Puerto Vallarta

Not long ago I participated in a group art show in the Peter Gray Museum in Puerto Vallarta. During our stay at the Friendly Hola Hotel, we saw this gorgeous sunset, typical and very normal for Puerto Vallarta. The scene was so picture book perfect that I hesitated whether I should paint it or not. I guess, I could not resist after all.

This painting is part of my skies series.

Cumulus Clouds

Again, rain, or almost rain, is the topic of this painting, which is part of my skies series.

During the Rainy Season in the Caribbean, beautiful clouds gather every afternoon, the sky gets dark, almost purple and the contrast between the water, the clouds and the sky is gorgeous. Could not resist, even though nature is the better painter.

Blitz

Blitz is German for lightning. I think it is a good word, very fast, very descriptive the way it sounds, the "i" conveying light.

While painting this scene, I tried to see it all happening in slow motion, with sparks illuminating way more than the exact path of the flash, but still with the surprise element of a bolt out of the blue. Or, the purple, in this case.

Blitz is part of my skies series.

Downpour

It feels so good being in a dry place and watching the rain coming down in sheets!

Even though I painted this piece in my studio and from a photograph, it was more like doing a plein air painting, because I have seen and painted such scenes on location so many times. Just this time I didn´t have to pack up in a hurry and run!

"Rain" is part of my skies series.

Rain

Rain is a fascinating topic.

"Night Rain" belongs to my skies series, even though more than half of it´s space is filled with solid matter. The rain cannot be seen, but felt. It is pitch black night and the moisture in the air refracts every droplet where it meets a street light, the asphalt is glistening in front of car´s headlights and contours get blurred by the blinding play of dark and light.

Just as we move fast in the rain, trying to get home dry and safe, merely paying attention to what´s most important, I painted this picture very quickly, with as little detail as possible.

Teaching Realism

There are many degrees of realism in art, from almost photographic depictions to very simplified, abstracted, but still recognizable interpretations.

Most of my students know my work before they take my classes, so they expect to be taught how to paint in a more or less realistic style.

However, style cannot be taught, it has to be conquered by years of work.

What I teach is how to get there:

First, an understanding of color and its three properties: Hue, Value and Chroma, and second, how to truely see and observe: How to use what the right brain senses and what our eyes see, to create on the canvas, through a pattern of shapes and colors, the image exactly the way we want it to look.

Knowing or seeing every detail of the subject is not only unnecessary for the painter, but often undesirable. The left, logical side of the brain interferes in such a way that it blocks the right side, which is more creative. What we know (or think we know) gets in the way of real observation and without real observation there is no true realism.

Revolution and Independence

2010 is the year in which Mexico celebrates 200 years of its Independence form Spain and 100 years since the Revolution.

A lot has changed for the average Mexican citizen in this last century, but less for the indigenous population.

Which may turn out to be good.

The question arises: How much change is desirable, how much modernization can be called progress before it becomes the beginning of the end for the indigenous cultures?

Mexico would not be what it is today if it were not for its history, rich in prehispanic cultures. Mexico must be reminded that it should be proud not only of the temples and pyramids these ancient inhabitants left, but also of the fact, that their descendants are still alive in the indigenous polulation of today. Their old ways of producing arts and crafts are valuable skills to be preserved and, in the long run, this may be more important to the tourism industry of this nation than building more and more developments and golf courses at the beaches, in places where there is no sustainable source of water and where natural eco systems, like mangroves, have to be destroyed to make room for the so called progress.