Here are a couple more sketches from my Sketchbook Project book. Going to the Hydro, above, I drew from a photograph I took in downtown Calistoga. I'd planned on taking the photo of the Hydro building – but then this nice couple ahead of me began walking across the street, and suddenly it was really all about them, going to the Hydro. I loved the long, late afternoon shadows they cast as they walked, too.

From two people in love crossing the street we go down the block, to the Tree of Past Loves at Indian Springs Art Gallery. The tree is an olive tree, and people have written the names of past loves on tags, and tied the tags all over the tree. Some tags are new, and have a nearly-coral color; others have been there longer, and have faded to a pinky-cream color, a little like memories.

There are more trees than only this one. Each tree has tags hung from it dedicated to something different....

More from my Sketchbook Project book... in a sketchbook about Calistoga and the area around it, I couldn't leave out a Brannan cottage, named for Sam Brannan, who originally developed Calistoga as a spa town, and who built these sweet little cottages. Three remain; this one is part of the Sharpsteen Museum, on Washington Street.

Just down Washington Street a little, and across the street, is our City Hall, probably one of the funkier city halls in the state. I especially like the Christmas lights strung around the windows and across the top of the roofline and steeple. Although the lights are only on at night around the holidays, at the right time during the day, they cast wonderful shadows.

My sketchbook, entitled "Travel with me... to the Napa Valley," travels to exhibits around the country and beyond for most of the rest of the year, beginning at the Brooklyn Art Library (the sponsor and coordinator of the show), in Brooklyn, NY, from April 14th through the 30th.

It will come to San Francisco in June... and I see that when it goes to the Boston area, it will go to Lynn, Massachusetts (an old industrial town once, and long, known for shoe manufacturing). My ancestors on the Ingalls side founded Lynn (the third oldest town founded by Europeans in Massachusetts), so it seems like a nice kind of circularity.

Two more of the drawings I did for the Sketchbook Project 2012.... The one above I sketched while sitting in my car on the side of the road, on Bennett Lane. I love the gnarliness of the winter vines.... I drew this in pen and ink.

Not too far around the corner from it, on Foothill Boulevard as you head back towards Calistoga, you see the Faunce's big red barn, at the Yellow Rose. It's one of the most beautiful barns in the area, and next to it is an old walnut orchard - one of the few of the old walnut orchards left in the area. 

I drew this in pen and ink, and worked back into it with gray brush tipped felt pens.

I've also been working on a sketchbook for The Sketchbook Project, which I've got to finish and mail off today. I've sketched all kinds of spots all around Calistoga... here are a couple.

Here's the next step in the process... adding hints of an apricot-ish color (the last traces of the sunset).... It's still got quite a ways to go. 

(Note: The lower left-hand corner is a little faded in the photo, because of the reflection of the light on the canvas.)

I've had this big canvas (4' x 4') waiting on my easel for a while now – I've been itching to get at it. Finally I've begun! The process may look different than you might have imagined. Since it is a painting of a landscape at dusk, I wanted a dark blue underpainting. Then I draw in my composition.

The dark (nearly black-looking) lines were the first stages of the composition, which I painted over as I refined it. You can see here I've begun to indicate the rows of the vineyards and a big more structure in the big tree.

The next part of the process is to lay in big shapes of color. It doesn't have to be neat. Actually, it's much better if it's not. I want bits of that dark blue showing through and influencing the feeling of dusk in the painting.

It's starting to look quite different now, isn't it? The lightness of the sky makes a considerable difference.... Notice, I'm still laying in big shapes of color, but starting to break them down into some slightly smaller shapes, particularly in the vineyard and between the rows of vines.

Here, I'm continuing to break the bigger shapes down into smaller and smaller shapes, adding the variations within them. The most important thing is to bring the whole painting along together, and not to get obsessive about detail in any one particular place. You need to see the whole forest (or, in this case, the vineyard), not the trees (or their specifics – yet).

Here's where the painting is currently. You can see I'm continuing to develop the hill behind, the trees, and the vineyard and its rows – and I've brought a nice strong robin's egg blue color into the sky. It's not done yet, by a long shot – I'll share its progress as it develops.

My afternoon with Willard Bond and Jean Steubing Maggrett, at the home of Willard's daughter, my friend Gretchen, was a warm and wonderful one. As two creative people, who had not met before, they shared not only their work as visual artists, but also a love of alternative spaces. 

Jean lived in a studio on 9th Street in the Village, before moving out to the Hamptons along with many of the other abstract expressionists. For the last twenty-ish years, she has lived in a historic one-room schoolhouse, adjoining the community hall she owns, in the mountains not far from my home.

Willard made his home and studio in an old synagogue on the lower East Side in the early 60s, but later became fascinated with geodesic domes. He knew Buckminster Fuller, and spent six years in Jamaica, building geodesic dome homes. His current studio in upstate New York is a geodesic dome he built.

Both also became martial artists, as well as visual artists. Willard became a devotee of Tai Chi, to which he credits his keeping strong and flexible as he gets older. Jean moved out to California to study Aikido with her Aikido master, and credits the awareness and presence of mind she learned from it with saving her from drowning.

Jean brought her copy of Club Without Walls, memories of the Art Club, of which she and the abstract artists I knew from my art history studies were a part – Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Elaine de Kooning, and more.... (I have my own copy now, and am just beginning to read it.)

And Gretchen brought out a scrapbook, and more, with photos of Willard, including the one above, and books and a poster showing his large watercolor marine paintings, as well as the abstract nude paintings and ceramic murals he created during his days in the Lower East Side.

I hope we can all gather together again, the next time Willard comes out to California!

Last week, I spent a wonderful afternoon with Jean Steubing Maggrett, whom I've known for something over nine years, and Willard Bond, the father of my friend Gretchen. They met for the first time last week, but both of them lived and painted in the heady creative days of Greenwich Village and the Lower East Side in the late 1940s, 50s, and early 60s, and Gretchen and I got to listen to them share memories.

Jean lived in the Village, in a loft studio on East 9th Street, opposite the building that became the site of the 9th Street Show, which introduced the work of the New York School to the world. Jean, a member of the Art Club, and a student of Hans Hofmann's, suggested the space, and collected the money to rent it, and on opening night a floodlight from her studio lit up an enormous canvas sign Franz Kline had painted to announce the exhibit, which hung from an upper floor above the show. 

Willard Bond lived and worked in an old synagogue in the Lower East Side, where he painted large contemporary nudes and created painted ceramic murals, including the one at the entrance of the Eugene O'Neill Theatre. He played the drums too, often with other jazz musicians, and Gretchen shared with us a photo of him playing onstage in the production of a Bertolt Brecht play.

Today, Willard is known for his marine paintings, which you can see at http://www.annapolismarineart.com/WillardBond.html, and which you see in the book on the table in front of them.

What wonderful stories I got to hear, from two people who lived hearty creative lives, and who still live life heartily and creatively! I'll post more later....

It's not up in time for Christmas, Hannukah, Midwinter, or Lucia Day (for us Swedes), but it's still heartfelt. May 2012 bring you joy, delight, love, friendship, and good health – and may it bring (finally, please?) us all peace on earth. (Hey, I can hope, can't I?)

A note on how I created this image: although it has some of the qualities of block prints, I actually drew it digitally, in Photoshop (with a mouse, not a stylus).

December already! I'm busy preparing for Black Stallion Winery's Holiday Open House & Art Show on December 10th. I'll be bringing my greeting cards and matted reproductions of my paintings, as well as some original paintings. 

I may include a few of the relief print-and-stencil (and block print) paintings I've been working on this last month, depending on how much I can squeeze into my space, too.

Black Stallion Winery is at 4089 Silverado Trail, just north of Napa, and the event will be held from noon until 4 p.m. I'll be in good company, with some of my favorite Napa Valley Open Studios colleagues. You can learn more at http://blackstallionwinery.ewinerysolutions.com/events.