Donner Lake Rental Shack/ "Closed for the Season"

Here is another piece I finished over the winter. It was for the 2016 Lion Heart Show at Riverside Studios here in Truckee. Proceeds benefit The C.R. Johnson Healing Center. It is always an event that I look forward to participating in. The image is from Donner Lake its a photo of a boat rental shack closed for the winter. I printed text in the snow, white on white for subtlety. It reads, "Forecast looks good, time to lock up shop, wax them boards." I wanted to reference the spirit that builds when a winter storm is on the way and honor the dedication of the snowboarding and skiing community and what people will sacrifice for a few sacred weightless moments in some fresh snow. The criteria for the show is all artists are provided 10"x10" panels of plywood. You can take as many as you want and all panels sell for 100$. I like to put two together for the "panoramic window" look. More work will be up soon. Thanks for viewing my work. Feel free to ask questions or leave comments. cheers! Randal 5/7/16

Another piece finished and in a new happy home. I have another commission piece for a good friend underway. This one is From Independence Lake north of Truckee. It measures 22" X 30". Production has been slowed due to outstanding snowboarding conditions in the Tahoe Area this winter. Also slowed due to a very busy schedule working with the "yutes" of Truckee and Tahoe hopefully corrupting the youth to be better humans and more conscious of art and skateboarding. The program is called Positively Rolling. Its pretty awesome. www.positivelyrolling.org and there is a facebook page too. Thanks for looking here are some photos of my last piece.

Summer Commision

Summer is a busy time, the weather here in Truckee is insane. Between 75-85 degrees and sunny- every day. Mountain lakes, mountain bike rides, lots of active friends, trips to the coast to surf. Ok, ok you get it. So I've been slacking a bit. I haven't been so productive on the Artistic frontier. BUT... I did make this piece which actually was spoken for before it was ever finished. This is the new framing technique that I'm using. I'm no longer pouring resin over the edges when a piece is finished. I stepped up my game and bought some carpentry tools. Pieces are now framed in with birch plywood showing edgewise and moving in a clockwise flow. The painted panel with the photograph on it is sunk about 1/8" into the frame so that it creates a reservoir that the resin sits in. This is one of my favorite pieces completed to date. I'm so happy that my work feels like it is progressing. The image was taken from a drying lake up on Donner Summit. Multiple stumps were exposed from the receding waterline. All the stumps were bleach white and looked like ghosts or tombstones. It was a pretty powerful spot to visit and to take some photos. I'm pretty sure we'll be seeing more work from this shoot/location. The finished piece measured 22x36". Thanks for looking.

I just finished and turned over another piece to Lorien Powers to show and sell at her Jewelry Studio. This piece is called "Tahoe Rim Trial" (26"x16"). It was taken on the Tahoe Rim Trail on a mountain bike journey. It juxtaposes the chaotic life of living in the city with an implied grid system and references like "clock in, clock out, Traffic, sprawl, commute" etc. with the calm of the high reaching pines and the forest of the Tahoe area. Other text reads... "disconnect from the grid, get plugged into the calm of here". Its just a reminder why I live here- the forest and mountains have a very therapeutic and calming effect on me. Cheers! Thanks for reading and looking. More to come!

A little catch-up.

Since I've been putting a lot of energy into Positively Rolling and still love to snowboard, skateboard, surf and mountain bike- I haven't been as productive as I'd like to be. With winter turning to spring here in Truckee, I'm going to be putting my head down to make some more work in the next few months. But to catch us up to date- here are the two most recent pieces I've finished but have yet to post. Thanks for tuning in. The top image is called "Donner Dock #29". It is 48"x 22". It captures the calm feeling of midweek dock sessions during the late spring and summer. mystery text inside says "Around here, we jump in with both feet". The lower image is called "Brockway Fire Lookout". It is meant to look like a window frame. My friend Marco is a great woodworker and helped me create a different method of presenting my work so the resin no longer drips over the edge. The image plane is set into the wood frame by about 1/8" to act as a resin reservoir. I think it works very well with my process. The image is taken from the Brockway Summit fire lookout tower after a fresh snowfall last fall. I'll be revisiting that spot in the future. Thanks again for taking the time to look.

A push for the New Year.

Here are some larger pieces I just completed. I hand build boxes with russian birch plywood, and depending on the size of the piece 1x3 inch siding or 1x2 inch siding- all mitered corners. I build layers on the wood by painting and sanding and painting and sanding. The photos are printed on overhead transparencies and tiled together to create the larger image. I then scratch into the image to manipulate the photo and to add texture then elaborately paint the back side of the the transparent master image. The master image is then trimmed to fit its wood "frame" and gelled to the wood with a clear gel. I then coat all the pieces with a clear epoxy resin. The resin gives the final piece an almost three dimensional look to it as well as a high gloss finish. I allow the resin to run over the edges as i feel it gives the final piece a unified feel. Here are the pieces. Almost 2014!! Truckee Train Depot 15x24 acrlyic, transparencies, pencil, epoxy resin, wood. (smaller detail images shown to display hidden message!) The Rubicon Trail 15x30 acrylic, transparencies, pencil, epoxy resin, wood.

Year Enders.

Put a little holiday push in to the mix. Just finished a few pieces before the new year. One for my mom for Christmas to send her a piece of the local landscape and three more to hang in Lorien Power's Studio here in old town Truckee. I'm looking forward to the new year and my 40th. I've got some prospects for some commission work on a larger scale. I'll keep you all abreast of that. Here's the new work. The Panoramic is taken from Donner Summit looking out over the Rainbow Bridge and Donner Lake.

The "Miner Shacks" piece is taken from West River Road of some historic miner shacks that are still lived in today. There may be a piece or two here still to come. Both pieces are smaller in size the Miner Shacks is 10x12 inches, The Donner summit piece is 12x16inches.