University of Redlands Admin-building

Continuing on with painting the University of Redlands. This is the back side of the incredible administration building. I loved this scene the first time I went to the University to get ideas about different painting I would like to accomplish before the event starting Oct. 20, 2007. I was disappointed that the morning was so overcast and of course the minute I started packing to come home the sun came out. When I got home and took the painting out of my porchade box I was happy to see that I had really captured the mood of the morning. I will go back this afternoon and try to get the late afternoon light and see which I like best. and today is a sunny day, yipee! Until then, enjoy the painting. Terry

University of Redlands 2nd time

I figured since I was home this weekend I better take some time to go paint at the University again. Our Paint Out is coming up, about a month away. I will be leaving on Wed. to judge in Atlanta, so next weekend will be out of the question. I looked around when I got there to check out some other places but I was still drawn to the Church Clock Tower. I decided to try to get the whole picture in this painting instead of just the Tower and a few trees like the last one. Today the sun was much brighter than the last time I painted here. I met a painter from San Diego who is also painting at the University Paint Out and a few more from the PAAR member showed up to paint also. All in all it was a wonderful morning. Terry

San Juan Capistrano 2007

The Plein Air Artists of Riverside outing this weekend was the Mission in San Juan Capistrano. My biggest mistake made in Plein Air for 3 years. I forgot my easel! I set out my equipment the night before and I was missing my tripod. I had set my easel on the table in my studio, put all my other equipment on the floor. I found my tripod and decided to load the car before going to bed. Never gave it another thought until I lifted the hatchback on my SUV. Oh My God! I forgot my easel. Well my friend Pat and I went on in the mission, paid our fee and said hello to the fellow members who had arrived before us. Of course on the way down to San Juan which is about 1 1/2 hours drive, it took 2 1/2 hours because Pat and I were so busy talking we missed our freeway for a more direct route. Oh well, I said, we can go down the coast highway. This is such a lovely drive and there was not much traffic for a Saturday morning. After going into the beautiful garden at the mission I looked for a bench to sit on that would be in the shade and propped my equipment up best I could and found a 5 x 7 canvas. I painted a scened that looked out towards the bell tower with the lovely garden in the foreground. Not too bad without an easel. Around lunch time, Pat and I went across the street to a taco stand and had fish tacos. When we came back I decided to give a larger canvas a try. As I was sketching in the scene Evelyn, another painter came by with some tape and taped my canvas to my luggage wheels. I am a survivor, I can now paint without an easel. Of course, now that I know I can do this, I will probably never forget my easel again. I sat on the bench and turned truly sideways to be able to paint. Boy did my back hurt when I was finished. This is the second painting. It was such a beautiful day, temperature around 75, light wind, a painters dream. Well for the painters who had easels that is! Enjoy the 2 paintings. Terry

University Chapel Tower

This morning I got up very early and set out to paint the University Chapel on the grounds of the University of Redlands. A group of us met at the administration building and set out to get ideas, sketch and paint for an upcoming event, the U of R Centennial Celebration, 100 yr. Anniversary. One of the events will be a paint out with 100 Plein Air Artists from all around, painting from Sat. through Thursday, with a gala event and exhibit competition on Friday evening and a show and sale on Saturday. This unfortunately will be my one and only time to paint on the grounds until I return from the Afghan Hound Club of America Nationals Sept. 10, 2007. So the pressure is on. There is so much to paint, so it won't be hard to figure out a beautiful subject, the hard part will be choosing when the time comes. I chose the University Chapel the other day when I was out scouting the campus. I love the setting of the large trees in the park up against the tower, and the beautiful San Bernardino mountains in the background. I knew the sun would be glistening on this hot summer morning, but I really could not believe my eyes when the sun peaked through the overcast skies this morning and lit up the tower. It was everything I had hoped for. Those gorgeous trees in the foreground and the palms along the side made for a beautiful composition. I won't be posting any new paintings on my blog until after the 10th of Sept. Meanwhile you might want to check out my updated website at www.terrydchacon.com. Check out my new Keepsakes and Plein Air pages. Some time during the Nationals, be sure to go back to my website for more new surprises on the bronze, custom order, and the giclee pages. I don't want to publish these until after people see the new additions in person at the Nationals. Enjoy. Terry

San Clemente, Ca.

On Sunday a few of us from the Plein Air Artist of Riverside group (Ada, Louise, Pat, Brian and myself), met fellow member Alan Nowell in San Clemente, Ca. for a day of painting. Alan lives in San Clemente and always drives to meet us in our area so he wanted us to come to his area to paint. Thanks Alan and we will be back! We painted at the Ole Hanson Beach Club overlooking one of the beautiful beaches on the California coast. What a lovely day, could not have asked for better weather and perfect place to set up. I actually painted right next to my SUV with the hatch back open. I know Pat took some photos, when I get one I will post it to my blog. Louise at one point decided to take a nap in the back seat with the beautiful ocean breeze blowing in from side to side. I really liked the beautiful buildings in the area and at first thought that would be my subject. When I went back to the car to get my easel, I saw the way the beautiful morning light was hitting this flower bed. I love the challange of painting palms, one thing we have a lot of in S. Ca. and the colors change minute by minute. These palms in the flower bed were just singing...... "Singing Palms" is the name of this painting. The ocean was very calm from my view and the sky was clearing by the time I finished my painting, but I did manage to keep some of the fog in the distance to try and get the feeling into the painting. After a full morning of painting we finished the day by going to get a bite to eat at Dave's Mexican Food. The fish tacos were delicious. Amazing what an hours drive from my house will bring. Until next time, Enjoy the painting. Comments are welcome. Terry

Crystal Cove/Pelican Beach 8-6-07

I know it seems like forever since I posted on my blog, but I have been so busy doing the trophies for the Afghan Hound Club of America and working on some studio commissions that I have been unable to paint any Plein Air paintings. Yesterday a group of us from the Plein Air Artist of Riverside went to Crystal Cove down by Laguna Beach, to watch a demonstration by signature plein air painter Jeffrey Horn from the Laguna Plein Air Painters group. Each of us painted a painting after the demo and Jeffrey gave us some helpful hints. This particular area of Crystal Cove is called Pelican Beach. I loved the way the sun started peaking through the clouds and making the bluff just sing. After painting for a while on the beach we made the walk back up to the car (what a walk, it didn't seem that bad going down) and went into Laguna Beach to see the Pageant of the Masters exhibit and the Art-A-Fair. We were hoping to run into our friend Helga who has an exhibit at the Art-A-Fair but unfortunately she was not there. However, we did run into Robin Hall. Some of us in the group had taken a workshop from Robin last Jan. It was fun seeing her and catching up. She has a wonderful exhibit at the Pageant of the Masters, so if you are in Laguna be sure to see her paintings. After enjoyinng all the art we had dinner at the cafe at the festival and returned home very late last night. I also would like to mention on Sat. the 4th of Aug. Luz Perez and I went to Ada Passaro's exhibit in Torrance, CA. The exhibit is from a group of 80 painters who painted at the 10th Annual Henry Fukuhara workshop at Manzanar. It was a beautiful show. Then we headed down to Laguna to see the Laguna Plein Air Painters figure show. Our friend Lisa McDill has a charcoal drawing in the exhibit, this too was a beautiful show. So see I have been very busy. After the Afghan Hound Nationals in Sept. I hope to get back to my weekly paintings to post on my blog so don't discard your link. I am hoping to go to San Clemente this Sunday to paint, if so, I will post the painting next week. Until then, Enjoy! Terry

Catalina Island

Two of my painter friends, (Joan Coffey and Louise Smith), and I went to Catalina Island on Tuesday and returned late Wed. night. We were exhausted from the trip as we tried to paint every minute as there was so much to paint. We arrived early afternoon and needed something to eat before we started painting. We ate lunch, sipped on margarita's and watched the boats come in an out of the marina. It was such a beautiful setting. We checked into our hotel and decided a 20 minute nap was in order. After awakening from our short nap we were ready to go. We thought we should find a place where there wasn't a lot of traffic so we walked over to Descanso Cove past the famous Avalon Casino. By this time it was around 5 p.m. While painting we started noticing all these cats. One of the ladies told us they come down every evening as people set out food for them. While looking up into the mountain side what would appear but Bambi! She was so cute and seemed so curious about the cats also. She was not afraid of anything and just walked around behind us for quite a while. We finished our first paintings around 7:30 and packed up. We found a cute little restaurant that overlooked the marina and had a bite to eat before turning in for the evening. I told Joan and Louise that I wanted to get up at 5 a.m., I wanted to see the sunrise and possibly get a painting. So up at 5 and out by the marina at 5:30. What no sun! I guess because of June gloom you don't see the sunrise this time of year. Oh well, I still got a nice painting of the marina with the casino in the back ground. The reflections off the boats in the foreground were incredible even though there wasn't a lot of light to capture. Around 10 a.m. the sun was starting to peak through the clouds and I noticed how beautiful the light was hitting the mountains behind us, this prompted the little 5 x 7 with the birds on the roof. We checked out of our hotel and left our baggage in their locker so we could go have lunch. By this time I was feeling really tired. Wished I had taken a nap. After lunch and walking back out by the marina I was taken by the umbrellas and decided another painting had to be done. We packed up around 5 p.m. and went catch our boat back to Long Beach. What a whirlwind 36 hours. These 3 paintings were also done using palate knife. Notecards and paintings are available. I think this has brought you up to date on my week. Please feel free to make comments. Terry