Tuesday, May 19, 2009

St. Vincents / Nicasio Reservoir

I met up with 2 other painters at St. Vincent's Church in Marin. I decided to try a medium I haven't touched since art school...gouache! Most of you probably recall the weather reaching the high 90's on Sunday. So finding a shaded area to set up was key.

Monday, May 18, 2009

St. Vincent's


It had to be around 90 degrees yesterday. As I was drawing, my shady spot was swiftly shrinking - but the light on the buildings was improving :) I stuck around long enough to entirely overwork the right side of this sketch. SO, here it is, cropped to the more interesting area :)

Thanks for organizing the trip guys! hope I can make it next time out :)
~m

Artist: Marc Holmes

2nd North Bay Plein Air Painters Meetup

This was the 2nd North Bay Plein Air Painters meetup. We went over to St. Vincent's church in San Rafael. I didn't realize there was such a cool building in San Rafael. It's out in the middle of nowhere, but it's really fun to explore and is ripe with great opportunities for paintings.

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As you can probably tell, I didn't start with any drawings in these paintings. I need to discipline myself a bit better with that. This first painting was done over another painting, which was done over one under that. It's like a matryoshka doll painting... The great thing about gouache that it's either as transparent or opaque as you want it.





We then went out to the Nicasio reservoir afterwards. It's a pretty good spot for painting, with it's many hills overlapping eachother. I still think the background hill can be pushed back a bit by lightening it.



It was hot today. So hot that when I was swimming at 10pm, a rat actually jumped into the pool randomly and just started swimming around. It couldn't get out, so I had to take it out myself. It wasn't a wild rat, it was one of those cute rats, probably someone's pet. I didn't want to grab it with my hands though, so I had to use my towel. I got it out before it drowned which would have really sucked. So the moral of the story is.... a rat made my soak my towel.

Artist: Sergio Lopez

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Posting Results Soon...

We could have stayed for hours roaming around and painting around St. Vincent's Church. Wait....we did stay 3 hours! After grabbing some late lunch we headed to Old St. Mary's Church. Unfortunately there was an event so we drove further towards the Nicasio Reservoir and squeezed in one more painting for the day. Thanks for visiting and please stay tuned....

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

RSPV - Meeting May 17th, 2009

So far we have 3 painters meeting up. We'd love to get a final head count by Friday.

Please RSVP by:

Thanks and see you there!

Monday, May 11, 2009

2nd - North Bay Plein Air Session - May 17th, 2009

We are trying something different this time around....meeting in one location and ending in another location (listed below)

Sunday, May 17, 2009
11:00am - 4:00pm (tentative)


Meeting at St. Vincent's Church
(in the back - large patio/fountain area)
1 Saint Vincents Dr
San Rafael, CA 94903















Ending at Old St. Mary's Church
(Park near the Rancho Nicasio General Store)
1 Old Rancheria Rd
Nicasio, CA 94946

Monday, May 4, 2009

CANCELLED on May 9th, 2009

CANCELLED - May 9th has been cancelled due to conflicting work schedules. We will see everyone on the 17th! Thank you.

If interested, please leave a comment or RSVP on our new Facebook page, Thanks!

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Metamorphica - May 2009

(Art property of Bill Robinson)


(Art property of Cameron Chan)
(Art property of Julia Lundman)

A handful of us had a chance to lock in a spot for this month's "Metamorphica" costume/life drawing session at the SF Bus Stop Gallery. Seats filled up rather quickly. To see more sketches, be sure to check out:

Julia - red china marker
Cam - gouache
Gerald -watercolor, brush pens
Segio -pencil, pen
Bill -blue pencil, brush pens