Clendaniel Studios Plein Air Painting Blog

I am so glad to be back In Anchorage Alaska, writing about my paintings and the fun that they bring into my life.  My biggest new project that I completed is the Art Geocaching project www.artgeocaching.com.  In this project I painted along my tandem bicycle tour down the West Coast. The most fun part of this painting project, was taking geocache coordinates when hiding the paintings nearby their creation location.  Now I am offering the coordinates to people who would like to commence the treasure hunt to find these hidden paintings.  They are conveniently located up and down the West Coast of the United States.  I only ask that if the painting is removed from the location a small donation should be made to my company Clendaniel Studios. From this donation a percentage will be donated to the State Parks in California. They are experiencing financial difficulties and I feel that it is imperative that we keep these American treasures open to the travelers who need an affordable place to sleep. I had a ton of fun creating this project and I hope you have as much fun in the treasure hunting.  Happy ArtGeocaching! 

This painting of a saguaro cactus is the cactus that lives in the front yard of Rita and Jack’s house in Pheonix, Arizona.  After working on South-West art for ACE, it was a joy to do some fine art that exemplified the South-West theme.  I love the desert especially in the winter, it was a joy to go out golfing after painting this painting and feel the extreme warmth on the day before Thanksgiving.  I hope all of you have as much to be thankful for this year. I know I am very  thankful for my life and for the successful end of this leg of my tandem trip.  I think that life is good and hope yours is going as well as mine! 

Saint Andrew’s Episcopal School, landmark and icon of the San Jose Area. This Oak Tree is a great example of old growth oak trees in the San Jose Valley. This painting will be up for auction at a fundraiser November 14th.   Since everyone loves this tree it should make for a pretty cool item at the auction.   I had mixed up a new palette of paint, and I feel that it made for a fairly strong painting because of that fact. I love working on the acrylic sheeting (Plexiglass-Lucite)  because It allows the transparency to show and I can look backwards into the history of the layering. It also has this nice reflective aura due to the coating on the sheets.  Best of luck, and happy bidding, if you are in the Bay Area stop by St. Andrew’s for the Auction!

A few days ago I painted this on my way to the OR coast on my tandem tour with Maria.  It was a good ol’ time, and saw this amazing view!  Love the trees, but hate the clear-cuts. I am enjoying my trip and hope everyone is enjoying the paintings!! cheers

I visited my friends Jared Orosco and Moriah Schalock at their workplace, a vineyard in Amity, Oregon. It is right in the middle of the Willamette Valley wine country.  I had fun arriving on my tandem bike with my wife Maria. We climbed to the top of the hill in Jared’s Toyota pickup where we had stunning views and munched on the fresh Pinot grapes. They are ripening in the sun, and are almost ready for harvest.

Here we are on the Tandem ride through the West!  stayed at the Casa D Anderson and had a lovely time.  Fixed the bike chain right here in the back yard at Kelso-Longview Washington. I am liking the plastic supports, I bet their shelf life is about 20,000 years.  Too bad only aliens will be here by then!

Greetings from the trail! Maria and I are currently on the road with our tandem bicycle,  stay tuned for the Art Geo Caching project!  We just got geared up and spent a fine couple of days at the Rock N Anderson ranch in Auburn, Washington.  A fine spot to rest and recoup after a rough start on our coastal tour! Painted this one early on Thursday morning, and had fun playing with my new GPS so look out for a new blog to follow as well! 

On My last trip to Wrangell St. Elias in McCarthy, Alaska I had what I call the tripple M, the most marvelous Mcarthy experience, It was amazing.  Another Super-friend has been dubbed, and the pursuit of happiness was achieved.  I painted this after bringing out three large windows, with a load of stuff for next summer, riding 60 miles whithin’ the park, climbing to near 7000 feet, and drinking several liters of homebrew a night!  Overall it was a very successful vacation/building trip in the national park.  The last day we rode to the  Nizina River and saw the breathtaking Chitistone Valley. After the near 20 mile ride we were pooped sitting around our campfire drinking a treasured bottle of homemade Pinot Noir from the vineyard Jared works at,  my old time friend Mark Wacht showed up and reminded us that we said we would attend a party with him.  20 minutes later we were sitting in this tiny cabin on a lot in the Wrangells sipping rose’ wine from the Willamette Valley,  swapping tall tales in McCarthy, Alaska.  I painted this painting for Kyle, a new friend out there, as a hospitality present. Kyle, I hope your winter is beautiful out there. This last trip was so remarkable I am considering making new t-shirts stating “Ileft my heart in McCarthy, Alaska”

I recently went out on assignment as a oil painting teacher for private lessons. As I was approaching the residence of my group of painters I had the idea that it would be very nice to paint outside.  My first thought was to open the garage door, but on further inspection I was led to the backyard which was directly on Jewel Lake.  We had the most amazing time  getting sloppy with oil paint in the backyard. I dropped this painting off of the dashboard on a driving frenzy to pick-up house paint from my parent’s house.  Fortunately the only damage is a little dirt in the sky.

It was a lovely travel weekend full of adventure, I hadn’t intended on making it to Halibut cove, but I was lucky enough to hitch a ride over on a local’s boat, whithin five minutes of arrival of the Homer spit boat harbor! What luck! It can be problematic getting over and across from the cove if you don’t have a boat, or tons of cash, I prefer to keep my pocket change in my wallet, so getting a free ride over is always welcomed.  We beat our host to his house and chilled on the Maury’s dock for about an hour. A skiff-load of guests arrived wet(from the ride) but their spirits were not dampened as they had been sippin’ on rum on the way over!  We were all in the cove to attend a pirate party, that had started at around 4 in the afternoon.  Ian, our host, arrived at around 10:00. So we were a bit behind schedule.  We had a salmon dinner that couldn’t be beat and ran on over to the pirate party.  I painted at the party, a cute little picture of the ferry, the Danny J.  I stashed the painting just as the accordion stopped playing, the band had ended but the dancing didn’t and we had a dandy of a good time. The only thing a bit concerning me was the inebriation level of the fire dancers, I guess one of them had an accident and caught themselves on fire, so they had to be thrown into the cove!  I think they had some pretty serious burns….:( Maria and I returned to our sweet accommodations in the old Alex Combs studio, for an excellent night of sleep.  We awoke the next morning bright and early to catch the Danny J back to Homer.  I brought the little painting as a fare to get Maria and I across.  We arrived to Homer a mere hour later, just in time for me to catch a flight to Seldovia which is only about 20 miles west of Halibut Cove, across the bay from Homer.  I have been commissioned by John Sedor to make a piece based off of his summer home in Seldovia, Alaska.  It was a treat to get to go to Seldovia as I have never been before. Although the weather was nice at first, this horrible storm started to blow in and I was treated to a nice little shower right on Johns deck!  oil paint doesn’t like to stick to wet surfaces so I forced the painting to happen hurriedly before I was forced to pack it up.  I got a really nice feel for the place even though I was unable to paint more that this one piece.  Caught my flight back from Seldovia, and Maria and I made our way out of Homer. That storm made it so we decided not to camp out on the spit, the weather-band radio told us that we should expect 40 knot winds, and that ddn’t sound appealing to us, nor did the onslaught of rain. I told Maria if I was on my bike I would have kept riding! So that is what we did, we kept truckin’ in the Subaru right on out of there.    Maria wanted to stop in Nikoliaensk really bad, so we took a detour on an attempt to find it and after half an hour of dirt road driving we did find it, a cute little Russian village off the road  in the Kenai peninsula of Alaska.  Maria made a stop at the Samovar Cafe and ordered a second dinner, we had already stopped at the Cosmic Kitchen for a late lunch-early dinner. The Pelmeni and Pirogi’s were fcusna(delicious) and we bombed back to Anchorage late that night only stopping to make coffee in the rain once!  What a weekend, four towns in two days and a a couple of paintings too! Sorry I didn’t get a shot of the Danny J piece but next time you head to the cove ask the attendant if it is in the ship?