The Pilgram Departs April 8, 2010

Another teaching day, six months later, same location. I was teaching my class (again) at the Montecito Country Club. I decided to do a similar painting compositionally as the one seen in yesterday's post. This time the light was brighter and cooler. I used a bluish purple underpainting and worked from there striving for the same affects. However, this time the colors were much cooler, and expressed impressionistically. the vibration came from complimentary hues of purple and yellow, not so much as warm and cool.

In the middle of the painting process we witnessed a tall ship leaving port. I snapped this photo to capture the immediacy of the moment.

I feel enchantment whenever I see a tall ship. When it sets sail, so doth my imagination!

The Pilgram Departs
12"x12" oil/canvas
2010

Collection of the Artist

Teaching Day. April 7, 2011

A couple of years ago, Spring, I taught my painting class at the Montecito Country Club. The Sun Glistened on the water over the Santa Barbara Channel.

Using Naples Yellow for my highlights, and a light violet for an under painting tone I developed the painting, where the vibration of complements (Lavender/amber) created a vibration. My goal was to keep the painting harmonized in the amber range, so it holds together; the overall painting was warm with an amber tone.

The cooler highlights have contrast, or, "Pop", because of what is next to them: Gray warmer tones, next to cooler, more intense notes of color, and also the subtle contrast of juxtaposed complimentary colors.

One of my students took this picture of me after holding the painting after removing it from my easel.

It's best to get the new creation to a safe environment immediately after completion. In other words, "Gotta protect the goods!!

Summer Light
12"x12" oil/board 2009
Private Collection

ERINGER: SURREAL BOUNCE: WOODY CREEK TAVERN

ERINGER: SURREAL BOUNCE: WOODY CREEK TAVERN: "Painting by Thomas Van Stein"
"Two Hunters Conversing- Woody Creek Tavern" 6x8 oil 4-4-11
Collection: Robert Eringer

ERINGER: SURREAL BOUNCE: USTREAM: "BUY THE TICKET, TAKE THE RIDE"

ERINGER: SURREAL BOUNCE: USTREAM: "BUY THE TICKET, TAKE THE RIDE": "American Riviera, Hunter thompson surreal bounce SBChannels on USTREAM. Other Entertainment"

Einstein on the Beach Santa Barbara April 4, 2011

Even the brilliant in mind realize the miracles and restorative nature of the Ocean. The Pacific Ocean has no memory.

I saw this photograph of Albert Einstein on the somewhere near Santa Barbara. Being a landscape painter I saw the landscape behind him in the picture and knew instantly where it was. I printed out the photo, and one Saturday morning I took my two boys to that spot where Einstein once stood, probably in the 1950's.

Remarkably the beach has still the same type of sand. There are houses now, out of the picture on the right.Padero lane runs to that first Promentory known as Loon Point. (Kevin Costner lives just around the bend). Santa Barbara is the furthest land mass in the picture.

Even though Einstein wasn't a painter, his mind was Masterful. My job as a Dad was to try to integrate the importance of history to my kids; to try to get a feeling of what Past Masters may have experienced, as if they could follow in their foot steps.

That is not a requirement, but it would be a comfort it they strived hard.

Einstein: "Genius= 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration"

Life is Good in the Hood . . April Fools Day 2011

It's Summertime in Montecito. Things are mellow as per they should be. Round a bout Beer Thirty we sit back at Piatti and enjoy the last glow of the Sunset over the Old Montecito Fire House

It's Surreally a great place to live.

The Corpse Flower, Hotel Jerome; Rm 210 March 31 2011

Hunting Hunter Thompson's Spirit in Aspen this weekend for our Surreal Bouncers T.V. show, we stayed in the Victorian era Jerome Hotel. Asking for the most haunted room in the house, the Hotel Management put me in Room 210. This is the room at the end of the hall, seen in the photo. I didn't need to stay in the room, but Eringer insisted. He wouldn't do it, (I thought to myself). Who knows, he said, "something might happen!"

Down the hall outside the door, there was a faint, wafting smell; like something had died. Now for someone like me who has an active imagination, every creaking sound or bump in the night, made me wish that I had at least brought some ear plugs. That smell greeted me every time I walked up to the door.

Settling in to Aspen and 210, I took a bath. Just when I began to relax and unwind in the tub of steamy Rocky Mountain High soft water, there came a knock at the door and muffled voice along with it. Efforting to get out of the tub and find a robe, trying not to slip and fall on my ass, and yelling, "Hold on, I'm coming!" I finally get to the door, and asked, Who is it? Peeping through the fish eye view peep hole, I saw nothing there. I unlatched and opened the door,and same thing, nobody there. I listened for a moment to the sound of silence. Strangely, there was still that faint odor, smelling like decaying flesh.

I don't know, maybe someone had a Corpse flower blooming in their room.Everything was cool with this room, though, (beside the fact that it was freezing). This was O.K. with me. I could bundle up.

Whenever I felt I was being watched, the hairs on the back of my head would stand up, I would talk to that presence, and welcome it. Saying, "I know you are here, and that's cool-- hang out if you want!"But what put me over the edge the most and kept me away from my valuable slumber that night, was when something pulled my hair; (what little I have left), while I was laying in bed with one eye open.

The Room 210 Ghost Story: a hundred years ago the parents of a little boy (all staying together in this room) told him to go for a swim, unsupervised, in the hotel's pool. Unfortunately, he drowned.

Over the years, guests staying in room 210 have reported that this child comes back into the room at night, crying, looking for his parents.

Sad story. Spooky!

I don't know what's scarier, the thought of this little kid,jumping up and down on me in the middle of the night as I lay there, or the ghost of a Nurse that has been seen for years roaming through the corridors of the Hotel Jerome; coming through my door (or wall for that matter) in the middle of the night.

Fortunately during my stay, I didn't see the kid or the nurse, but my camera caught some Orbs hovering above and below my bed.

Enough said.

Hotel Jerome
Aspen Colorado