For the second time I was invited by the Christian Coalition for Orphans to paint live during their nationwide annual conference. Last year it was at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky; this year at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California. Both times thousands of people were in attendance. Here are some progress shots of paintings I made for each event, the first in 2011, the second two weeks ago.

For these, I used un-stretched canvas and acrylic paint.

Besides individuals, a hundred or so organizations participate in getting orphans placed, with a lot of tears behind the scenes. It’s an international phenomena with many, many children needing parents.

The acrylic is water-based and fast drying, necessary for these public events.

Last year I chose to do one of my giant “Eyes on the Cross” series. I took a bolt of blank canvas along on the airplane (almost losing it in transit) and a bag of acrylic paint. Then I was set up with backdrop and drop cloths in the foyer of the mega-church where the event was held.

The canvas is 6 ft. x 8 ft. For others like these, see “Eyes on the Cross” here, or an e-gallery back issue here.

What the photos don’t show are all the people who would gather around while I painted or stop to talk with them. It was between conference sessions I’d get most of my work done and snap pictures of my progress. The man ascending stairs shows the scale of the work. You can also see some of the smaller paintings I’d brought along. (Click on the picture to enlarge.)

She’s of Middle-Eastern descent, from a photo I found. The children up for adoption are from everywhere.

Here she is, finished. If you click on the picture (each of them) you’ll see enlarged detail of, for example, the “bubble wrap” texture. That’s where I apply paint to the plastic packing material itself, then lay it directly on the painting and burnish, leaving the “dot pattern.” It’s risky, but whatever doesn’t work can be painted over. A piece of art is an ever-growing work, never perfect but hopefully beautiful, just like a child.

The drawing is the first stage, but complete in potential.

Here’s the progress of a painting done this year at the west coast venue. Ironically, it’s a smaller piece than the first as it was closer to home where I could (just) get the stretched canvas in the car.  As before, I started with a charcoal drawing, the painting in embryo. (Funny, as I write, I just received a request from an anti-abortion organization wanting to use one of my paintings.)

The canvas size is 5 ft. x 4 ft. on thick “gallery wrapped” bars, framed in black.

I said a painting is like a child. At every stage it’s “beautiful,” and in a sense “complete.” You almost want it to stop right there. Yet, there’s always more, and you won’t know what until you let it grow. Only the creator knows what’s coming and the potential of a completed piece.

Children of China, one life-size, the other larger than.

Two works in progress . . . mine with the drawing not yet colored in, drips everywhere, and a little friend who would drop by, slightly disheveled, two teeth gone but, hey, she’s not finished either. As I look, she’s another worthy of a painting. Maybe next year?

The pensive and the relaxed. Both moods have their time.

As people came by taking pictures, I asked if one could be taken on my camera. What I’m doing with a small brush I hardly remember. More typically on these big canvases I’m working with a house brush. Sometimes I offer whatever brush to some highly-interested onlooker to make a few strokes. Why not have lots of help? It takes a village to raise a child.

In the end, both of these paintings were presented to the churches that hosted the events.

Here she is, finished, or at least as far as I was going to take her. A painter, and a parent, can only do so much. There will still be some rough spots. But all those, the apparent evidences of the process, the marks and scars, are part of a uniqueness, a history, and an interest for anyone who wants to look longer, delve deeper, and perhaps even adopt.

For info on the Christian Alliance for Orphans, click here.

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Coming Up: Orange County Home and Garden Show

Anne and I will be showing and selling at this major event. You’re invited.
(If you’d like free tickets, feel free to contact us.)
Friday, Saturday and Sunday, May 18-20
Anaheim Convention Center
800 W. Katella Avenue, Anaheim, California

Star Motors

Specializing in high end automotive repair, Star Motors is hosting a ribbon-cutting Opening and Art Show featuring a selection of my and Anne’s work. All invited.
Thursday, May 31, 5:00-7:00
32955 Calle Perfecto
San Juan Capistrano, California
949-443-1970

New Gallery

Paintings by Hyatt Moore are now featured at:
Marso Home Collections
7509 Girard Avenue
La Jolla, California
619-664-2472

Sandstone Gallery

Anne will be featured in June with new work
Artist reception June 7, 6-9 p.m.
364-A N Coast Highway
Laguna Beach, California
www.sandstonegallery.com
949-497-6775

Blank Slate

The new literary blog, Blank Slate is currently featuring insights and personal applications from the Biblical book of Ecclesiastes. Subscribers are making it a lively discussion. Back issues are viewable on this website, above right. Or better yet: To subscribe, click here.

Moore & Moore Art Gallery in Dana Point

Open by Appointment
33752 Big Sur, Dana Point, California 92629
949-240-4642

Semi-Private Coaching for Painters

Offering 2-hour sessions on Monday and Wednesday and Saturday mornings
in the Hyatt Moore Studio, Dana Point.
For more info click Art Coaching Flyer.
Or call  949-240-4642

Printmaking Classes

In the Anne Moore studio, Dana Point
To see more of Anne’s, work go to: www.annesprints.com
Call 949-240-4642

13 Comments

It’s a bit of a wonder, the creative process. First there’s nothing, then there’s something. Magic. In this post we’ll take a look at a few paintings and their formation as well as a number of new pieces created in similar ways on Anne’s press. First, the music. (Drum roll please.)

Four stages of Cellist Soulful

I myself wonder how a painting is going to go. I’d recently sold an abstract painting of a cellist through a gallery and thought I’d replace it. But this one took another direction style-wise. So rather than fight it, I just followed it.

Cellist Soulful, oil on canvas, 28×20

Here’s how it finished. One of my favorite parts of this painting is the cello itself, the bottom portion where it’s just a mess of light strokes without much definition. But, in context, it fits. Sometimes a painting is a verb, not a noun. Also, the cellist’s face, which I once had more detailed, is smooshed out to look like the rest. It’s an adjective, not a noun (“soulful”).

The first stage of a four-painting set. (Click on these to view larger.)

Sometimes a painting begins as a complete abstract. In this case, I had a remnant of unstretched canvas which I taped to the studio wall. I wanted four paintings so I masked it accordingly. After that it was random. I could have stopped at this point.

Stage Two.

I put in a few “heads” as I thought I wanted figures. It was one of my students who said she saw “musicians.”  So that’s the direction it took.

Stage Three.

I had no reference but what the various shapes suggested. Some of those were sacrificed, others augmented. Lines were introduced for guidance. Working thoughtfully, not sure where it was going, here it is a few days in.

Ensemble 1, oil on canvas, 20×16

In the end I removed the masking tape and mounted the canvas as four separate pieces, each ensembles of musicians.

Ensemble 2, oil on canvas, 20×16

Some of the serendipity of random strokes and shapes and colors is still there, others have become building blocks of recognizable form.

Ensemble 3, oil on canvas, 20×16

It’s the creative process. As in Genesis, we take a bunch of raw material, apply whatever wisdom we can muster, then breathe life into it. What comes out is “finished,” but still looks like a work in process . . . just like every one of us.

Ensemble 4, oil on canvas, 20×16

The four painting set could be purchased and displayed together or broken up in any combination. That’s one advantage of painting this way . . . a number all at once. Here it’s quadruplets. Magical.

Traces of Yesterday, monotype, 9.75×9

Here’s a sampling of a recent creative spurt by Anne resulting in much new work. Though she doesn’t photograph her work as she’s making it, the process is much the same as above. She starts with a blank sheet, some raw materials, and a general idea. (That’s not mentioning her profound, yet understated, aesthetic sense.)

Fragments, monotype, 11.75×9

Fragments seems a good title for this piece. Aren’t we all just a bunch of such, sometimes coming together in some sort of organized grouping? And, like this, it can make good sense.

Traces for Tomorrow,
monotype, 9×9

Subtle touches and muted colors, found bits, scratches in still-wet ink, all building layer after layer under the pressure of the hand press, each contributes to the finished art. At what point it is finished is something only the maker knows. Each one beautiful and unique. Just like every one of us.

Consolation, monotype, 8×6

Of course, the digital files you’re looking at here don’t do justice to the art, which is actually dimensional in texture and has many subtleties in the layering of color. Her work has recently been delightfully “discovered” by a number of designers. It’s time, says me.

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New Work

Many new pieces are scattered throughout our respective websites.
Click here for paintings.
Click here for Anne’s originals. 

Blank Slate

The new literary blog, Blank Slate is currently featuring insights and personal applications from the Biblical book of Ecclesiastes. Subscribers are finding it a lively discussion. Back issues are viewable on this website, above right. Or better yet: To subscribe, click here.

Moore & Moore Art Gallery in Dana Point

Open by Appointment
33752 Big Sur, Dana Point, California 92629
949-240-4642

Semi-Private Coaching for Painters

Offering 2-hour sessions on Monday and Wednesday and Saturday mornings
in the Hyatt Moore Studio, Dana Point.
For more info click Art Coaching Flyer.
Or call  949-240-4642

Printmaking Classes

In the Anne Moore studio, Dana Point
To see more of Anne’s, work go to: www.annesprints.com
Call 949-240-4642

10 Comments

We went to Oregon for three weeks of painting and printmaking. We knew it would be rainy, but it didn’t matter as we’d be working mostly, and inside. As it happened, however, there were plenty of sunny moments, just not when this photo was taken.

The Holy Toledo Tavern, not a place we frequented, but couldn’t resist the photo.

“Holy Toledo” is an exclamation of surprise that apparently comes out of Christian Spain after its liberation from the Moors. Not that we learned that bit of trivia there. But we were in the small Oregon city of Toledo, where these Moores felt quite welcomed. We walked daily, rain or shine, found wonderful places of discovery and made numerous friends, including a surprising number of fellow artists. There was also plenty of time for reading and meditation, making it all “holy” indeed.

The river runs to the coast at Newport, just a few miles down.

Toledo is a mill town which fairly breathes and belches and coughs, sounds heard particularly in the night or between rains. There’s much more to it than the Georgia-Pacific pulp mill but this gives a sense of part of the town’s personality.

The day before our 46th anniversary, trying chowders.
(As with all these photos, click for a larger view.)

One of our self-assigned challenges was to find the best clam chowder on the coast. Here we are at the famed Mo’s in Newport. Actually, the chowder at The Sea Hag up the coast in Depot Bay was the best we found. There it’s so thick you can cut a trough in it and it holds its shape, like with Moses and the Red Sea.

Whale Cove, just up the coast from Cape Foulweather, so named by Captain Cook.

For our anniversary proper, we went to Restaurant Beck at the Whale Cove Inn, a most majestic place, with the water below ever wild and restless. We reflected on the quality of our lives, thanked God, and ate great scallops and Ling cod with farro “polenta,” foraged mushrooms and greens. Ah, life!

Anne’s half of the studio, renovated space in the former Justice of the Peace quarters.

But we came to work. Of course, work for us is what a lot of people would call “play,” and all of my life I’ve not known quite the difference. One of the great things about the trip was Anne being able to put in focused time, hour after hour, day after day. It’s something that doesn’t happen at home what with “everything else.”

Another view: The hand press and work in process, drying.

One of her goals was to bring a lot of her unfinished pieces along and finish them up. It’s been years for some and many reached handsome completion. And many new ones were begun.

Yet another view of Anne’s side of the room. (Again, click photos to enlarge.)

As shown by the blest mess in the foreground, completed pieces can be made up of a lot of parts, interesting and unusual papers picked up on travels, printed segments torn or cut from less successful beginnings, and scraps of found ephemera. All that, plus the aesthetic eye, can produce wonderful art.

Hyatt’s side, one view of two.

While the time was unusual for Anne, giving her more days and hours per day to focus, my life wasn’t so different. I tend to paint part of every day at home, and continued to do so here. Writing was another occupation, plus more reading than usual. Then, for both us, there were the excursions out, the occasional movie, continual listening to music, computer glitches, conversations. Life!

The sink side, with three weeks of “finished” art on the easel and three walls.

While Anne brought unfinished pieces to complete, I brought only blank canvas. But, as I told Anne, sometimes I like my paintings better before they’re “completed.” She suggested I start new ones before I’m done. So I did, and I may have found a new way of working. It’s another example of how opposite personalities can influence each other.
(For discussion on the beauty of “incomplete” work, see the most recent Blank Slate blog post, “Strong in its Kind,” on this website, or here.)

The lower level, where we spent half the hours.

Here’s a panorama of where we spent the rest of our hours . . . the kitchenette, the writing table, dining table (tucked under the stairs), reading chair (near left, barely shown) and bed. Anne thought to bring one of our Guatemalan bedspreads to make it feel more like home. It made for a nice touch.

The famous Yaquina Head Lighthouse.

This old lighthouse is just one of the highly photographic sights along the coast. We took many pictures, of boats and rivers and harbors and houses and hills, but this one seems a good touch for signing off. It was a wonderful trip, all work and all play, just the way we like it. We’ve already put in reservations for next year.

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The Oregon Studio

Anyone interested in renting the Justice of the Peace studio discussed above can contact artist Michael Gibbons. Click here.

Blank Slate

The new blog, Blank Slate features musings and meanderings, insights and entertainments, and words rather than brushes for the art. Back issues are viewable on this website, above right.  To subscribe, click here.

Moore & Moore Art Gallery in Dana Point

Open by Appointment
949-240-4642

Semi-Private Coaching for Painters

Offering 2-hour sessions on Mondays and Wednesday and Saturday mornings
in the Hyatt Moore Studio, Dana Point.
For more info click Art Coaching Flyer.
Or call  949-240-4642

Printmaking Classes

In the Anne Moore studio, Dana Point
To see more of Anne’s, work go to: www.annesprints.com
Call 949-240-4642

22 Comments

Featured Artist: Anne Moore

Above, Chronicles, original monotype, 10×20

Anne is featured once again as artist of the month at Sandstone Gallery in Laguna Beach. Her opening is tonight, during the Laguna Art Walk. Anybody within reasonable distance is invited to come by.

Above, And Then the Fall, original monotype, 20×14

Besides Sandstone, her work is also now included at Westervelt Fine Art. That’s in the Laguna Design Center in Laguna Niguel, California, a gallery for design professionals and their clients. It’s good to see her work is being recognized like this, with its tasteful sophistication and delicate nuance.

Another New Gallery

Above, Her and Him, oil on canvas, 24×30

As of the close of last year, my paintings have been included in the offering at “A” Gallery on the famed El Paseo Drive in Palm Desert, California. It’s in an area of many new houses and many visitors, particularly in the winter months. The street is home to a number of fine galleries with some very good art.

Above, Cellist Colors, oil on canvas, 24×18

As each gallery generally features a certain kind of art, “A Gallery” has my figure studies, these two examples veering toward the abstract. The gallery owners are hopeful about this new addition, and I’m grateful for that. We’ll see what happens.

New Blog, “Blank Slate”

Above, samples of the simple art that has accompanied the Blank Slate posts. Sometimes they’re drawings, sometimes paintings, and in the future, who knows what? The blog is listed at the top or click here to see all posts. 

I’m happy with the response to the new “literary” blog. That’s what one friend called it. It is “words” oriented, in contrast to this “art” blog (the e-gallery). Some 400 readers are now subscribed to Blank Slate, receiving the link via e-mail. As the intro text says: It’s “a random collections of thoughts and sketches, poems, prosems and sometimes psalms, art-related or not . . .” The blank slate is a vague reference to my own mind, which though not really so blank anymore, still has much to take in, mull over, and pour out. It’s a world view expressed, with thoughts long held or recent. The comments back are encouraging and sometimes help round out the message. All posts are archived on this Hyatt Moore website under “Blank Slate.”  To subscribe, click here.

Going to Oregon

Above, downstairs and upstairs of the Justice of the Peace building. For more info and for inquiries, click on the pictures.

Each year at this time we take some trip. The excuse is our anniversary. Anne has sometimes said she’d like to go some place and just stay for awhile. So I started scouting around (the world) and came upon the website of an artist’s studio for rent in Toledo, Oregon. It’s a renovated Justice of the Peace building from yesteryear . . . just two rooms, one with a bed, the other with skylights. Toledo is on the Siletz River running down to the coast at Newport, a short distance away. We plan to be there three weeks.

The benefit of it being within driving distance of home (two days) is that we can take all the stuff we need for art making. The most challenging is Anne’s table-top press. But with the van, it’ll be fine. We’ll also be taking her sewing machine, various computers, a bolt of canvas, cameras, books, umbrellas, the kitchen sink . . . the basics.

Happily, a friend from Anchorage, who is very ready for a little less dark and a little less cold, will be occupying our house while we’re gone. Actually, we’re already beginning to miss our southern California weather too, but Oregon will have its beauty, we have our work to keep us busy, and our 46 years to celebrate.

A Time Lapse Video

Recently some friends “in the business” came up with an idea to make a video of me painting using time lapse technology. I agreed but hadn’t thought until they arrived what I’d paint. It seemed a live model would be most interesting, so I painted Michael, one of the two friends. He posed for the hour or so while Matt handled the camera gear. I talked the whole time, and now they want to capture that too, but not on this version (an hour condensed to a minute would just be high-pitched jiberish, like The Chipmunks on speed). By plans, a talking version will be produced another day. For now, if you have one minute to watch a portrait being made, click on the picture.

All for now. We’ll be communicating on Blank Slate or, in a month, here again on the e-gallery. Happy February.

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Next on Blank Slate: A Spoof Response to “A Great Financial Opportunity” from Nigeria. Should be fun.

Also, don’t forget this evening’s Art Walk. Or, if you miss that, her work will be highlighted all month at the Sandstone Gallery in Laguna.

20 Comments

The year just passing was generally happy, productive and prosperous, about the best one could expect of an unemployed, multi-careered, aging easel painter. Notice I don’t used the “R” word. Retirement is for those who no longer work, or at least no longer have to. But it’s time to start something new.

In 2011, somewhere between 100 and 300 paintings were made—closer to the latter if one includes rough sketches, practices, explorations, figure and face studies from the model, workshop demonstrations, ideas that didn’t go anywhere, as well as all the projects of great hope and happy result. Though just a fraction, enough paintings sold to keep us in essentials . . . food, art supplies and travel. With our family spread all over the country and England, travel matters.

But for all life’s fullness, there were a few days in December where I recognized “a damp, drizzly November in my soul.” That’s Ishmael’s line in the opening to Moby Dick, and I, like him, began finding myself in a funk, or as he put it, “growing grim about the mouth” and having to exert “a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street and methodically knocking people’s hats off.” Not really, but I felt I had to do SOMETHING to shake the malaise.

Rather than follow Ishmael and go to sea, I’ll follow Melville. He started writing.

It’s nothing new, really. I had such leanings long before Painting called out to me in the streets on an evening in November (really) some 15 years ago and drew me irresistibly to herself. “Painting rather takes over,” as Father Vincent Van Gogh discovered. But he also wrote . . . more than any other artist, thanks to his daily correspondence with his life-supportive brother. He wrote on many topics and it’s good reading. I have three volumes of his mind on my shelf.

So I’ll do the same.

What I’ll write, I don’t know myself. It’ll be something of a blank slate. I’ll start a blog and call it that. Blank Slate. Allows for anything. A journey without a map. But of discovery just the same.

I’ll keep painting, to be sure, ever pursuing that illusive white whale. The other blog, this one, the e-gallery, will continue on, with its review of themes and directions. This one is more or less monthly; I’m thinking the Blank Slate will three times a week.

Full disclosure: Though there will be no intent at persuasion, like with any writer of his own thoughts, there will be evidence of my world view, and that, like Van Gogh’s, is Christian. (That because of another spirit that called out to me in the streets, in Mexico, some 40 years ago.)

So, if you’d like to see these Blank Slates filled in as we go, just click the option below. You’ll get it as e-mail notification. Or if you’d rather just drop in from time to time to see what’s new, they’ll be posted on the Hyatt Moore Painter website under the Blank Slate heading. You can always opt on later, or off at any time.

We’ll start at the first of the year. Look for it January 1.

To subscribe, click here.

Click above to view larger. Anne’s sold work not shown as bunching them up like this would really do them no justice.

Art of the Year Past

Just as a quick review, here is a representative sample of the painting sold and now enjoying new homes in the year, 2011. They don’t look their best, all bunched together like this, and the scale is really thrown off. For example, the painting of pears in the bottom row was about eight inches tall and the violinist next to it was four feet tall, and the red abstract next to her was approaching 6 feet square. The mix of subject matter and varying degrees of realism to abstract is interesting, but not particularly instructive. It only shows that I like a wide range, as do, apparently, my buyers. And so it will likely be in the year(s) to come.

Meantime, we wish you a happy and productive one.

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Ongoing and Upcoming Events

Blank Slate

The new blog, Blank Slate will feature musings and meanderings, insights and entertainments, and words rather than brushes for the art. Watch for it starting in the new year.  To subscribe, click here.

Moore & Moore Art Gallery in Dana Point

Open by Appointment
949-240-4642

Semi-Private Coaching for Painters

Offering 2-hour sessions on Mondays and Wednesday and Saturday mornings
in the Hyatt Moore Studio, Dana Point.
For more info click Art Coaching Flyer.
Or call  949-240-4642

Printmaking Classes

In the Anne Moore studio, Dana Point
To see more of Anne’s, work go to: www.annesprints.com
Call 949-240-4642

8 Comments

This issue we’re sharing six pieces that didn’t pass muster in a local competition. That’s the annual Laguna Festival of Arts, a show that runs all summer and in which Anne has been a part for the last four years. I never have, but not for not trying. It’s highly competitive, drawing from a pool of hundreds of artists to fill a limited number of openings. The judges are different each year. The irony (and life always has lots of irony) is that two summers ago Anne’s work was deemed among the 25 best; this year, with the same quality of work, she’s not invited back.  Such are the twists of life.

Beauty and Shoe, oil on wood, 47×31.5
A friend had given me a number of large bamboo panels, which took the paint wonderfully, and I made this set.

As it happens, the day the news came I was musing in one of my favorite books, Ecclesiastes. Among it’s many nuggets, this one appeared pertinent: “The race is not to the swift, or the battle to the strong…but time and chance happens to them all.” It’s a consoling truth, though never an excuse. Here’s another: “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.”  So there it is: we do our best but we don’t always succeed. There are too many other factors over which we have no control. We barely have control over ourselves.

Rainbow Child, oil on wood, 47×31.5
The background patterns and the brushwork style supply the harmony.

I’ve also been reading again through the history of the impressionists, including a biography of Cezanne. Not to put myself in the company of these pioneers, but to see again how being refused year after year in the common settings is not a statement about the work itself, but something else. Happily, they struggled on and our world is better for it.

Hula Rhythms, oil on wood, 47×31.5

As for what to do next, there are always ideas. Almost too many, really. And a closed door is just as much guidance as an open one. It helps narrow the field.

Chronicles, handmade monotype print, 10×20

If you ask me, Anne’s work gets better year after year.  But she keeps striving (maybe that’s not right right word), keeps working, keeping her eyes open to new approaches, new design elements to incorporate, and what other masters in the field are doing.

Agreeing to Differ, handmade monotype print, 17×8
Pieces shown are not to scale.

Speaking of that, a month ago we attended a seminar in San Diego among a group of like-minded artists on the subject of incorporating handwriting, calligraphy, or text of any kind (and language) as design element in the art. Anne’s been doing this for some time, but is inspired to take it to a new level as time goes by.

Consuming Purpose, handmade monotype print, 17×8
Note dimensions of these pieces for actual scale.

Also, just last week we were in Cornwall, England…an art mecca since the days of WWII when many European artists fled the tyranny and set up shops in a more tranquil world off to the westernmost tip of England. There we visited the studio of Peter Wray, a master printmaker and painter, and received lots of stimulation for yet new approaches. So it goes, and always will, regardless of the vagaries of competitions and their outcomes. The race may not be to the swift, but that doesn’t mean don’t be swift.

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Ongoing and Upcoming Events

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Coming soon: a new blog, “Blank Slate”

“Blank Slate” will feature on musings and meanderings, insights and entertainments, and will use words rather than brushes to create the art. Watch for it starting in the new year.

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In the Image of God

Looking for a Christmas gift? A coffee table book of art and brief meditations might be the perfect thing. Copies can be sent to you or directly to the recipient. Personalized inscriptions can be added on request. Click here to order.

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Moore & Moore Art Gallery in Dana Point

Open by Appointment
949-240-4642

Semi-Private Coaching for Painters

Offering 2-hour sessions on Mondays and Wednesday and Saturday mornings
in the Hyatt Moore Studio, Dana Point.
For more info click Art Coaching Flyer.
Or call  949-240-4642

Printmaking Classes

In the Anne Moore studio, Dana Point
To see more of Anne’s, work go to: www.annesprints.com
Call 949-240-4642

21 Comments

It’s our fall open studio and home/gallery show. Featured will be new works created in the last six months, and earlier. There’s more art than wall space to hold it. Some “finds” may be in the overflow. As we did once before, we’re offering a limited number of small pieces at “pocket change” prices. Okay, $99 isn’t usually pocket change, but it’s low for an original oil painting. That’s the price of each of the 15 miniatures shown here, painted in oils on 6×8 inch canvas panels.

The 6×8 “specials,” are only a hint at the plethora showing this weekend. Click on picture to enlarge, and again for larger.

Besides these, there will be plenty of art to look at and just enjoy, not to mention the house and hospitality, the friendship and food. We’re told it may rain, but it’s a short distance from the street to the porch, and it’ll be dry and warm inside.  So, if you’re within a hundred miles, come. For the rest, there are always the websites. For a healthful and enjoyable dose of art, get a cup of hot cider and browse mooreandmooreart.com.

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Click here for the invitation: Studio Show 11’11-web

Or, here are the specifics:

33752 Big Sur, Dana Point, California 92629
Saturday, November 12, 4:00-9:00
Sunday, November 13, 1:00-5:00
949-240-4642

7 Comments

Consistent with always exploring new subjects and new ways to paint them, this month it’s landscapes, and those done abstractly. In these, no one place is identified. Rather it’s a generalization, an idea, an aesthetic that’s reminescent of many places. As often as not, the image is straight from the mind.

Lake Light, oil on canvas, 20×30

As is usually the case, the name is given after the birth. Here I was painting a design, not a lake. But the lake appeared and that in sunlight. So there it is.

River Runs Through It, oil on canvas, 34×40

This is a fairly large piece that came to be over another painting that wasn’t going anywhere. That one was of a man and a woman, also abstracted. In a sense they gave this one birth, and only the creator knows what parts are from the old and which are new. It’s like a river that way.

Autumn Trees, oil on canvas, 16×20

Sometimes, when I include these on the website, it’s a dilemma knowing whether to put them on the “Places” (landscapes) page or the “Abstracts” page. With these I’ve gone with “Places,” as there’s plenty of “reality” still suggested. There’s precedent: Claude Monet was a landscape painter, albeit with such strong impressionism they were almost abstract.

Early Winter, oil on canvas, 16×20

I suppose it’s the season we’re in and the one approaching that suggested the titles to this and to the previous. As I was painting them, they didn’t seem to represent trees at all; that is until I put in the vertical wisps that became “trunks.” It’s all about color and contrast abstracted together. But nature often does the same thing, and more powerfully yet.

California Hillscape 2, oil on canvas, 16×20

Californians will recognize this and the following from drives or walks through the hills. The name, “Golden State,” may have come from the gold rush, but it may just as well have come from the wonderful color that covers the ground. That, with the rich sap green of the live oaks, makes for a tranquility that is golden indeed.

California Hillscape 1, oil on canvas, 20×20

Early California painter William Wendt originally painted this scene. And this is my take on that. It’s simplified, smaller (and a good deal more affordable). As with all these, a click on the painting will take you to the price information, and from there to a larger view.

White House, oil on canvas, 20×20

Sometimes nature is perfect just left alone, other times the man-made touch adds welcome interest. Here is just a hint of that in the distance. One thing about man-made objects as opposed to organic, they’re always angular. Nature is freer. Together the contrast can be pleasing.

Reclining Blue, oil on canvas, 18×24

Speaking of pleasing shapes of nature, I thought I’d include one human form. This one illustrates how the approach to painting can be the same whatever the subject. This one is also recent, and represents others like it that will be on display in the November show. That’s coming up, the dates being highly rememberable: 11/12/13. Come if you can.

Meantime, feel free to vote for your favorites here . . . or offer any other comments. Feedback is always welcome.

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Ongoing and Upcoming Events

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Studio Show and Sale

The pieces featured above are only part of the new work on display, both paintings and hand-made prints.
And, once again, included will be an array of miniatures priced to sell, as gifts…for another or for yourself.
33752 Big Sur, Dana Point, California 92629
Saturday, November 12, 4:00-9:00
Sunday, November 13, 1:00-5:00
Or click here: Studio Show 11’11-web

Moore & Moore Art Gallery in Dana Point

Open by Appointment
949-240-4642

Semi-Private Coaching for Painters

Offering 2-hour sessions on Mondays and Wednesday and Saturday mornings
in the Hyatt Moore Studio, Dana Point
Call  949-240-4642

Printmaking Classes

In the Anne Moore studio, Dana Point
For a look at the kind of work that can be made see: www.annesprints.com
Call 949-240-4642

8 Comments

Last month Anne and I were in Seattle visiting family and welcoming in grandchild number 14. While there, we helped with exterior painting projects as well as my painting something for their newly remodeled kitchen. I also made a second painting, but we’re featuring just one here. It was a busy week (just how I like it).

Deciding on the approach

That’s daughter Cambria, the new mother (now of three) two weeks after giving birth, at a rare moment of sitting long enough to make some decisions. The bits of color about to get on her bathrobe are freshly made swatches that match colors in her kitchen. (Permission to share bathrobe pictures not received :-)

The thumbnails

Her idea was to do something that would reflect their Northwest area. After deciding on a six-ft. tall piece of Mount Ranier for their stairwell, she opted for tulip fields for the kitchen. The pencil sketch shows two graphic options; the tiny oil paintings, color options. She chose the one with white flowers.

The intended space

The house has been almost a year in remodeling with just a few things to finish up. Here’s the nitch intended for a painting. It was a pretty big space for a fairly narrow passage. That’s why I suggested a polyptych, to break it up a bit. The tape was to give us an idea of final placement.

My provisional studio

A polyptych is one painting on multiple panels. While I’ve made a number of triptychs (one painting on three panels), this was my first quadiptych (another term that works). I set up in a spare room, with an easel roughly constructed of scrap 2x4s and c-clamps, my reference sketches on the wall, and a picture of a bloom on a bag of tulip bulbs.

Getting the initial shapes up

Note also the one-inch strips of wood placed between each of the canvases. It’s because the space itself is part of the composition. The edges of the canvas would eventually be painted as well for visual continuity. Note also that, while the chosen option was for white tulips, I started with red just so I could see them.

The essence is established

The idea was to capture the look of the expansive tulip fields that glorify the landscape in certain areas at certain times of year. A few in the foreground would indicate the mass in the background, with a row of red ones just before the distant hills . . . just for pizazz.

The painting at mid-stage

The way I paint (and teach) is to create a painting in stages. That is, as much as possible I’m working at the same degree of detail (or non-detail) over the whole painting. Conceivably the painting could be considered finished at any stage. The challenge then is to stop before it’s overworked.

The white begins

Remember, they were to be white tulips. As it happened, using red first really didn’t serve me. Oil paint is slow in drying and as I applied the white it would turn pink. But with a bit of scraping and applying a thick layers of paint, it began to conform to what I was after.

Nearing final stage

Here we are about mid-week. The tulip painting was happening between periods of helping son-in-law Shon with the eve-painting project outside. Oh well, it’s all painting. Note the idea here of including a swath of yellow tulips. It could have worked, but they didn’t last.

The final painting, before hanging

Here it is, finished, with just enough detail and not too much. I hadn’t painted the edges yet. All the red is gone. Even the hint of distant red tulips went to orange, a decision that was made when provisionally placed in the kitchen to check colors. Each of these panels is 20×24 and could conceivably be a complete painting in itself.

Cambria’s Tulips, polyptych, oil on canvas, 41×49

By the time we left at the end of the week the paint was far to wet to touch. But they’ve since hung it and sent this picture. Happily Cambria loves it. It brings great focus to the area, and beauty. I’m grateful.

Four generations of Hyatts

Here’s an extra, just because.  The occasion was the 95th birthday of my dad, Hyatt Moore the second, and the recent birth of Hyatt Moore the fifth. The photo was taken on the porch of the house where I grew up and where my parents still live (Mom will be 94 next month). That’s Hyatt iii (me) on the left, with son Hyatt iv down from PhD studies at Stanford . . . with wife and their two daughters somewhere outside the picture.  I just had to share it because these are rare moments, and may not come again.  Treasure yours.

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Ongoing and Upcoming Events

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Studio Show and Sale

Our semi-annual Open House Studio Show is coming up November 12 and 13. We’ll have lots of new work to share.

Moore & Moore Art Gallery in Dana Point

Open by Appointment
949-240-4642

Semi-Private Coaching for Painters

Offering 2-hour sessions on Mondays and Wednesday and Saturday mornings
in the Hyatt Moore Studio, Dana Point
Call  949-240-4642

Printmaking Classes

In the Anne Moore studio, Dana Point
For a look at the kind of work that can be made see: www.annesprints.com
Call 949-240-4642

33 Comments

Once again Anne’s work was deemed worthy to be included at the prestigious Festival of Arts in Laguna Beach. This is her fourth year and, as always, she’s put a lot into it and is spending many hours on the grounds. Besides representing her booth, she’s also a docent this year, as well as one of the demonstrators in the craft of printmaking.

Beauty begets beauty.
(Sorry, couldn’t resist that caption.)

Here’s Anne on opening night, at a rare moment when the crowds had cleared. Though the Laguna Festival features art of all media, there’s a higher percentage than most shows given to printmaking. It seems this is a fertile area for it, with lots of good teaching (including Anne’s own classes). Still, every person’s work is completely unique.

Set on Pilgrimage, monotype on paper, 10×10

If there’s a message in these pieces, it’ll be of the viewer’s making. The calligraphy, when it’s included, is for the beauty of the handwriting alone. More and more a passing art, here’s one way to preserve it for it’s own sake.

Exploring Grace, monotype on paper, 17×18

The juxtaposition of block shapes with sinuous curves, strong colors and subtle, foreground dominance and background “history,” and the inclusion of printing from found objects and suggested typography, all go into the collective elegance of Anne’s work.

Agreeing to Differ, monotype on paper, 16×19

You might say art is all the stuff found in nature but arranged in a certain way by a person. At least that’s what I see when I look at all these pieces. Nature, by itself, is merely beauty. Art is something added, and very often also beautiful. (Like in all these examples here.)

Internal Dialogue, monotype on paper, 17.5×12.5

The making of art is half intention and half discovery, and knowing when to apply which. It’s an never-ending process and an ever-expanding horizon of what can be done.

Reaching for the Highest, monotype on paper, 20×10
Collection of Mercedes and John Stifter, San Clemente, California

The result of all these elements in the hands of a sensitive spirit can afford hours and years of enjoyment in the perception. That’s what the Stifters thought when they purchased this piece on opening night at the festival. Other works are still available, for viewing, for having, and for enjoying for a long time to come.
Do visit the festival if you can. Or, shop Anne’s website for the wide array of her pieces.

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Ongoing and Upcoming Events

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Laguna Festival of Arts

650 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach, CA 92651 www.foapom.com
Featuring Anne Moore and many other fine artists in various media, now through August 30.

Moore & Moore Art Gallery in Dana Point

Open by Appointment
949-240-4642

Semi-Private Coaching for Painters

Offering 2-hour sessions on Mondays and Saturdays
Now also instruction in drawing
in the Hyatt Moore Studio, Dana Point
Call  949-240-4642

Printmaking Classes

In the Anne Moore studio, Dana Point
For info: www.annesprints.com
or 949-240-4642

11 Comments