The building on the corner of the seedy intersection my studio is on, or rather the parking lot next to it. The building is being renovated, and perhaps so it qualifies for low income rent assistance, they are putting in an elevator.

The substantial upside is that people aren't using the parking lot as a toilet or shooting gallery, meaning that the area around the studio is much cleaner. I hope they leave the area fenced off for a long time. This painting forced itself on me without warning, and it went relatively quickly for a painting with so much careful drawing. It was a break from lots of faces and figure painting. You might not think that a reasonable painter would ever want a break from figure painting, and I don't know how to explain why I need one.

18"x36" $1350
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This gains alot of texture from the old painting underneath. Because of the underpainting, I had to go straight into this with color, without the preparatory drawing I normally do. It was a refreshing challenge, rather than the exercise in futility it would have been if it had turned out to to be harder. Actually I spent most of my time worrying about the crowd in the background...

16"x20" $750
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Five Points is an old Denver neighborhood with a rich history. I volunteer at the public jazz radio station there, and hang out at Blackberries, a coffee shop at one of the five pointed corners. Zona's Tamales seems like it could be anywhere, and there is a friendly feel to the place, a get-your-soda-from-the-machine kind of vibe. The neighborhood feels like a place people actually live, the houses and apartment buildings aren't all generic new things without personality.
I painted there with my friend Marc Sabatella. Marc painted an old triangular building on the other corner, you'd see it if you looked over my shoulder as I was painting Zona's. This is much larger studio expansion of the plein air sketch.

15"x45" $950
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How do you make a train come out of the painting, too huge for the frame and canvas? The answer seems to involve perspective. The train towers over you, the horizon line is down at the very bottom of the painting, and the horizon line is your eye level.
This turned out to be much easier than I expected. All the big shapes turned out well in the block in, and that made the detail suprisingly easy to put in.

36"x48" sold
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Sometimes there is a special poignancy to people in the urban environment. Here it has to do with the weariness of the long lonely walk, perhaps home, perhaps to the car which will take our nameless worker home.

12"x16" $500
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People say you should paint your passion. I've painted Bonnie Brae Ice Cream already, here is my favorite by-the-slice pizza joint. The painting is called "New York Style" but the joint itself is famous.

15"x30" $800
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Earlier this year Quang Ho told me about a new technique he was using that enabled him to work on his paintings for a longer time. After a day of painting, he would scrape off most of his work with a palette knife, leaving carefully softened edges and the relics of a lot of work. This is quite a "Departure" for me, since I generally try to make my paintings look like they effortlessly flowed off the brush in one session. Here you can see the work, as I added detail, refined the drawing, and then wiped off a days work to come back later.

15"x30" $900
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A new line was recently added to Denver's light rail system. This is a revisiting of the lightrail station at Broadway. It is from an old photo, taken a week before the London transit bombing, and even then RTD security wasn't too happy with us painting and taking pictures there. I am not sure I want to try painting there again.

6"x12" Sold
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Winter doesn't scare me, but when the temperature gets above 90, I start to melt. I was starting to go stir crazy in my studio, when it occured to me that the temperature drops after sunset. I have done a bunch of night paintings this summer. This is not quite a real night painting, but a few of us brave painters were out around 32nd and Lowell in Denver, checking out the liquor store and street lights. There is a restaurant called "Bang!" that hides the eating area, but has the kitchen exposed to the street through store windows. Here they are...

8"x16" Sold
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An artist is like a prospecter. Rather than merely noticing, and taking a moment to appreciate moments of beauty, I search for them, dig them out, and try to extract their essence. This winter I set myself the task of studying snow. I went out in storms, and especially the day after. The first day of spring was supposed to be after the storm. It didn't turn out that way. A group of us crazy "plein air" painters went out to this relatively obscure corner of the Platte that afternoon while it was still snowing. I like to think it was worth braving the cold.

9"x12" $280
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This is a relic of probably the coldest day I have ever painted in. A bunch of us went up to Lair of the Bear park after the first big storm of the season. It was sunny, but cold. My paint was stiff, and after a couple of hours I couldn't feel my hands or feet. When I was putting my stuff away, I couldn't clean my brushes out, because I couldn't squeeze them with paper towel. It was scary cold.
Joel Cook was there with us. Joel is a fine and generous painter who has taught me alot over the years. One of the first times I tried watercolor, I got incredibly frustrated. I asked Joel for help, and he came over and gave me lots of good advice, most of which I forget. He did say, however: "Don't use these lousy paper towels. Get Viva." So to this day, I only use Viva paper towels when I paint. I wish Joel liked cheaper paper towels. Anyway, back to the story.
This time I asked Joel for advice, and he came over and helped me. That painting is in my studio, not for sale. This painting is a studio recreation of the smaller painting Joel helped me with on that cold winter day. I have made changes, but it should still be recognizably Bear Creek.

16"x20" $750
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After the success of the cows below, I was looking through a book of Whistler's paintings. He mastered the essential. While normally I don't have the guts to be as aggressively minimalistic as he was, I became emboldened. This is both an abstract arrangement of bits of paint, and a carefully rendered painting of two riders, their two dogs, and a cow. I suspect only the riders are obvious.

9"x12" sold
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This house is right across the street from me. In the evening, as the shadows crawl up the walls, the yellows above it get more and more intense. When the evening sun catches that bit of red curtain, I wonder about the people who live there.

16"x20" $550
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My family lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I find myself driving highway 285 south from Denver relatively often. It is a six or seven hour drive. Sunset often falls just south of the Colorado - New Mexico border, when there is another two and a half hours left. It is a long drive into the evening. The headlights of the rare oncoming car provide the only company. This is the view from there. Once again, the photo doesn't capture the rich transparent darks of the bottom left quarter of the painting. Oh well...

12"x16" sold
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I love baseball. I spent years in Seattle, where the Mariners played in the Kingdome. They lost lots and lots of games, until I left. Then they built a beautiful stadium and started contending. The Rockies play at beautiful Coors Field, but not well. You can tell by the fact that the fielders are wearing white that the Rockies are fielding. The sun is setting over the Rockies, and the visitors have just hit a single through the gap.

6"x8" sold
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For some reason I can't fully articulate, this warehouse scene speaks to me of a cold twilight that is perhaps more eloquently expressed in my road down into the valley painting above. However, there is a special flavor given by the human artifacts that are somehow bereft of humanity. The only natural elements are the sky, chopped into pieces by the towers, and the dull yellow winter grass at the bottom. I am attracted to industrial scenes, manmade things that dwarf man.


9"x12" $280
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