blog and painting perceptions using this word press app for the iPad. I’ll try to insert an image after I see if this works.

Testing how to edit a day later.

I haven’t posted or painted for awhile so I thought I would drop a line to say what’s up. I got two paintings into the California Art Club juried show – Eternal Light, at the Pasadena Women’s City Club’s Blinn House. The show’s reception will be Sat June 13, 2009, (the show will be up until Dec. 2, 2009) The painting selected were my On Ramp and the Cabrillo Bridge in Balboa Park. My “On Ramp” was selected by the jury for “special recognition”.

In other news, on Memorial Day I was hiking up the nearby Cowles Mountain along with probably a million other people. A bunch of them were going much too slow for my taste and I stupidly slipped while passing them and fell off a ledge. I wound up dislocating a finger and minor fracture of that finger’s joint, massive bruise on my right elbow, and 3 staples to my scalp. I consider myself very fortunate even though it messes up my painting a tad. I’ve been cooling it this week, updating my website and a bunch of other stuff needing taken care of. I hope to get back to full-time painting next week. I have a large painting in Balbao park in the planning (a view of the city and where Rt 163 goes under Rt 5) I am thinking of posting a work in progress series for this.

Mt. Woodson Boulder Group #12 8″ x 10″ oil on panel 2/17/09

This was the most amazing boulder, almost the size of a small house. I plan to do more with this single boulder, can concentrate on ways to make the form and show its monumentality. May need to make the paintings a bit larger and work over more than one sitting.