Plein Air and Planes - Just plain fun!
Welcome to Fall! A season with so much color - my favorite! I’ve been busy painting in the studio, but have also started to paint more frequently outside, in “Plein Air” as it’s called. My favorite place to paint outside is in Point Lobos which is located between Carmel and Big Sur. It’s a magical place where each turn on a path takes provides one with a new beautiful scene. Most of the time the paintings I make will be for study purposes only as it gives me a good reference for a larger painting back in the studio. It will take be between 30 minutes to 1.5 hours to create a painting outdoors. Painting outside gives me the chance to meet people from around the world, have wonderful discussions are had about art and the place we happen to be, and just enjoy taking in the site and sound of the beauty of the site I’m at. Often times I end up giving recommendations for places to eat or directions to other local attractions. I enjoy talking and painting at the same time. Here are some photos of working outside.
A very cool opportunity came up in September and I was able to meet representatives from top corporate aircraft manufacturers and toured over a dozen planes. We talked about their jets, their client’s art collecting, and how great my smaller sized pieces add a splash of color in the interiors of these beautiful aircraft. Wow these jets, some costing up to $65 million dollars, were really really nice. I’ve always loved aviation. Little known fact is for my 13th birthday, my parents gifted me a flight lesson in a small Cesnna 150 two seater plane. So I actually flew a plane before I drove a car! My wife says I’m always looking up at planes and I’m such a geek that when it comes time to book flights, especially international ones, the type of plane becomes part of my consideration.
25 minute end of day painting at Guglielmo Winery
The wonderful woman who took this picture actually recognized my painting style and knew who I was! So nice to be noticed. After that, it was hard to decide what was cooler that day - having a stranger know my work or sitting in these awesome jets. This is in front of the Gulfstream G650 ER.
This Dassault Falcon 8X can easily fly to Maui which is this the location of this painting. Heck…it can also fly non-stop to Italy if that’s where one prefers to go from San Jose.
Painting a path at Picchetti Winery.
Work in progress at Guglielmo Winery
Plein Air painting at Point Lobos. This was actually my second painting at this spot. I was with a group of artists and the first painting I worked on for almost two hours just wasn’t working. With 30 minutes to go before our group was to meet and critique each others work, I grabbed my palette knife and knocked this out. Funny how sometimes the paintings I make knowing there’s not much time to make them come out the best.
Doesn’t this original Eric Bodtker painting add a great splash of color to the credenza on the Gulfstream G650 ER?
I could get use to flying like this. In the Dassault Falcon 8X.