Afternoon Walk

Today I decided to put my worries away for awhile and go for a walk down Santa Monica Blvd. The weather was great, and after painting in the morning, I needed to get out of the house. I moved to Los Angeles from Boston in June, and this is my first fall here. It is still somewhat shocking to be in a place where the seasons don't really change. But I'm not complaining - it was a gorgeous day.
Gotta love it!
Heading west on Santa Monica Blvd. out of West Hollywood, you will eventually reach Beverly Hills. Beverly Hills is filled with orderly streets, many of them lined with palms. I have to admit, even though the palm trees are not native to the Los Angeles basin, they are attractive. They suggest a tropical place, and while this area used to be more of a desert, it has become an oasis of sorts, albeit a contrived and bit unnatural one. This idea of the natural vs. the unnatural is the basis of my current paintings, Natural Beauty.
Beverly Hills is a bit ostentatious. Other wealthy areas in Los Angeles would not have a large sign advertising their neighborhood, but in Beverly Hills, anything goes. There were many tourists taking photos of this sign, as there always is, and today, I was one of them. It was kind of fun.
I ended up on Rodeo Drive. I had never been there before, and while I will likely never shop there, it seemed like a good final destination. My favorite part of the area was this naked woman statue that watches over Rodeo Drive without eyes. This small street does have a bit of a village feel, and it was fun to walk around the area.

By the time I made it back to my apartment in West Hollywood, I felt like I had walked a hundred miles, and I was tired. But I enjoyed my walk in the sun.

Five Canvases

Yesterday I built five canvases. I went to the art store in the morning and purchased the materials, and what was once a pile of stretcher bars and fabric is now five painting supports. New canvases are so exciting because they are filled with so much potential.

Before you can apply oil paint to a canvas, you must cover the canvas with three layers of gesso. The solvents used in oil painting, as well as the oil itself, will eventually leach through the canvas and damage it without the protective gesso layer. “Gesso” is the Italian word for “chalk”, and traditionally, gesso was a mixture of chalk and rabbit-skin glue. This mixture is fairly brittle, and is suitable for wood or masonite. Modern gesso has an acrylic polymer base. This is much more flexible, and can be used on canvas.

So here are five canvases, drying on my porch, fifteen coats of gesso later.