Bruce Jones
Watercolor, Ink, Colored Pencil
Mostly landscapes, but some of everything else, from people to rusted equipment and surrealism.
Directions to Studio #23 at 38575 Robinson Reef Drive, Gualala: From Hwy 1, turn west on Robinson Reef Drive in Gualala, and go three blocks to the end. My house is on the left side of the dead end.
Studio Tour Hours:
Open Aug 29-30 & Sept 5-7
11 am to 5 pm
My studio is also open by appointment, year-round.
I retired and moved to Gualala in 2000. I have now lived here 25 years -- more than twice as long as any other place in my life. I have lived pretty much all over California and Oregon.
My education and work life focused on economics, statistics, computer systems and the technologies underlying businesses, but I always painted and drew for fun and relaxation. When I retired, I began to draw and paint fulltime and I found that my art got better fast. When you visit me, you will see lots of variation:
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Watercolor landscapes of the coast, from Sea Ranch to Elk. These account for most of my art over the past 20 years. I try to capture the feel of the place, sometimes "plein air" sometimes from photos.
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Drawings and paintings of people, mostly watercolor but also regular and colored pencil. My colored pencils are Prismacolor, wax based rather than clay based, which facilitates blending. Many of the people came from "life drawing" at Gualala Arts, and some from pictures in magazines. You see that I concentrate on faces and hands, where the person is – my favorite.
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Black and white landscapes and still lifes in ink, mostly sumi ink which works much like watercolor, and pencil. Black and white gives a kind of drama you just don't get from color.
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Florals – I like plants and forests
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Other stuff with interesting shapes, colors, textures – like heavy equipment, especially if it is thoroughly used and rusty –reminds me of myself.
All my art is fairly realistic although I feel free to shift reality around. My usual approach is first to decide what to emphasize and what to leave out. Then I try to leave my mind open to taking advantage of happy accidents as I paint and draw.
I now sell my art in three galleries, plus most years on the annual Studio Discovery Tour. I draw, paint, make small sculptures, and I write short plays, stories and poems just about every day, plus I get involved in hanging a lot of art shows. I also do landscaping projects and maintain trails for Gualala Arts and the Redwood Coast Land Conservancy, which seem like both art forms and exercise programs.