Oil Painting Demo at Albany Hill

Join me on Earth Day, April 22, 2017, at 2 PM for an hour-long demonstration of oil painting methods and materials. This will be quite informal and fun, out on Beautiful Albany Hill near to where I grew up.

I will also have a few books for sale: see the announcement on thew Heyday website.

In cooperation with Friends of Albany Hill, in the East Bay, California.

San Francisco Bay November Sunset, in the past before the city. Oil on Aquarelle Arches cotton rag paper. 1998. Private collection.


More:

Are you curious about oil painting landscapes and nature? Come up to the top of Albany Hill on Earth Day for an hourlong demonstration of oil painting methods for painting beautiful local landscapes, by Laura Cunningham, artist and author of A State of Change: Forgotten Landscapes of California.
Beginners welcome, this is a demo to show you the basic materials and starting methods for painting a landscape in oil colors outdoors, using traditional methods. For Earth Day we will also discuss environmentally-friendly and non-toxic materials for painting. You will see some of the techniques I used to paint many of the illustrations in my books, and see samples of a new manuscript I am working on about oil painting. The wildflowers should be out and you can see 360-degree views of the Bay Area from this unique natural vantage point nestled in an urban setting. Future workshops about oil painting in the Bay Area will be announced.
Free event!
Directions: From San Pablo Ave in Albany go west on either Marin/Buchanan, Solano, or Washington St. After 4 blocks go right (north) on Cerrito St and follow to T-intersection with Hillside Ave. Go left (southwest) on Hillside, then immediately right on Taft Ave. Follow Taft to the end at the top of Albany Hill. From I-80, take Buchanan St. exit to Albany, go east on Buchanan, left (north) on Jackson (before Gill Tract Farm), 2 blocks to Washington, go left (west) on Washington 1 block, right (north) on Cerrito St and follow to T-intersection with Hillside Ave. Go left (southwest) on Hillside, then immediately right on Taft Ave. Follow Taft to the end at the top of Albany Hill.

Comments

  1. Lewis ClarkApril 19, 2017 at 2:50 PM

    I love oil painting and would have loved to be there to learn more, but I'm too far from there please post some tips here too, thanks again.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Laura CunninghamMay 1, 2017 at 9:55 PM

      I will, thanks! I plan on teaching some art workshops in different areas, so stay tuned. But I will also post oil painting tips here too.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Paleoart

Image
Paleoart is a fascinating field, one of my favorites, where imagination is used in heavy doses along with scientific accuracy to try to reconstruct scenes of past life and landscapes. I enjoy the challenge of researching the fossil record, paleontological studies, and comparing them to living ecosystems and wildlife in order to bring ancient scenes to life, whether a century in the past or a hundred million years ago. I painted this mural in oil on canvas years ago for Badlands National Park, working with park staff who provided me with detailed material to work from. It was a fun project. I favor working in oil paint to achieve a glow and luster of color that is still hard to match in digital media, such as Photoshop-created art. My background as a Paleontology Major at the University of California, Berkeley, helped inform how I researched the project, and my graduate work in scientific illustration at the University of California at Santa Cruz gave me many methods to choose fro
Read more

Explosion of Interest in Block Diagrams

Image
Pen and ink, colored pencil on paper. I have not posted here in a while, because I am trying to crowdsource funds to write new books and publish them through Patreon.com lately. But when I posted this geology-hydrology block diagram on my Twitter page , it went viral.  That surprised me, as this was an old-fashioned, hand-drawn illustration. But it raised some interesting questions about the loss of traditional artistic techniques, and methods of presenting scientific information. Perhaps computer-driven digital graphics still lack something (unless you have a gigantic budget to hire Hollywood film-quality graphic designers).  I whipped this block diagram illustration out easily in a day. I started with a rough pencil sketch, using the principles of perspective.  Then I traced over the pencil lines with pen and ink. Lastly, I colored in the diagram with colored pencils. On paper. Seems primitive nowadays. But the response from social media has been tremendous, and many
Read more

San Francisco Before the City

Image
500 years ago: imagine standing on Nob Hill in present San Francisco looking eastward towards the East Bay, Mt Diablo barely visible in the distance. The middle ground Bay shore to the right is the site of downtown SF, since filled in with landfill. Market Street with tall skyscrapers would fill the view today. Treasure Island lies in the middle distance, and Oakland and Berkeley are in the background shore. Sand hills, coastal prairie with diverse bunchgrasses, California buttercups ( Ranunculus californicus ), California sagebrush ( Artemisia californica ), lilac bushes ( Ceanothus thyrsiflorus ), and a shed tule elk antler are visible in this early scene of San Francisco past.  San Francisco View From Nob Hill, 500 Years Ago. Oil on panel, 11 x 21.5 inches, 2003. Private collection. I painted the bay waters with a glaze of verdigris in Copaiba balsam to make a translucent glassy effect that differs from the opaque greens of the grassy hills and flats. The glaze was placed ove
Read more