painting process- a Parisian Terrasse and Tabac --

I can't believe it's been over a month I've not posted a new painting. After seeing my agent and speaking with a few galleries the consensus was full colour night scenes.  The Heure Blue series continues.  This Tabac night scene is in the works.  I love how the tree canopy reflects the red light from the red spiral carrotte.

The spiral neon carrottes that indicate Tabac shops are disappearing from Paris. LEDs replace them. Many of the paintings I've done in the Parisian series are now testimonials of how the city has changed in the last eight years. 

Only high quality paints can give you these colors.  Knowledge of mixing colours is a must.  Cadmium red mixed with ivory black or phtalo green for darker reds. Golden ochre, or cadmium orange and quinacridone for lighter reds.  Now white, please!

Happy New Year

 

- Café à La Tasse -

-100x100-

-oil on canvas-

2015 is the year of the 8.  Balance is in order.

Infinity.

May the year bring you beauty, joy, great paintings, writing, love, and fun.

Bring on the coffee!

Parisian waiter painting

Summer 16 -

50x50 -

oil on canvas-

It's not supposed to read sixteen but seize, for the beer 1664.  When you order a seize it comes in that glass. 

Paris Summer Light

50x50 cm

oil on canvas

Sold

This is Avenue de Clichy, Pigalle.

Les Gars Dumas 4

 

- Les Gars Dumas -

-120x40cm-

oil on canvas

Four paintings, two dyptichs or a series.

Les Gars Dumas 3

 

-Les Gars Dumas 3 -

-120x40cm-

oil on canvas

Les Gars Dumas 2

 

- Les Gars Dumas -

-120x40cm-

oil on canvas

Les Gars Dumas 1

 - Les Gars Dumas -

120x40cm

oil on canvas

Nearly thirty years ago I saw Manet's Fifer and knew I wanted to paint like that.  Last week I finished four paintings like that.  Here is the first of the Gars Dumas from the hip cafe Dumas in place Contrescarpe, Latin Quarter, Paris.

Mon Gars

 

Mon Gars-

oil on canvas 80x80cm -

The French troncate words when speaking. Gars is garçon.  No idea why the s is necessary. The title is a play on words because if you called the waiter 'mon gars' he might throw coffee in your face, especially at a Parisian café.  It's too intimate, unlesss he is your beau. 

This painting is for sale through Carré d'Artistes internet exhibition that starts today. 

 Carré d'Artistes has more than 25 galeries worldwide and works with over 600 artists.  That's some heavy competition.

I'm proud to be among them and absolutely delighted that they have honored me with an exhibit on their website.

If you're an artist and considering working with them, don't hesitate applying. They are one of the best galleries I've ever associated with in my 28 year career of painting.  Everyone who works there is kind, they are open to listening.  Every gallery of theirs that I have walked into is hosted by a kind and receptive person, ready to talk to artists.  Every artist that I've spoken with who works with them is satisfied and has only good things to say.  Enough of my brown nosing.

Wondering which café in Paris I took the image from?  Terrasse Saint Medard. 

Tom's Louvre

Tom's Louvre

Here it is finished.  The reason I postponed this painting for so long was because I couldn't envision the final ouvre.  People constantly ask my how I choose what I paint.  I have the luck to paint what my hear desires, but I love to do commissions. 

My images start in my camera.  It's always on me.  Mobile phone cameras don't do it but I have painted some things from iphone pics.  Notably a painting that lives in Bordeaux. 

The image was snapped  at night  through the rear window of a taxi, and it was raining  buckets.  That was in NYC.  The client saw himself as that figure with the umbrella.

When I paint people in scenes they take on personalities.  Often people I know.  It's great to hear people tell me the stories they see happening.

Eat your heart out!

Umbrella painting - a spatula knife painting

Blue Umbrella 19x19cm

This painting is from an image taken on rue de Commerce in the 15th arrondissement in Paris.  I love shopping there!  It is one of the latest forty that I've furnished to Carré d'artistes.  I don't know yet where it will be, will let you know as soon as I do.

Another Parisian Cafe Painting

 

120x120 cm (sketch stage) --

This is my 101th painting in 2014.  Eighty-eight were small formats and thirteen large.  Before I was working for Carré d'Artistes I'd spend a month on a painting this size, now this size flows out in a week.

The waiter is delivering a bottle of rose to the table in the sunshine.  Nothing new about that but everyone in the painting is fiddling with a mobile phone.

Help me choose a title for this painting

Parisan Cafe oil painting - 120x120 cm (48x48inches) -oil on canvas -

 Any idea what title this painting should carry?  As you can see it is not finished.

L'Heure de l'Apero

l'Heure de l'Apero

Huile sur toile
60x60 cm

This is a view from Boulevard Montparnasse at the Select.   I'm sure the waiter would recognize himself.
This painting will be for sale at the Grand Marché d'Art Contemporain at the Bastille in Paris from 1-5 May stand 102

Parisian Waiters from Le Select

 

Deux Gars

oil on linen 80x101cm

This is unfinished but you get the picture, right? 

The title is Deux Gars because the French cut off all these words like garçons, ordinateur, publicité... Hey les gars? What's up? looking at your ordi?  What's the pub?  (pub is pronounced like boob.)

The photo for this comes from Le Select on boulevard de Montparnasse.  It's one of the famous literary cafés in Paris.

Come see this painting at the Grand Marché d'Art Contemporain at the Bastille in Paris from May 1-5. Stand 102 is mine.   

Fresh Pressed Juice

 

Jus Pressé

70x50cm oil on canvas

I tried to change my style and paint on white canvas but it just doesn't suit me.  So this painting is a mixture  of smearing, veiling and alla prima.  Someone told me that the shirt of the man is too evident.  That is exactly my intent. I'm pretty happy.  

The cafe is on the corner of rue Saint Placide and rue de Cherche Midi in the 6th.  I have to go by and thank the owner for letting me photograph them at work.  Surely the waiter will recognize himself.  

The same person who commented on the shirt also said that the eyes of the waiter should have looked direclty at the viewer.  But that doesn't work in this kind of painting.  The figures if front-on must blend, therefore the waiter's eyes are less evident than the white shirt.

This is part of the new series that will hang in my stand n 102 at the GMAC Bastille from 1-4 May

I love Paris!

Jus pressé

70x50cm

oil on canvas, unfinished

To be shown at the GMAC, Bastille stand 102 from 1-5 May 2014

The Douannère finished

So they asked me to paint more realistically.  Which means slower, time consuming, plodding along.  But here is the result.  I think this painting rocks.

Il Douannière

120x80cm

oil on canvas

It looks hyper real but, like all my paintings, it decomposes as you get close.

The details show the brushstrokes and spatula knife but nothing can show the many sittings and different moods I wore as the thing developed.

I love back lighting.

I don't know when I started the actual painting of this, the brush to canvas when I sit down and look, not the preparations.  Those were almost a month ago.

This group came out well, no details, just planes of light.  Seeing the Slovenian Impressionists show at the Petit Palais was a good idea.  I was definitely impressed.

Now on to the next.