My Occasional Newsletters -
April 2012
Checkmate, 18 x 36 x1.5 inches, Oil on Canvas. My latest painting. Click here for details.
Fiesta Sidewalk, 20 x 16 x1.5 inches Oil on canvas. a recent painting. Click here for details.
My March exhibit "Our Town" was successful with the sale of "Umbrellas on Chapala."
If you are in the Santa Barbara - Goleta area, be sure to come by my Studio on Saturday 19 May 2012. I am opening my Private Gallery and Studio as part of the Goleta Artist Studio Tour. This one day, eight stop tour, gives art lovers an opportunity to meet some local artists and view their artwork.
As always, my studio and private gallery are open by appointment for you to brouse. And, any time please let me have your comments or questions. Contact Me.
+++
February 2012
"Santa Barbara Vista" Oil on canvas. 24 x 48 x 0.75 inches. $2,880.
This is the largest individual canvas of a scenic painting that I have
completed.
The panoramic view from the Santa Barbara Riviera shows the sweep of the
waterfront, the harbor, the outline of the Channel Islands, and many
landmarks of the lower east-side and south areas of the city.
It will be exhibited at Gallery 113 in downtown Santa Barbara for the month
of March.
+++
As always, my studio and private gallery are open by appointment for you to brouse. And, any time please let me have your comments or questions. Contact Me.
+++
January 2012:
"Fatherly Advice" Oil on Canvas. 20 x 20 x 1.5 inches. $1,000.
This is my first painting for 2012. Two men stop to talk in a busy passageway. The younger man is with a baby carriage, The older man is holding his cell phone. Are they both fathers discussing the unseen child?
Another painting based upon photographs taken duiring my stay in Florence, Italy.
Click her for more information.
+++
"Young Parisian" Oil on Canvas. 10 x 8 x 0.75 inches. $200.
This was completed in the last days of 2011. She was walking along distancing herself from her mother. Independent, self confident, ready to enjoy the world.
Based upon photographs taken on my trip to France a few years ago.
Click here for more information.
+++
While on the web page, take a tour of my other recent paintings.
On every web page of my paintings is a link to ImageKind, a "Print on Demand" service company, where you may order a print or card based upon that specific painting. This is another, perhaps more economical, way you may become a collector of my paintings. At least until you feel comfortable buying an original.
+++
For some years, my most popular web page is my article in my "How I Do It" series, "On Painting in Gouache." I have recently revisted this article and the companion articles "On Developing A New Painting," and "My Palette." The menu at the top of all my web pages contains a direct link to each of these articles.
+++
As usual, I am exhibiting at Gallery 113, in downtown Santa Barbara. In January you may see "Young Parisian" described above, and "Lost In Conversation," described in November's Newsletter.
"Lost In Conversation" Oil on Canvas. 16 x 12 x 0.75 inches. $480.
Her eyes are slightly glazed. She seems disconnected from her surroundings. She is lost in a conversation with some unknown person - maybe a boyfriend, a relative, a lover - who really knows. Should we listen? It is hard not to. We are a victim of today's electronic connected world.
+++
As always, my studio and private gallery are open by appointment for you to brouse. And, any time please let me have your comments or questions. Contact Me.
+++
December 2011:
1. This is my latest painting: Slow Morning.
A young boy gazes in wonder as a coachman sleeps in the warm morning sun, while his horse munches on his feed. It is too early, in what will be a long day, for his tourist passenger customers to be out and about.
The carriage with the sleeping coachman, was adapted from a scene captured in Florence, Italy. The young boy was from a photo of a grandson from years ago.
Click here for more information.
Also, see below.
+++
2. I am participating in three shows this month:
2.1. At Gallery 113, in Downtown Santa Barbara: -
Street Musicians, that I described in last month's Newsletter, and Slow Morning described above, are on exhibit this month.
+++
2.2. Westmont Museum of Art, 955 La Paz Road, Santa Barbara:-
Dreaming. This was discussed in last month's Newsletter.
The 5x5 Invitational show has over 450 artists (including myself), each exhibiting their donated 5 x 5 inch square drawing or painting.
+++
2.3. Faulkner Gallery, Santa Barbara Central Library, 40 East Anapanu Street, in downtown Santa Barbara.
These two small (6 x 6 inch) oil paintings are exhibited as part of the large "$300 Or Less Holiday Show" sponsored by the Santa Barbara Art Association. There are over 200 pieces of art on show.
+++
3. Other things:
I have just published a new "How I Do It" article, plus another updated.
3.1. For many years I photographed my paintings, first to film, and later digitally, and always with variable success. Recently I started to use my scanner to produce a high resolution image, for Digital On Demand (DOM) prints and many other marketing purposes. I have written up my process and published it as "On Scanning My Paintings."
If you are an artist and have trouble photographing your paintings, you may find my new article on scanning paintings of interest: Click here.
+++
3.2. Just in time for the Holiday season, I have updated my article "On Commissioning a Portrait." Consider giving a portrait painting. An 8 x 10 single person portrait with a simple background starts at about $300. This includes photographing (no charge for travel if it is local). Sorry, I only work from my own images. Click here for more details.
+++
3.3. As always, my studio and private gallery are open by appointment for you to brouse around for a gift. Or look through this website.
And, any time I am please to respond to your comments or questions. Just click here.
Peter.
+++++
November 2011:
A magazine out of Ojai, California, has used one of my paintings ("Encounter") as a cover theme. Click here for more details about the publication.
In addition, the Editor and Publisher, Nancy Gross, gave me a nice writeup in her Editor's Note:
"We are a country that has perhaps overvalued the individual, and while self-actualization is very important, and helps one resist pressure to conform when conformity is not in one's best interest, it is also true that nobody really gets anywhere by themselves. I was struck, when I searched the regional art scene for something to use as cover art for this "Relationships" issue; much of the figurative art I looked at, either paintings or sculptures, contained only one figure. The pieces would showcase the beauty and/or individual personality quirks and characteristics of an individual. It was not that easy to find art that was relational.
COVER: I was happy to stumble upon the paintings of Peter Worsley. Not only does he paint a surprising array of human interactions, but on his website he generously shares the many steps of the processes he employs in his work. Visit peterworsley.com. Peter obtains images from multiple photographs shot during travels in the US and Europe, and builds his narrative or story paintings: "I paint ordinary people doing everyday things, often in interesting places."
When I contacted the Santa Barbara artist to see if I could use "Encounter" on my cover, he was enthusiastic, and mentioned how something he likes about this particular painting is the ambiguity in the woman's face. "A couple meet on a cold, rainy day to talk briefly under a yellow umbrella. From her dangling bright colored bag, it is easy to tell that she has been shopping in a nearby store. He carries a portfolio and a small bag over his shoulder. Perhaps he is on his way to a business meeting. What is their conversation?"
Worsley is originally from London, England. He sketched often as a child, won poster contests in his teens, and started painting more seriously, often en plein air, in California after a 50-year career in industry. In his eighth decade he prefers working from his ever growing archive of photos.
Worsley said, "My strongly edited realistic images of the world reflect the emotions and humor of life's interactions....Often with a touch of Edward Hopper, Andrew Wyeth or David Arsenault, their compelling sense of mood, time and place describe moments of shared human experience. You the viewer are encouraged to engage your own unique thoughts, dreams, feelings and experience to complete the pictures in new and unexpected ways."
+++
Click here to see the original painting.
October 2011:
1. Welcome to all those who recently joined this newsletter.
This is an Opt-In list, and you have been added because you expressed an interest in my art activities. If you do not wish to receive these Occasional Newsletters, please reply to this email and request to be removed from the list.
Web readers who would like to be added, please complete the form on the left.
+++
2. New Paintings. Click on any image for more details:
2.1. I was invited to exhibit in early September 2011, at a fund raising show for the Santa Barbara Mission. I developed three new paintings with a Mission theme:
Saint Francis,
Meditation,
The Cloister.
+++
2.2. Recently, we were having lunch in a downtown Santa Barbara restaurant on a dull wet day, when I saw through the window: family and workers crossing the road. The colorful umbrellas encouraged me to develop a painting.
Umbrellas On Chapala.
+++
2.3. A few weeks back, I received in the mail a 5 x 5 inch square of watercolor paper. It was part of a nation wide invitation to submit entries to a fund raiser for Santa Barbara's Westmont Museum of Art, part of the local Westmont College.
The creations will be on show and for sale from November 30 through December 2011 with a reception 4-6 pm on the opening day.
I submitted an ink and gouache sketch. It is based upon a young woman I saw looking over a bridge in Florance, Italy.
Dreaming.
+++
2.4. For some time I have been thinking about a new painting series based upon the effects of 21st century electonic communications on our everyday life. The first of these has to with the influence of the cell phone:
Lost In Conversation.
+++
2.5. For years, as we have traveled in Europe I have been collecting images of street musicians. I gathered up some ten into a discordant orchestra placed in a fictitious European square as:
Street Musicians.
+++
Pleae tell me how you feel about these efforts. I paint most mornings. If you are in the area, please give me a call and come by.
Peter
------
Updated November 2011.
