Tuesdays at 9pm

My teacher Phil has been teaching at the New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts for a while, but for the first time in 20 years he is teaching portrait painting class every Tuesday this semester.

His class starts at 6pm and ends at 9pm, and we have a new model every 2 weeks. Our first model was Marie.

Marie
oil on canvas 18"x14"

Unfortunately this didn't turn out too well. My favorite part is the chair.

Then we had Allen.

Allen
oil on canvas 18"x14"

It was done in one sitting. Not too bad.

Our third model was Anna.

Anna
oil on canvas 18"x14"

Best one yet? I have a lot to learn here.

Riverbend Stables, Halloween day

The weather is finally manageable with the temperature in the mid-70s here in New Orleans. And it's Halloween today, so I decided to go paint the Riverbend Stables by the Mississippi River, located between the levee and the train tracks.

I have seen horses go by my house on their way from there to Audubon Park many times when the levee was off limits while under construction. It seemed out of place at first but I enjoyed the clip-clop sound of these beautiful animals. It was a very peaceful sight also. Now the levee is open again and the horses can walk up and down this nice grassy area instead of the hard, paved streets.

At one point while I was painting, some of them came out of the barn and ran around inside the riding area a bit. Below is the quick sketch done in about 80 minutes.

The rectangle building with a red band around it is Oak Street Raw Water Intake and Pump Station, where the Mississippi River water goes through. After being filtered and purified at a nearby treatment plant, that same water ends up in my belly. Yum. As Richard Campanella said, all of us New Orleaneans are made of 70% Mississippi River water.

Flying Horses and New Orleans City Park

They are called carousels in the rest of the world, but in New Orleans they are the Flying Horses. They live in City Park, and according to their website, the carousel dates back to 1906. Some of the animal figures date back to 1885. They are hand-carved, hand-painted, and horses have real horse hair tails!

Flying Horses of City Park, New Orleans
oil on canvas, 24"x36"

New Orleans City Park holds the oldest grove of mature live oaks in the world. Some are between 600 and 800 years old. There are 20,000 trees in this park.

Peristyle at the bottom was built in 1906 for parties and dances, and still is popular for birthday parties and weddings.

Three of my City Park paintings below will be at the 20th Annual Poydras Home Art Show & Patron Party at 5354 Magazine St. in uptown New Orleans.
Paton Party is on Thursday, October 30, 6-8pm.
Art Show is free and open to the public, on Saturday, November 1, 9am-5pm.
For more information including the Patron Party tickets, visit the Poydras Home website.

Near Diagonal Dr., City Park, New Orleans
oil on canvas, 14"x18"

Wildflowers in City Park, New Orleans
oil on canvas, 14"x18"

Peristyle, City Park, New Orleans
oil on canvas, 14"x18"

small ones

Race at Coliseum, Lower Garden District, New Orleans
oil on board, 9"x12"

Coliseum near Melpomene, Lower Garden District, New Orleans
oil on board, 9"x12"

Adams Street Grocery, East Carrollton, New Orleans
oil on board, 10"x8"

Adams at Burthe, East Carrollton, New Orleans
oil on board, 8"x10"

Snake and Jake's

When I painted this large piece in late August, no one knew where the location was or what the building with the pink roof was. Even my neighbor who's lived in this neighborhood for more than 20 years had to ask "now where is this at?" 

Snake and Jake's on Oak Street
oil on canvas, 20"x30"

Only after I tell them the building in the middle is Snake and Jake's, you know, that dark late night hangout for college kids, they'd go "oh I went to that place every weekend for 3 years." No one knew what Snake and Jake's looked like in the day time.

The problem with, or the beauty of, this hole-in-a-wall joint is that they don't have a huge sign out front with their name on it. And it is notoriously dark inside and out at night, and things don't get interesting until really late at night, or actually early in the morning. At least it used to be that way. Who cares what it looks like in a broad daylight? And who cares that the real name of the bar is the Christmas Club Lounge?

The last time I was inside Snake and Jake's sometime in the late '90s, I got my toes run over by a wheelchair with a legless Vietnam vet sitting on it, who was being carted around by a German guy, who would sing "I'm turning Japanese" every time he saw me. It didn't hurt because I was wearing steel toe engineer boots. It was probably in late August.

Pickup Trucks

Pickup trucks in the Lower Garden District. 

Thalia St. at Annuncication St., New Orleans
oil on canvas, 18"x24"

Race St. at Constance St., New Orleans
oil on canvas, 18"x24"

Mojo Coffee Shop on Race St. at Magazine St., New Orleans
oil on canvas 14"x18"

Busted Flat on Thalia St., New Orleans
oil on canvas, 24"x18"

Market Street Power Plant

One of my favorite buildings in New Orleans is the Market Street Power Plant in the Lower Garden District. It was in operation between 1905 and 1973. In 1922, NOPSI was founded to serve the entire city of New Orleans with this Power Plant, instead of the more than 200 different gas/electric companies that were in operation at the time.

oil on canvas, 12"x24"

oil on board, 9"x12"

oil on board, 12"x16"

A few Hollywood movies were shot inside this abandoned building. After Katrina, a developer in Miami bought the power plant and nearby TwiRoPa building. To start redeveloping the power plant into a hotel-shops-condos-in-one, they demolished TwiRoPa in 2007. When that multi-use development didn't actually happen, there was also a talk of making this into a sporting goods store. We lived a couple of blocks away and I remember thinking, they better not sell guns in that sporting goods store... That didn't materialize and it still sits vacant. Broken and Beautiful.