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.

Currently without a working computer (which will change soon!), I only just realized that I missed posting all about the Calistoga Art Center's first Paint Out in October. And it was a wonderful event that they're looking forward to repeating next year....

On the first day, I painted Jade Lake at Chateau Montelena. I wasn't quite ready to call it a day once I'd packed up, and I set up at this second spot no more than a mile away, with a view I love of Mt. St. Helena – for which Chateau Montelena was named.

One of things that make working outside challenging is the changing light – and at sunset it changes so rapidly that it's hard to keep up with it. What you see on the easel is my painting of Mt. St. Helena on Friday evening – the painting was rapidly changing as the light went down (and got more dramatic!). I went back on Saturday evening, just before I had to turn my paintings in, and was able to catch more of the subtle touches of light and shadow before dusk settled. The painting at the top shows what it looked like when I turned it in on Saturday. I may come back and make a few more subtle changes later, but I enjoyed my race against the last rays of light....

It was hard to believe we could have had even more visitors on the second Sunday of Open Studios, especially given rain that ended ten minutes before we were to open, but soon after 11:00 over a dozen people had already traipsed down Ed's driveway to join us. Several kindly offered to help Ann and me hang the paintings I couldn't put up until the rain ended! (Special thanks to Bob and Susan for their help!)

By afternoon, the clouds had parted, and we had a lovely day. My thanks to everyone who came to visit – and my special thanks to those who took some of my artwork home with them! I'm looking forward to next year.

If you'd like to see a few more photos of Open Studios, please take a look at my Line, Color, Paint, Joy blog, at my Napa Valley Open Studios 2011 - II post.

What a wonderful weekend! Thank you to everyone who came by to see what I've been up to, art-wise. Ed Breed and his wife Sandi, whose guest I am for Open Studios, are such congenial hosts! Ed brought his trailer over to my studio last week and helped me pack and cart, and then set up my display equipment outside the entrance to his glass studio.

Calistoga painter Ann Renard is helping me during each weekend, too, which has been a huge help. We've had a lot of visitors, and I'd be completely overwhelmed if she wasn't there with me, welcoming our visitors.