Thursday, December 24, 2009

Canadian Rockies

Kevin Turcotte
5 x 5 inches
watercolor on hot press paper
Happy Holidays to all! This also happens to be the 300th post on this blog -- a milestone!

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Anacapa cliffs

Kevin Turcotte
8 x 10
oil on linen
In the book "The Princess Bride" by William Goldman the "Cliffs of Insanity" feature in a crucial scene -- this side of Anacapa Island seems like a similar place.

Wednesday, December 09, 2009

Down by the River

10 x 8
James Martin
Another from the Serrano workshop

Sunday, December 06, 2009

Carp crab

Kevin Turcotte
8 x 10 inches
oil on linen mounted on panel
we found this little guy on the beach and I was impressed with the iridescent colors on his shell.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Afternoon on the River

Kevin Turcotte
8 x 10 inches
oil on canvas panel
This was done a month ago in a workshop with artist Frank Serrano, sponsored by the training department at DreamWorks. Though it was pretty late in the season it was still plenty hot -- temperatures in the high 90s. By the time I finished this one I was pretty beat.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

More drawings

Kevin Turcotte
18 x 24
conte crayon on newsprint
more drawings from recent figure sessions.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Arrangement in Grey

Kevin Turcotte
12 3/4 x 16 1/2
acrylic on illustration board

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Studio Redo



The painting on the top is a plein air painting I did while vacationing in McCall, ID this summer. It has bugged me since I painted it for a lot of reasons. So while in the studio tonight I decided to redo the painting and am pretty happy with the result, especially compared to the stinker from Saturday night. 6x8 Oil on board
Also this is a shot of my studio space in case you were wondering.

Sunday, November 08, 2009

Effort vs Result

After not painting for what seems like a very long time I painted late Saturday night (12-1am) and banged out this hideous still life. Why am I posting you may ask is that I had a blast doing it even if the result didn't match my energy level. It got me jump started painting again. Thanks to Kevin who committed me to paint at least once a week again.

Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Cozumel fish

Kevin Turcotte
22 x 24.5
watercolor on cold press paper
From an underwater picture I took while snorkeling off the island of Cozumel in the Caribbean. Lots of great fish right off the shore.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Toward the launchpads

Kevin Turcotte
16 x 24 inches
oil on panel
painted on location at Cape Canaveral Florida. At one point an eight foot alligator hoisted himself out onto the road we were standing on. He didn't bother us and we left him alone too.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Bluegills

Kevin Turcotte
21 x 29
watercolor on cold press paper
I had to make a presentation of personal artwork recently so I was digging through some older work -- this one was exhibited in the California State Fair in Sacramento a few years back. Quite a few years actually.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Malibu Creek Hill

Kevin Turcotte
9 x 12
linen on panel
Malibu Creek State Park is where the television show M.A.S.H. was shot, as well as numerous movies, including Planet of the Apes (Charlton Heston version). I did not see any "filthy apes" while I was there though -- just hills.

Sunday, October 04, 2009

Yellow Kayak

Kevin Turcotte
22 x 28 inches
oil on canvas

Sunday, September 27, 2009

View from Mount Lowe

Kevin Turcotte
12 x 6 inches
oil on panel
unfortunately this view is now most likely a charred mess of blackened trees -- part of the area burned by the "Station Fire" that destroyed a good chunk of the Angeles National Forest. This is near Mount Wilson, which survived the fire.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Behind the Spot

Kevin Turcotte
6 x 8 inches
oil on linen mounted on panel
the sun burning through the fog behind the best little burger joint in Carpinteria.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Grandview and San Fernando

Kevin Turcotte
24 x 12 inches
oil on panel
this is right down the street from where I work and after driving past it a thousand times I thought it might make a nice painting. I spent a few hours on a Sunday working on this, getting dust blown into me from passing trains. A few days after I painted this the city came along and trimmed all the extra fronds off the trees, ruining the effect I liked so much about them.

Monday, September 07, 2009

Boxer

Kevin Turcotte
14 x 17
graphite on paper

Monday, August 31, 2009

Redhead

Kevin Turcotte
16 x 20 inches
oil on gessoed panel

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Troll Bridge

Kevin Turcotte
6 x 8 inches
oil on panel
this is what passes for a river in Los Angeles -- I'm really not sure what the yellow concrete cylinders are used for -- perhaps seats for the trolls?

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Carpinteria Beach at Sunset

Kevin Turcotte
4 x 4 inches
watercolor on hot press paper

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Fire Dancer

Kevin Turcotte
6 x 8 inches
oil on panel
another quick one from our hour long painting sessions.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Dark Water

Kevin Turcotte
6 x 8 inches
oil on gessoed illustration board

Thursday, July 02, 2009

Cal Tech

Kevin Turcotte
8,25 x 10.5 inches
ink wash in sketchbook
I went sketching the other day with my son Jackson, who is putting pieces together for an art portfolio. The Cal Tech campus in Pasadena is a great place to sketch -- this is what I came up with.

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Standing Man

Kevin Turcotte
6 x 12 inches
oil on gessoed panel
our  little  group of painters now gets the last hour of a figure drawing session for one long pose. This was what I came up with last week.

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Chester

Kevin Turcotte
6 x 8 inches
oil on gessoed illustration board
that's smoke from a wood mill in the little town of Chester  in Northern California. Nice place, some great painting spots nearby.

Sunday, June 07, 2009

One hour of painting

Kevin Turcotte
6 x 8 inches
oil on panel
this is about what one hour of figure painting buys you  these days...not quite the three  hour study,  but better than nothing.

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Passing clouds

Kevin Turcotte
6 x 8 inches
oil on panel
painted while I was working as a background painter at the Disney animation studio in Florida. It's a road stretching off toward the town of Claremont and I have a sinking feeling that this particular scene is covered over with subdivisions now.

Monday, May 25, 2009

figure drawings

Kevin Turcotte
18 x 24 (cropped)
conte crayon on newsprint
figure drawing is something every artist has to keep up with -- I should draw more often and try to -- these are from a recent session at the studio.

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Trumpets

Kevin Turcotte
4 x 4
watercolor on hot press paper

Monday, May 04, 2009

Back

Kevin Turcotte
6 x 8 inches
oil on panel

Sunday, April 19, 2009

susie

Kevin Turcotte
8 x 10 inches
oil on canvas panel
our weekly painting session has moved several rooms in the past year, presenting new lighting challenges with each location. Here we tried for a more naturalistic approach. This was about an hour and a half of painting.

Thursday, April 09, 2009

Padaro Beach

Kevin Turcotte
6 x 8 inches
oil on panel
the white structure at the end of this beach is a fantasy version of a beach  house out of the Arabian Nights -- very mysterious.  It's right off the 101 freeway as you're headed south from Santa Barbara.

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Down for repairs

Kevin Turcotte
9 x 12
oil  on linen
Santa Paula airport -- this bird won't be flying soon...

Friday, March 20, 2009

Tree and bridge

Kevin Turcotte
6 x 8 inches
This one was from a painting outing with James  Martin (from Paintopolis and jamesmartinstudio.blogspot.com) off the 126 highway near the Ventura and Los Angeles County border.

Saturday, March 07, 2009

Acrylic

Kevin Turcotte
8 x 10 (approx.)
acrylic on illustration board
another quicker painting -- back when I was regularly painting the figure in acrylic.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

City of Angels (2)

Kevin Turcotte
5 x 8 (approx.)
ink wash in sketchbook
another drawing from the old Spanish-American War cemetery in downtown Los Angeles, a place that truly is a city of angels...

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Amarylis

Kevin Turcotte
4 x 4
watercolor on hot press paper
...this little bulb has been hanging around our house since Christmas and it's still going strong.

Sunday, February 08, 2009

Lone Tree

Kevin Turcotte
6 x 8
oil on cardboard
done back when I was heavy into experimenting with surface quality -- mixed tiny glass balls into matte  medium to give a very toothy surface.

Monday, January 26, 2009

Back

Kevin Turcotte
8 x 10
oil on panel
our painting sessions are back for a little while but we now only have two hours to accomplish what we used to in three...

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Sara

Kevin Turcotte
6 x 12
oil on canvas, mounted on panel

from a while ago...