Los Angeles Coliseum

This is the sight of the Olympic Games in 1932 and 1984. Built in 1923 for under one million dollars, it is now the primary home of the USC Trojan football team.

City Works

I met a city worker here in the shadow of Pasadena City Hall. She was very friendly and had a good sense of humor.

I've painted city hall numerous times.

This 9"x12" original watercolor painting is for sale for $350 unframed. Contact me if you are interested in purchasing it.

Secrets

This is Old Town Pasadena. Pasadena was one of the first cities in Southern California that recognized a potential gold mine in its deteriorating and abandoned architecture. About thirty five years ago, it began to revitalize this area of town. Now, it's one of the more popular weekend hangouts for the younger crowd.

Many other communities have since turned their eyesores into eye candy.

Two siblings (a brother and sister) from South America stopped to watch and chat early one Saturday morning while I painted here.

This 9"x12" original watercolor painting is for sale for $350 unframed. Contact me if you are interested in purchasing it.

Sycamore Park

I thought I'd find a nice, quiet place to paint, so I stopped at this park in the city of Highland Park.

Things were quiet until a broken down lady with a scraggly little dog in tow came over and with little more than an introduction, offered to have sex with me behind the building.

I wasn't about to go along with it. I figure if any man would be dumb enough to follow her to her secret place, he'd probably be greeted by a big ugly man who'd club the sucker over the head and take all his money.

Instead, I told the woman that the man she needed was Jesus, then finished my painting.

This 9"x12" original watercolor painting is for sale for $350 unframed. Contact me if you are interested in purchasing it.

I completed this painting in record-breaking time. This is a familiar sight to anyone who frequently travels Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood. It's the Cross Roads travel agency and a group of other small business.

The reason this painting happened so fast (in about 30 minutes) is that the wind was blowing extremely hard and it was very cold.

It was so cold that no one even slowed down to talk or to just see what I was doing. One would never think that Southern California could get so cold without snowing.

This 9"x12" original watercolor painting is for sale for $350 unframed. Contact me if you are interested in purchasing it.

Fruit Cart Vendors

It was the day before the Los Angeles marathon. The streets were bustling in the garment district. Fruit cart vendors pushed their cargo around selling colorful eats.

Things happened so fast that I hardly could take it all in. A vendor and his family near me were suddenly surrounded by a group of men and women as several other men in drug their cart away. I looked around and saw the same thing happening to other vendors.

A big dump truck with lights flashing screeched to a halt and men began tossing the carts and the contents in the dumpster bin. Quicker than I could get a fresh sheet of watercolor paper out of my kit and paint the scene, the party was over.

The plain clothes officers had cleaned the streets for the high profile race, the vendors were whisked off to jail and the shoppers went on about their business while I returned to my painting.

New vendors and new carts would be back in about three days and I would be on another street corner wondering what might happen this time.

This 9"x12" original watercolor painting is for sale for $250 unframed. Contact me if you are interested in purchasing it.

Note: Saturday, I forgot to put a link on a site I was referring to until later in the morning. If you noticed the omission, oops. The link is now active.

Bus Stop

This is a busy corner on the corner of Vermont Avenue and Manchester in South Central Los Angeles.

Pitching your easel near a bus stop is a good place to meet people. You usually have only a few minutes to spend with them, but those minutes could be a life changing experience.

I make sure I'm not blocking traffic, so I set up on the side of the bench where the bus approaches and a safe distance behind the bench. I discovered that if I set up on that side, people could keep an eye open for their bus and visit with me at the same time.

This 9"x12" original watercolor painting is for sale for $350 unframed. Contact me if you are interested in it.

Paint Me

This group of teenagers in a Brazilian quilombo (place of refuge) saw me painting and asked if I would paint their portraits; individually. I knew I wouldn't have time to do that, so I told them I would paint them as a group. As I was getting started, I learned that one of the girl's mother didn't want her hanging around the foreigner. 

However, the teens wouldn't let me go without painting them, so I did this quick painting in about 5 minutes while looking over my shoulder to see if Mama was coming.

I thought the youngsters would get mad at me when they saw this faceless painting, but they really liked it. Wow.

Singer in a Showercap

Every now and again in your street painting, you will meet someone who will so entertain or inform you that you will be richer from meeting them.

I was painting on Hollywood Blvd. one day when a man stopped to watch me paint. He told me how much he liked my artwork, then asked if I would give him some money. He had such distinct physical characteristics; a long, soft face with tiny teeth set behind lips painted the color of grapes. He wore a pink shower cap. He had the personality of a silent era movie star. I told him I would give him five dollars if he would let me paint his portrait. He suddenly lost his air of dignity and was shocked, even embarrassed that I would want to paint him. He made excuses for his appearance, but I imagine that his need for the money outweighed his hesitation to pose for me.

I could tell he was uncomfortable, so I began to chat with him. He told how he had been cheated out of a role on a popular television show. He also said he used to perform musicals on Broadway. He offered to sing me a song. I told him I would love to hear him. He opened his mouth and began to sing a jazzy show tune. His voice was strong enough that he was probably heard from several blocks away, yet was crystal clear. I was speechless, but painted quickly.

When he ended the song, he said abruptly that he had to leave. I thanked him and gave him the five dollars. He looked my painting and said with the bravado of a celebrity that the painting didn’t capture him. I humbly think that I captured the real him in the 10 or 15 minutes we had together, and not the him he imagined himself to be.

On another occasion, I had the opportunity to paint the portrait of an Elvis impersonator in his upholstery shop. More on that another time.

Central Sax

Some of the most interesting you will ever meet are street people. Those would include hustlers, homeless and the down and out. Some people I term homeless are technically not homeless. They sometimes live in a homeless shelter, halfway houses or with friends. They often move around during their waking hours and return to their temporary residence in the evening. I often look for ways to help them.

Street hustlers rarely earn enough money to own their own home, so they depend on the generosity of others to put bread on their tables. If I determine someone is trying to hustle me for my money, I will not give them the time of day.

In your travels in urban plein air painting, you are also bound to encounter the insane. They can be very unpredictable and therefore must be dealt with very cautiously. Their behavior can go from gentle to threatening at the blink of an eye. Since I am not a psychologist, I do my best to dismiss them and send them on their way without giving them anything. Be kind but curt.

Then there are people who are so entertaining and engaging that you really want to pay them to stick around while paint.

Tomorrow, I’ll tell you about a man on the street who made my day when he stopped to ask me for money.

This 9"x12" original watercolor painting is for sale for $350 unframed. Contact me if you are interested in it.

Some Slackers, Some Lackers

Something you’ll have to contend with if you are going to paint on the streets in a metropolitan area are the homeless and beggars. Most of the ones I have given money to were very polite. Some whom I talked to at length were very intelligent. Most of them were spiritual.

If you choose to help them, you must use wisdom so that you avoid embarrassment to them, or even worse, harm to yourself. When someone approaches me with their hand out, I try to determine if they are merely hustlers who wouldn’t lift a finger to work if you gave them a high paying job or people in a tight spot who deserve a helping hand. Many of the later are kind, gentle people who couldn’t keep up with society.

Having encountered many street people who have asked me for money, I’ve learned some techniques to that have helped to keep my painting experience positive.

Join me tomorrow and I’ll pass along some things I’ve learned. If you have some tips for dealing with people on the streets as you paint, please share it.

This 9"x12" original watercolor painting is for sale for $350 unframed. Contact me if you are interested in it.

Swap Meet

I like to paint where there are people. The Rose Bowl swap meet is one of the largest gatherings of hawkers and bargan hunters in Southern California.

This setting presents a good opportunity to sharpen ones skills at painting in the midst of chaos.

Have you painted in similar situations?

This 9"x12" original watercolor painting is for sale for $350 unframed. Contact me if you are interested in it.

Amphitheater

This rustic setting is the home of summer jazz concerts sponsored by the Altadena Sheriff's department.

I painted it from the amphitheater stage late one quiet afternoon. What time of day do you usually paint?

This 9"x12" original watercolor painting is for sale for $350 unframed. Contact me if you are interested in it.

Juiz de Fora

I might have to stretch to call this a plein air painting. I was in the modern Brazilian city of Juiz de Fora. This was the view outside my hotel room window, which I painted under the watchful eye of my roommate.

Only recently did I start taking a camera with me when I travel. I had previously used only my paintings to record my steps. Finally, I realized that there was so much more I wanted to paint than what I could do on the run.

When I returned to Brazil several years later, I did as many paintings as I could, but those I couldn't get to, I caught with the camera. I haven't done any paintings from the photos yet, but some day I might.

BBQ King

This is one of the best bar-b-que joints in Los Angeles. I found this place when I was working on the film, 'Catch Me If You Can'. It was being filmed nearby at the Twin Towers Jail. The jail was fairly new at the time and did not yet have any prisoners in it.

A father and his young son watched me as I did this painting. The dad asked if I taught art classes. At the time, I was still doing my plein air workshops, so I gave him information about it. They never made it to the workshop, but I'm hoping that today his wide-eyed son is somewhere outdoors painting.

Back at the Bowl

I usually have a steady stream of visitors stopping by to chat  as I paint. That's to be expected since I choose to paint in populated areas.

This structure is part of the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. There were no events taking place here this day so I was able to focus more on the painting than the people. I did have two visitors though. They were joggers making the run around the park so they only paused long enough to see what I was doing.

Katrina

When New Orleans residents were displaced by Hurricane Katrina, many were sent to various shelters around the United States. One of those locations was The Dream Center in Los Angeles.

I went there to paint and hopefully connect with some of the displaced people and offer some support. I arrived to a somewhat circus atmosphere. The Center was crawling with news media, sight seers, motorcycle clubs, and an odd collection of concerned individuals (the group which I suppose I fell into) who probably hindered the staff as much as we did to help.

My plan was to pay some of the new residents to paint their portraits. I was able to complete one before I decided to get out of the way and let the Dream Center staff do their job.

David and Goliath

This David and Goliath scene is a block away from the Pasadena Central Library, one of my favorite hangouts. The colorful building is a barbecue shack set against the backdrop of a chain hotel. The BBQ joint was there long before the hotel, and I suspect it will be there when the hotel is converted into a shopping center before it is converted into condominiums.

I stood in the shade of a large tree across from the courthouse to do this painting. Whenever I paint in this area, I get looks from passing police and undercover officers, whose station is in this area. Only once did one stop. We had a very friendly conversation.

Ivy

The mom of one of my daughter's friends saw me painting, so she stopped to watch. There was very little small talk before she dropped a bomb; her husband died suddenly of a heart attack the previous month.

I tried to find words to comfort her until I realized that she just wanted to talk about it. So, I stopped painting and I listened.

When she went her way, I piddled with the painting for a while, but my heart was no longer in it. I look back on it now and understand that my purpose for being there was for her, not for my art.

Try Talking

If an airplane landed in the middle of the freeway, people would likely stop to see it, right? Well, don’t you think it a bit out of the ordinary to see an artist on a street corner painting (unless you’re painting in Venice). Then why, my plein air artist friend, would you be dismayed that people stop to watch you paint and ask, “What’s going on here”?

Too many artists offer these suggestions on how to deal with curious onlookers who want to talk: ‘Wear headsets and pretend that you can’t hear’, ‘Discourage conversation by putting a tin cup in front of you as though you’re asking for donations,’ ‘Tell your visitor that you must have silence to concentrate.’

Well, how about this for a little advise. ‘Talk to the people.’ Is your artwork more important that the person who probably is happy to see you there painting? A few words of kindness from you might mean more to them than all your precious paintings.