Carmel

So since my last entry we have been around winecountry in Napa and Healdsburg visiting a few galleries and my friend, Alexander Harris again.
Then we directed our wheels south and visited another old friend from Florence Academy, Nate Taylor, in Santa Cruz.
We stayed one night with Nate, his girlfriend Grace and 2 year old train-iac Quinn, catching up, inspecting Nates studio space, his little garden, drank wine, ate pizza and played chess.



Nate Taylor at his house in Santa Cruz


Then another few hours south we finally had a little breakthrough in the weather!
We spent a few days in Carmel, a small town just south of Monterey, where we stayed for Christmas.
It reminds me a lot of Båstad in Sweden. A small town with a big sport event, golf instead of tennis this time.
Carmel had a strong artist colony going in the early 1900s. And there are still a few local artists around and now there are tons of galleries too.
I was running around the galleries for a day and a half and still missed a few good ones. (some of them were closed for the holidays).
I found two local artists I liked a lot, one plein air landscape painter,Jesse Powell and a sculptor Richard Macdonald.(google them to find their websites)
Today we drove down to Santa Barbara, driving in the wettest weather ever through the Big Sur...
At times it felt like we just drove through clouds, of all the amazing scenery along that part of highway 1 we saw only a fraction...(still beautiful though)


Rainy day in Big Sur




Here's a sketch from Stewarts Cove, Carmel approx 20x25 cm


So we spent Christmas in Carmel and Hilda gave me these books, great reading material for an artist :)

Frustration...

Today we drove from Calistoga in Napa valley to visit my friend Alexander Harris in Healdsburg. We meant to stay for lunch and then drive down to Santa Cruz but when we realized it was going to be a long drive and with really bad weather we decided to stay the night.
We got to see the gallery that Alex and his father has, now under reconstruction, and tonight we are going to check out Tron at the cinema here.
I'm coming to a point where Im understanding the weather is not going to get much better, after all its winter in California. So I have to come up with something to make this work. So far I have had the chance to visit some really good galleries but I havent had many chances to paint which is really frustrating.

Arte Verissima, Oakland

One great part of this trip is being able to catch up with old friends and colleagues. Yesterday we left San Francisco and stopped by Andrew Ameral in his studio Arte Verissima, on Piedmont Avenue in Oakland.

Here he is teaching ecorche' anatomy and drawing/painting in the realist academic tradition as well as he is instructing at San Francisco Art University's masters program.

Andrew was also one of my teachers in Florence teaching both anatomy and drawing/painting.

Check out www.ameralart.com












Andrews studio







Arte Verissima model room

San Francisco

Yesterday we arrived in San Francisco again after another 3 flights and checked in on Hotel North Beach, right next to Larry Flynts Hustler club and Mr Bings cocktail bar, 45 S a night.

Today we met up with my friend from school whom I havent seen in 3 years, Alexander Harris. He showed us around town and we visited a few of the galleries round the bay area, had Ghiradelli Icecream, drove down the winding roads of Lombard and had great Italian food at Caffe Sport close to our hotel.

In two days we are going to drive up to Healdsburg where Alex lives, an hour and a half north of SF to see wine country and hopefully if the weather lets us paint a few sketches.

Vain attempt on a sunset!

We have left Maui and are back in San Francisco. What I liked best with Maui were the amazing cloudformations that would occur everyday over the highlands. Here is a sketch looking at west Maui when the sun was setting, making this dumping raincloud glow. It looked like the cloud was burning from the inside! 

Im going to use this sketch to do another painting where Im going to try out some compromises and a few modifications in composition and values. 

West Maui by sunset approx 25x35 cm oil on canvas

It was raining for a couple of days so we took a ride to visit some galleries in Lahaina and in Wailea.

There were two pretty good galleries, one called The Village Galleries and the other Lahaina Gallery.

In the Lahaina Gallery I had the chance to met to a really talented plein air painter, Ronaldo Macedo.

Maui day 3

Updated 10 dec : changed the images to a little better quality, thank you Hilda!

Here are another  two sketches from Keawakapu beach facing West Maui (the mountain in the background), Keawakapu is the first beach from our hotel. Yesterday we walked to Big Beach and we really took sun over our heads!

It was a lot further than we had expected, so when we finally arrived (after hitchhiking the last bit) the sun was at its highest, it was super warm and my left foot was not walkfriendly. I was going to start a small sketch but we had no food and we were running low on water so no Big Beach-sketch...

Since we could barely walk this morning we just limped down to our beach by the hotel, and thats not that bad either!

approx. 20x15 cm oil on canvas

approx. 20x30 cm oil on canvas

Tomorrow we are going to try and get a rental car. Maui is not that big but definately requieres a car to get around, especially if you are only here for a week. The Island has a diverse set of climate conditions (I think 8 different!) , so there is a lot to explore!

Mauiiiii

After traveling for almost 20 hours yesterday we finally arrived in Maui, Hawaii. A strange route, San Francisco - San Diego - Los Angeles and then to Maui...
It does not make sense to me that all that traveling would come to be the cheapest ticket?

So we arrived late last night, really tired and had Twix, popcorn, mini pizza crackers and ice tea for dinner from our hotels exquisite vending machine and finally had some sleep.
Today we woke up before the alarm clock went off, fresh and excited, and explored our neighborhood for the following week.

There are many hotel complexes along the beaches here but we have only been in a small area today. The island is much bigger than I had thought so my expectations are still sky high :)

Surfing around the web I found that every year in february they arrange a big Plein Air painting week on Maui. (plein air = outdoor painting)
Some of the best painters I know come here during that week to paint, exhibit their paintings and hang out. Unfortunately I won't be here this time but hopefully it's not my last time on Maui!

Here is a sketch from today, a small, seemingly untouched point on Keawakapu beach. (the picture is a little dark, going to try to take a better one tomorrow)




Keawakapu point approx. 20x30 cm oil on canvas

Tomorrow we are going to Makena Beach, reputed to be one of the worlds most beautiful beaches!

Low tide

A sketch from Lincoln Bay during low tide.

Low tide is what it feels like lately. We have been driving south along highway 1 for a few days and the scenery has of course been amazing except it's been raining for about a week and not so many opportunities to whip out the paints and brusches...
Everywhere we come people say "it was sunny until about 2 o'clock"...
And according to the forecast they still haven't managed to stop the leaking from above. I have heard that China has these Cloud-rockets they had on standby before the opening of the last Olympics. They chatter the clouds or something and the sun comes out again...maybe that could be a useful gadget to bring along on painting trips?
But I like clouds, just not the rain. Makes me think of a famous American painter, Richard Schmid. He once said the comforting words that in landscape painting, it's so much about cheer luck to pull off a good landscape painting. First you have to remember to bring all the stuff you need (easy to forget a thing or two...) then battling with everchanging light and weather conditions...Rain and wind are not our friends.
(I can never quote anyone correctly but it was something like that)




The Cloud
Oil on canvas approx. 25x30 cm



Ps. All the paintings I do on this trip are for sale

If anyone would like to buy a painting please contact me on my email

gustavsundin@hotmail.com