Bay Ave Back Lot

Girl on Bicycle - Take Two

The movie fun and excitment that began last summer in Green Harbor continues.   I'm referring to the movie that was filmed on our street last summer.   In a previous blog entry I described a painting I did depicting a long view of the street while a scene was being filmed.   A young girl on a bike was queued up to ride away from me toward the house that was used as a primary set for the movie.   That painting, "Girl on Bicycle - Take Two" was sold for me by the Jeanie Madsen Gallery in Santa Monica.    That first painting is on the left and its description is in a blog post from last summer. (Search this blog for label "movie")

Even since the filming of the movie, The Way, Way Back was completed last August, we have been wondering if and when this independently-made movie would be released.   We learned this week that the movie is slated to be part of the Sundance Film Festival at the end of this month (January 2013).  Yaay!  Here is the listing from the film festival program.

Stage One - Disappearing Lilies

http://filmguide.sundance.org/film/13111/the_way_way_back

With this extra good news, I began another movie related painting.   Photography had not been allowed during filming, but on the non-filming days, the neighbors were free to look around the set.  I had taken a few pictures with the permission from the security detail.

Stage Two

I recycled a subpar white lily painting, which provided a nice under-texture (see Stage One - Disappearing Lilies).   In stage one of the painting, one lily is still plainly visible.  The house that was used for filming was the backdrop of the painting.   Two blue pop-up tents that the filming crew used to shelter the equipment and cast from the elements are shown.   A large piece of lighting equipment was placed on the left in front of the barn.   Two members of the cast/crew members were sitting under the tent, fully immersed in a discussion of the next scene.  The question is who were they?  And, were they rehearsing the next scene, or interpreting lines?

Stage Three

As for the painting composition, I liked the geometric elements of the house (rooflines, windows, steps, movie equipment, etc)   The weathered cedar shingles weren't difficult, but they were time consuming in that I applied several layers of semi-dry brush color on sequential days to get a rough, rustic look.   The branches of the old cedars that were overhead soften the top of the house's roofline.   I used my green oxide (a grayish green used for flesh shadows), mixed with some ivory black to get the right shade of green for this purpose.

The biggest challenge was painting the two figures under the tent.   I created this behind the scenes picture from two unrelated photos and memory.   I knew that if I was going to put the figures under the tent their flesh would be would be in deep shadow and the sunlit flesh colors in my mismatched photo would not be accurate.  In the Stage Two photo above, the figures are too light.   This is despite the fact that I brightly back-lit the figures, hoping they would be more distinguishable and dark (by contrast).    In the final photo Bay Ave Back Lot, I did darken the figures, especially the man.   Since the woman was fair I made a conscious decision to leave her a little brighter, as though she was getting more reflective light where she was sitting than the man.

I'm thinking this painting makes a nice remembrance of the summer of 2012 - the year that "The Way, Way Back" was filmed in Green Harbor, Massachusetts.

Bay Ave Back Lot

Ode to Hollywood - The Party

What a night!!  Pinch me...I felt like, "what am I doing here?"

The "Ode to Hollywood" Art Exhibition opened in the Jeanie Madsen Gallery on Ocean Ave in Santa Monica last night.   From the time we arrived to the time we left there was a steady stream of people - artists, friends of the artists and collectors enjoying a diverse but cohesive show.

A Hollywood-style red carpet led the way to the gallery from busy Ocean Ave. and a photographer took pictures of artists with gallery owner Jeanie Madsen.   Her sweet, peanut-sized frame belied her powerhouse of energy, enthusiasm and charisma.  She was the thought leader in creating the event and collaborating with international magazine, Blue Canvas.   All that had me a little anxious of what to expect, but we couldn't have felt more welcome, thanks to Jeanie and her staff.



Jeanie Madsen and Maureen Being Photographed on the Red Carpet

Any worries about fitting in or "what to wear" quickly gave way to relaxation and enjoyment as we observed outfits from jeans and tee shirts to formfitting mini skirts to long silky gowns. Anything goes in LA...free expression. We didn't remember to bring our funky hats, but others had their fedoras, flowery headpieces, turbans and leopard top hats.  

All around the gallery the friendly, positive, creative, and can-do messaging for artists and collectors alike.   Jeanie admitted to diving into this event not knowing what to expect.   It started to take on a life of its own and the goodwill generated was more than she ever expected.  At the start of the awards announcement, my own welcome was complete with Jeanie making note of my cross-country trek, stating that I had come the furthest to be there.

The common denominator in the gallery was love of art and all experience levels of artists boldly putting their best work forward. Among the show's collection of artwork was mixed media, photography, sculpture, and digitally altered images. Each piece had a write up describing the inspiration for creating the artwork and its connection to Hollywood.  Here is a link to the gallery.   Photos are forthcoming.

http://www.jeaniemadsengallery.com/index.html



Maureen with Ode to Hollywood Painting

During the course of the night, Jeanie brought people over and introduced us. We met an artist, a young woman from Kingston, MA, who just relocated to LA seeking a gallery position.  Several people came over because they had ties to Massachusetts.  I don't remember all the names, but I remember them expressing genuine interest in my painting too.   It was an energizing shot of adrenaline feeding already my panabsorbing art obsession.

I even chatted with the two men who own and run Blue Canvas magazine.  Thirty-something Justin Yun is the Publisher and CEO of the magazine.  They seemed genuinely interested and happy to hear that I was a regular user of the online features of Blue Canvas,  including art collecting, rating favorites with stars, and maintaining a personal gallery.   They shared that there was an upgrade in the works.  Both made a point to study my painting and were complimentary of it.   We exchanged business cards and they signed my complimentary issue, another nice momento.

I am obviously really glad we came and I promise not to make a habit of shameless self promotion in future blog posts.   But this definitely was an exciting first in my art life and I was ready to just bust....so here it is - dedicated to my best cheering section - you know who you are :)

Ode to Hollywood

This summer was full of excitment for those of us who witnessed first hand the behind the scenes action related to a movie filming in our Green Harbor neighborhood.   Hollywood came to town to shoot a movie called "The Way, Way Back."   What has always been a mostly quiet street became a busy thoroughfare during the months of June and July. 

Several of the cast and crew members including the Executive Producer, Directors/Writers and Actors lived in several of the homes around me.   In total, we heard that around one hundred people were involved in the making of the movie.    It was commonplace to see stars and cast pedaling their bikes, or riding in golf carts to and from the filming site including Toni Colette, Mya Rudolfand Steve Carell.

One Saturday morning in June many cars started arriving for what seemed like a movie kick-off meeting in the Directors' house next door.  We saw many of the primary figures working on the movie such as George Parra (Executive Producer), Jim Rash and Nat Faxon (Directors/Writers), Liam James (Boy Star), Toni Colette (Actress).    Other nights including the infamous 3rd of July attracted the cast and crew to the house to enjoy our annual party and fireworks spectacle for as far as the eye can see.   My interest in the movie didn't take over my life, but I do confess that I was keeping close tabs on the activity whenever I was around.

I wasn't the only one.  Interested observers from near and far made a daily walk, bike ride, or car ride down our street to investigate what was happening on the movie during the weeks they were shooting.  Although I did hear some neighborhood grumbling at times regarding traffic and road closures, I was thinking how lucky we were to have all this excitment happening right in our midst.   It's not every day that a movie is filmed on your doorstep.


They left yesterday so things are getting back to normal.  There are no transport vans and equipment trucks rumbling by, nor is there any police detail preventing stray cars from wandering down to the movie set.

I thought it was quite a coincidence when I came across an advertisement for an art contest entitled "Ode to Hollywood."   I immediately thought of a couple of "in-progress" scenes that I had witnessed that captured the feel of the movie being filmed, and something I could paint.    I decided on a scene depicting a segment in which a car was driving down the street toward a young girl on a bicycle.   Multiple takes were done of this scene using a big white screen measuring about twenty feet high and fifteen feet wide.   The screen was erected across the road, presumably to mask the houses and spectators further down on the corner.    To the right of the white screen, some under a white umbrella, were a dozen or more movie crew members with equipment, filming, directing and watching the scene unfold.

I began with a previously painted canvas of bright warm blocks of color, entitled "three." (Triplets, three legged dog, three breasted woman). I turned it upside down to do a block in of the painting it was going to become.   If you want to see the old painting right side up, either turn your computer up side down, or stand on your head - haha.


For the painting, I liked working on the challenge of various distances from the far beach houses to the crowd of movie crew characters, the car and the primary focal point, the girl on the bike.   The span of distance was probably a quarter of a mile.  The bright colorful crowd balanced the larger blocks of neutral areas (screen, houses, pavement).   I painted the very busy area of the movie crew crowd by thinking of it as an abstract area colored shapes and dots, at least for the first pass.   Then I stepped back and assessed if this area looked like a crowd of people.   Because the photo I was working from was taken from a long distance, the bumps in the street make the yellow double line disappear and reappear with the changing levels.



Girl on Bicycle - Take Two

Okay.  I am out of time.  No danger of overworking this painting for the contest as I will submit it today.   I still welcome comments and reserve the right to fine tune further as always.

 I cannot wait to see this movie and match up what I saw to what is actually happening in the film.   Fascinating!








Postscript:   The painting was selected for display at the Jeanie Madsen Gallery in Santa Monica, CA as part of the "Ode to Hollywood" Exhibition, from August 25 through September, 2012.