It's Afternoon . . . I hope!

A summer afternoon outside Ojai, California and I found the oaks I was looking for. This scene was going to be a lesson for me. I didn't know when I would get to it. It went into the massive photo file waiting for me to be ready,

Crazy Brad, Crazy Brad . . . . his voice rings in my head while I paint. I never had a professional artist as a friend and teacher. He has a unique way of seeing the world and translating that vision to 2 dimensions. He has always kicked me in the ass, especially when I thought I did something well.

"Paint it again," he would say. "Do another, right now."

But the phrase which has stuck with me for a long time is "What time is it in your painting, Dave?"

OK, well, that really got me going. I realized I was rendering realistic scenes, but . . . hmmm . . . no shadows. No "light" perspective was ever present. As October mad science gave way to November, a new era was unfolding in my landscapes. Shadows . . . shadows . . . . Brad's words echoing loudest in the initial block-in.

And, oh yeah, Brad was also the guy who told me my paintings looked like a series of flat planes. No unity, no real perspective.

There is another voice in the perspective battle. Lorenzo Chavez is a Colorado painter who taught me more about aerial perspective than I could have ever imagined. Quiet and humble, Lorenzo laid out the basics, but essentially, he taught me to truly see. I was always a good "looker" but I couldn't translate to a painting what I thought I saw. Warm to cool, dark to light.

Rules, yes . . . . concepts to be learned.