One for the show

I painted this for my April show at the Artist Eye Gallery in Laguna Beach, running from April 1 to April 30. It should catch the eye of a tourist or two, being a local landmark; a former gas station office recycled as a lifeguard tower.

More info on the Artist Eye Gallery can be found here.

Corona Del Mar house

Another in my series of house paintings. This one is in Corona Del Mar, CA, a part of Newport Beach. In keeping with it's oceanfront location, this modest million-dollar abode sports a fleeting attempt at nautical decor out front, in the two anchors dumped on the lawn. I was drawn by the symmetry, the cheerful yellow trim, and the walleye windows. I took some creative license in demolishing the mansions behind it and replacing them with simpler Spanish stucco structures. This helps keep the focus on the main house, and saved me a bit of work as well.

Somewhere West of Grayling

Another in my series of house paintings, this is a painting of a house near Grayling, Michigan. Grayling is a town in northeastern Michigan. This house is just off the highway leading west out of town, towards Traverse City, and the cottage on the Manistee River that I vacation at. I chopped down a few trees for this painting, and repainted the house from pukey green to boxcar red, to give it a more defiant look. In spite of that, nature still seems to be winning. The size of the house within the frame of the canvas is smaller than the other houses in this series, to emphasize the wilderness surrounding it. And the title is taken from the classic ad for Jordan Automobiles from the 1920s, which begins, "somewhere west of Laramie."