alex schaefer

PCH

2009-12-15T11:00:00.000-08:00

I went to Corral Canyon Road with Mr. Kilduff today and painted the afternoon light and view looking north up Pacific Coast Highway. This piece could use a little fine tuning, but I am actually really happy with it overall! oil on canvas, 24 by 36

brünnhilde

2009-12-12T18:47:00.000-08:00

There was a paint-out, technically a paint-in (which is good because it was pouring rain all day), down in Costa Mesa today and the whole California Art Club was invited. It was in a huge warehouse that is normally a gallery and framer. There were four areas set up with models in costumes themed from Wagner's Ring series opera, and from what I understand it was an event done in partnership with the LA Opera which is performing the ring cycle in 2010. I carpooled with John Kilduff and when we got there the place was ridiculously crowded! easels everywhere! I managed to find a spot in front of Brünnhilde and went at it. It looks everything and nothing like what I saw! I wanted to make something bolder than what was just in front of me so I made the model more iconic, like my sloppy version of Aristide Maillol! ahahaha!! She is much thicker in my painting because I wanted to portray her as a warrior. It was done on two separate 16 by 20 canvas panels because I didn't have a long canvas. It's kind of a mess, but it's all about trying to make the most of a themed model workshop with many things beyond the artist's control

el greco

2009-12-11T12:47:00.000-08:00

I've always been a fan of el Greco, his painting is so unique and modern for it's time, it's like he was from the future! Here's a couple work in progress shots of my re-do of his painting "The Baptism of Christ". I started it a couple weeks ago and consciously worked on it very aggressively with the intention of stopping before I felt myself getting "tight". I wanted the first attack to be very rough and expressive and free. Then last night I took it to the Hive to paint during the downtown LA Artwalk, this time looking forward to defining the imagery more. I'm really having a fun time with this one! oil on canvas, 48 by 30

Kronos

2009-12-08T23:04:00.000-08:00

I had fun on Let's Paint TV today. I recommend playing this show in the background and then doing all the things you've been procrastinating on all at once. Multi-task. And here's the drawing I did during the show, it's Saturn, or Kronos separating the heavens from the earth

painting workshop

2009-12-06T15:15:00.000-08:00

My mom is, as the French would say, an "amateur" of painting. She hosted a painting workshop by the artist Carolyn Anderson and I was happy to attend! I felt our teaching philosophies are in total alignment and I had a great time listening, learning, and painting. These are my favorite images from the class. Two paintings from life, a Sorolla master copy and a painting from a photograph taken by Carolyn Anderson. The painting of the girl with the multi-colored scarf was the last one I did at the workshop... when I was doing it I thought it was the worst of all the paintings I did over the weekend, but looking at it now I like it the most! AHHAAHHAHA!!

a bigger bacchanal

2009-11-22T12:26:00.000-08:00

I enjoyed re-doing this painting so much at the Garter on Thursday, that I did it again at the Hive gallery yesterday! This one is 30 by 40, so it's a bigger party... and today I went walking and sketching around Echo Park. The angle of the light this time of year is captivating. I didn't really catch that in this sketch, but I sure think I can with paint!

bacchanal

2009-11-20T11:20:00.001-08:00

Last night was another live painting event at the same bar in Venice, the Garter, a little chillier last night but still fun! But we didn't have a model this time so I decided to try out another master copy. This is Bacchanal Before a Statue of Pan by Nicolas Poussin, as painted by a satyr! oil on canvas, 22 by 28

parnassus

2009-11-13T10:36:00.000-08:00

I was inspired by Lets Paint TV to do another master copy yesterday at the Hive gallery for the downtown artwalk. I wanted to do some 'live painting' but I didn't feel like portraits. But this was fun to do and people visiting were fascinated by the process. I explained it to one guy pretty well by saying I'm painting a Charlie Parker version of an Andrea Mantegna standard, the chord changes are there but it's all jazzed up! oil on canvas, 24 by 30. p.s. here's a 3D photo someone I met last night took of me. If you have the glasses, it looks really cool!

composition and painting

2009-11-10T09:08:00.000-08:00

yesterday we had two models in my Composition and Painting class. When I talk to the students about 'composition' I always tell then that it's important to draw on large paper so you have the freedom to draw as much as you like and then you can later make a decision on where you want to crop the piece. Of course I started drawing in my sketchbook and so had to keep taping more paper on to make it bigger! ahahaha! A real case of 'do as I say, not as I do! Here I liked more of a close up of our two models, and then in the remain triangle of negative space that they left on the page I invented an opera house to give a feeling of foreground and background. I think this came out kind of fun! ink on paper, 8.5 by 14

a creative day

2009-11-06T09:50:00.000-08:00

It was a long fun day yesterday. First in the morning I played a cameo in a video John Kilduff made for Lets Paint TV, the Captain Creativity Video Challenge! I played a very off-model Vincent van Gogh. aahaha!

Then in the afternoon I was over for a while at my friend Rod's house and his grandson and I drew a few maps of Los Angeles, I think this one turned out nice. (note map not to scale)

The in the evening I was live painting at the Garter in Venice. One of the artists brought a friend who dressed in a cool outfit for us to paint! We all painted on the patio out front which was nice and could mingle with the patrons and hear the great D.J. which made for a good environment. oil on canvas, 36 by 24

travel town

2009-10-28T13:23:00.000-07:00

Todays paint out for the Digital Landscape class was to Travel Town in Griffith Park to photograph and draw and paint all the cool trains they have there. I painted this new piece on top of this past one that I was not really excited about. But it's really fun to work a new piece on top of a failure because it's a challenge to overtake the old painting. oil on canvas, 15 by 30

teaching painting at the Hive

2009-10-27T15:45:00.000-07:00

I led a small group of students in a private, four hour painting class at the Hive gallery last Sunday. They were all beginners, my favorites to teach! I started off with an intro lecture for an hour and then we had a model for three hours of painting. They really enjoyed it and were impressed with their work, especially since some of them had never painting before ever! The first day was, naturally, monochrome and here was my demo that I painted along with them. If anyone in the Los Angeles area reading this blog is interested in a painting class led by yours truly, contact me at the e-mail at the top of the page and we'll schedule a time for the next class. oil on canvas, 16 by 12

Santa Monica Pier

2009-10-21T14:12:00.000-07:00

I went out with John Kilduff yesterday to paint the Santa Monica Pier. I think I'm still wishing I was in Big Sur and Monterey! I'm in a show opening Saturday at Bleicher Golightly gallery about landscape; On Thursday they're having a speaker come talk about the history of the pier so the owner wanted some of my paintings of the pier... I already submitted one small one, so I thought I'd do a big one before the opening! You can see the pier from the gallery which is kinda cool. The big tent on the left is the Cirque du Soleil. oil on canvas, 2 by 4 feet.

UPDATE! Here is the little painting I did of the pier during the interesting talk about it's history. Since it was so fresh in my mind, it's a little version done from memory, oil on canvas, 12 by 16

painting the California Coast

2009-10-18T19:33:00.000-07:00

I drove up the coast for four days with Grace, heading for Monterey and painting along the way. It was PERFECT weather and I managed to get three good paintings out of it. The first one is of Morro Bay, then the next day it was Big Sur, and the last day, Fisherman's Wharf in Monterey. Also here is a composite of three camera phone pictures that I posted live to facebook! That's kinda cool. I wish they let artists paint at Hearst Castle because that place is awesome! Oil on canvas, 12 by 24, 22 by 28, and 18 by 36.

p.s. there is a good blog post on the painting lecture for the San Fernando Valley Art Club. Click here to see it!

painting lecture and demo

2009-10-13T10:37:00.000-07:00

I gave a talk and demo at the San Fernando Valley Art Club last week. I was postponing putting up a post in the hopes I'd get some better photos and clips than the one I got, but it might take a little longer than I thought. I'll update with better pics if I get them. It was a 45 minute talk about light, paint, and painting the effect of light, and then a 45 minute portrait demo from a random audience member who won a raffle drawing. They filmed the entire talk and demo and they said they will send me a copy when it's edited. It went really well, and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. In fact today at the art supply store, a woman stopped me and said she was at the talk and she thought is was great! Fun and educational. The photo flashed out the painting, and the video clip is before the talk panning the audience... update, I got some great pics e-mailed to me today, so I'm adding a couple of my faves from that bunch. Thank you Sharon from the SFVAC!

erotic art school

2009-10-11T10:52:00.000-07:00

Last night I was in a one day show called the Erotic Art School. It might turn into a regular event, I'm not sure, but it was fun. There was art on the walls, and artists making art live too! A mixed crowd of art lovers, artists, and beautiful models in fetish outfits as muse for everyone in attendance. Here's three paintings and a drawing I did. Also a video (sorry it's sideways but I forgot to hold the camera horizontal) that gives a little feel for the event. oil on canvas, 20 by 16 and 12 by 9

painting workshop

2009-10-03T10:37:00.000-07:00

I hadn't been to the Art Center Friday night painting workshop in a while, but I went yesterday for fun. I'm glad I did! It's nice to not always paint the model as a demonstration in class. I liked the variety of greens in this arrangement. oil on panel, 20 by 16

digital landscape

2009-09-30T14:25:00.000-07:00

I co-teach this class at Art Center which tries to combine digital and plein air. It's an interesting experiment and the students are enjoying it. We go on a field trip and take photos, make drawings, paint paintings, then we meet in the computer lab the week after and try to make something new using the computer and all it's amazing abilities. our first outing was on campus where I took lots of photos from unusual angles and made a photo-collage composition whose sum is greater than it's parts. I got the shots of the mantis when she posed for me after saving her from a spider web. Now she's attacking the entire San Gabriel Valley! Today class met as Descanso Gardens. I sketched and photographed for a couple hours and then did a longer painting after class regrouped at 11. I tried to encourage the class to really go for it when you're painting from life. You can see and "feel" so much more color when you are really there, it's something that the camera never seems to get. So with this painting I wanted to really accentuate and paint how the colors around me felt... even more saturated! When I got home I brought the painting and a photo I took of the same scene into the computer, stretched my painting so it matched the photographic placement, adjusted the opacity so you could see a little of both and voila! The saturated colors and "right but wrong" composition painted from life are blended with the dull colors and "perfect placement" of the photo which makes for an interesting image. two wrongs make a right!

two colors

2009-09-29T17:04:00.000-07:00

It's fun to try to make more from less. These are a couple demo paintings from my composition and painting classes at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena on Mondays. The exercise is to use only burnt umber and ultramarine blue (and of course white) and paying careful attention to value and temperature, make a painting of the model from life. With a little skill, the painter can get a quite accurate representation... oil on canvas, 20 by 16

money at the Hive

2009-09-28T22:45:00.000-07:00

Here's a photo of me last Friday at the Hive gallery posing with some of the recent prints and holding one of the blocks. I should have the wall totally covered by the next opening next this Saturday...

fiat currency

2009-09-26T18:23:00.001-07:00

here's the best one of today's batch of prints. I'm really getting the hang of inking the blocks and the right pressure when rolling them out. So today's was an especially good batch as I'm getting better with the printing process. By the way I sold one last night at the Hive closing show so they have been 'monetized' and have a market value! ahahaah! I should have no problem getting enough done for the Hive opening next Saturday, I want to cover my whole wall. But don't worry, there is no significant risk of inflation!

printing money

2009-09-22T17:30:00.001-07:00

I've been interested in money lately and have been making various drawings of U.S. federal reserve notes. I think it would be fun to try and sell some as art, and also as a bit of a statement on the nature of money today. So in an effort to streamline the process, I cut a three color linoleum block print of a U.S. dollar. I finished the last block today and ran a few test prints to see how they look Im happy with it, not bad for my first try. Here's a scan of one of the cut blocks, and also the test print. The green stamp is a random stamp I'd made that I had lying around and when I sell them, I plan to add a few touches by hand as well as the serial numbers. ink on paper, 2.75 by 6.25 inches

main street

2009-09-18T11:52:00.001-07:00

I was back downtown yesterday. I put a few more people into the painting of the Nickel Diner because I thought it felt a little empty; it looks more lively now! oil on canvas, 20 by 30 Also, I started a painting looking up Main towards the Hotel Barclay. At this stage it's just a drawing on canvas, but I will take it back on location soon and get some color on it. I have to decide if I want to do it in daylight or as a nightscene... ink on canvas, 36 by 18

(more) money

2009-09-15T16:19:00.000-07:00

Today is between teaching days and I was home doing chores and thinking about money. What is it? Where is it's worth? These days it's just paper with the only thing giving it value being the "tinkerbell effect" So since central banks around the world are printing money like it's going out of style, I thought I'd get in on it! Here are two life drawings, actual size. They are each for sale for $50; a signed original drawing by notorious artist Alex Schaefer. Or maybe I'll try to exchange them at my local farmers market for goods or services.
update: I drew a couple more bills, thought I'd keep posting them...

art walk

2009-09-11T20:30:00.000-07:00

I got a call from Nathan, owner of the Hive gallery, on Wednesday night asking if I could put up a show my paintings for the LA artwalk, which was the next day... I said sure! He knows I have lots of paintings so I could fill any gallery space three times over! The word is that this space on Main is going to be a Hive gallery "annex" where he can feature one or two artists in a more 'conventional' gallery setting than the main Hive which is like a carnival/artwalk all of it's own. It was sweaty work yesterday because I had to put the lights up and hang all the paintings but it was worth it because the place and the paintings looked super. I got SO many compliments about my work. I never handed out so many cards, I gave out every one I had! And I met a woman with a gallery in Chinatown who is having a show TOMORROW that I now have a painting in. I dropped it off to her today. It was a good, power day. Here's a couple photos of the show and a video walk-thru before the crowds got there. I should have remember to take a video when the place WAS crowded! next time...