Hi Reader (s) ! The last two weeks Cathy and I went to Rubel Farms on March 27th and a Pasadena Plant Nursery near Sierra Madre on April 3rd with our Thursday Morning Painting Group. The paintings this week are watercolors that I did at Rubel Farms and some Borrego Springs studies leftover from last week. The late (sadly) Mike Rubel’s farm in Glendora, Ca. is now being taken care of by the city since his untimely passing. It is a sprawling collection of giant boulders stacked up and hewn into castle turrets, a clockworks from England that chimes out the hours, at least a dozen old model T Fords and Ford trucks used as farm machinery in the early 20th Century, an old red caboose filled with train memorabilia, tin “palaces” full of model train layouts, twenty ancient wheelbarrows and a coop full of feisty roosters and hens; the subject of my painting. The roosters were so curious about what Cathy and I were doing that they walked right up to us, stared us in the face and walked through Cathy’s pallette and pecked at her turpentine rags! Inside Rubel’s Farm in one of the “tin palaces” is a display case that is a tribute to Mike’s dad, Heinz Rubel, who under the name of Hal Raynor, wrote a lot of Joe Penner’s radio material, including the line “Wanna Buy A Duck?”. It is fitting that the son of the man who wrote such crazy songs for Joe Penner as “When The Pussy Willow Whispers to the Catnip” and “When The Berry Blossoms Bloom” should have built this crazy edifice, this farm of fancy, this edifice of eccentricity. Get in touch with the city of Glendora and see this one of a kind farm, say hello to the roosters for us!
The little study in phthalo blue and orange is called “Borrego Springs at Night”. I went outside our trailer in the moonlight and tried to paint and draw in near darkness, this is the result. All I could see was the silhouette of the trailer, the faint light seeping through the Venetian blind, and the light of the desert moon. I also did a larger watercolor of the Resors’s Airstream trailer, with a puddle of water reflecting it’s image. The puddle wasn’t really there, it is the desert after all, but I felt that the foreground needed something. These paintings help me to remember the Borrego desert, and take me to that peaceful space whenever I look at them. If any of you readers would like to own an original painting of Cathy’s or mine, just write to us at molasses@earthlink.net and let us know. My watercolors are a bargain, larger ones like the Airstream are $50.00, small studies like the night painting are only $30.00. If you want to own any of Cathy’s beautiful oil paintings, just click on her website on the right side of this page. She has Gallery representation at www.tirageart.com, just click to the artists pages and go to her alphabetical space. By the way, did anyone notice the hands drawing Bugs Bunny with the bunny Oscar from “What’s Cooking, Doc?” on the cartoon Oscar DVDs, Disc three documentary? That’s my hands modeling (and drawing) at my old animation desk.
The comics this week are MARVELOUS MIKE, 5/14 through 5-19-1956. Mike tames Goliath the dog by getting a cat! Also we have the next two pages of “The Vicious Cycle” from FELIX #4 by the great Jim Tyer!
Down on Mike’s Farm
April 7, 2008
Uncategorized
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Mark
Hi Reader (s) ! The last two weeks Cathy and I went to Rubel Farms on March 27th and a Pasadena Plant Nursery near Sierra Madre on April 3rd with our Thursday Morning Painting Group. The paintings this week are watercolors that I did at Rubel Farms and some Borrego Springs studies leftover from last week. The late (sadly) Mike Rubel’s farm in Glendora, Ca. is now being taken care of by the city since his untimely passing. It is a sprawling collection of giant boulders stacked up and hewn into castle turrets, a clockworks from England that chimes out the hours, at least a dozen old model T Fords and Ford trucks used as farm machinery in the early 20th Century, an old red caboose filled with train memorabilia, tin “palaces” full of model train layouts, twenty ancient wheelbarrows and a coop full of feisty roosters and hens; the subject of my painting. The roosters were so curious about what Cathy and I were doing that they walked right up to us, stared us in the face and walked through Cathy’s pallette and pecked at her turpentine rags! Inside Rubel’s Farm in one of the “tin palaces” is a display case that is a tribute to Mike’s dad, Heinz Rubel, who under the name of Hal Raynor, wrote a lot of Joe Penner’s radio material, including the line “Wanna Buy A Duck?”. It is fitting that the son of the man who wrote such crazy songs for Joe Penner as “When The Pussy Willow Whispers to the Catnip” and “When The Berry Blossoms Bloom” should have built this crazy edifice, this farm of fancy, this edifice of eccentricity. Get in touch with the city of Glendora and see this one of a kind farm, say hello to the roosters for us!
The little study in phthalo blue and orange is called “Borrego Springs at Night”. I went outside our trailer in the moonlight and tried to paint and draw in near darkness, this is the result. All I could see was the silhouette of the trailer, the faint light seeping through the Venetian blind, and the light of the desert moon. I also did a larger watercolor of the Resors’s Airstream trailer, with a puddle of water reflecting it’s image. The puddle wasn’t really there, it is the desert after all, but I felt that the foreground needed something. These paintings help me to remember the Borrego desert, and take me to that peaceful space whenever I look at them. If any of you readers would like to own an original painting of Cathy’s or mine, just write to us at molasses@earthlink.net and let us know. My watercolors are a bargain, larger ones like the Airstream are $50.00, small studies like the night painting are only $30.00. If you want to own any of Cathy’s beautiful oil paintings, just click on her website on the right side of this page. She has Gallery representation at www.tirageart.com, just click to the artists pages and go to her alphabetical space. By the way, did anyone notice the hands drawing Bugs Bunny with the bunny Oscar from “What’s Cooking, Doc?” on the cartoon Oscar DVDs, Disc three documentary? That’s my hands modeling (and drawing) at my old animation desk.
The comics this week are MARVELOUS MIKE, 5/14 through 5-19-1956. Mike tames Goliath the dog by getting a cat! Also we have the next two pages of “The Vicious Cycle” from FELIX #4 by the great Jim Tyer!