Starting a new painting - "Last Light"

Now that I've finished my previous painting, "Wahikuli Sunrise" - time to start a new one! The next one (that hopefully won't take too long for me to finish up) - tenatively to be called "Last Light" - is from a collection of images I shot after spending one day this past summer doing a 20 mile hike within Haleakala Crater on Maui. The damn hike kicked my ass, and I made it back to my car at the head of Halemau'u Trail right before sunset.

While driving down the mountaina - I ended up having to pull over and shoot the incredible sunset across the hills above Kula. From these shots, comes the subject for this next painting. Finished size will be 12" x 30" - Oil.

So, after one night of painting, I have the basic colors down on the canvas. This is just the beginning - it has a long way to go - but I'm already getting a good feeling on how it's going to turn out!

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New Painting - "Wahikuli Sunrise"

I finally got around to finishing my newest painting - "Wahikuli Sunrise"!

Oil - 2008 | 18" x 24"

View from Wahikuli Beach Park, looking across toward the island of Lana'i.

I've done a number of sunset paintings over the years - and thought, it might be interesting to do something a little different. Wahikuli Beach Park is located on Maui, between Lahaina and Ka'anapali. This past August, the last day I was on Maui, I went down to the beach for sunrise with friends - and the calm, quiet morning kind of stuck with me once I left - this is the result. :-)

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GM and the upcoming bailout...

With the upcoming bailout of the "Big 3" Automakers, it's got me thinking again about "bad design. Of the three, Ford is actually in the best position financially. GM...is in the worst. GM is also thinking of shedding a few of it's lines, including Saturn, Buick, and Pontiac.

The funny thing is, with the exception of the Corvette, the upcoming Camaro, and the (of all things) - new Malibu, nearly all of Chevrolet's products are, well, bland. Yet, the new Pontiac G8 (really a Holden designed in Australia) and the Solstice, the nearly all of the Saturn lines, and the newest Buick products - are actually attractive! With car sales down 37% or more over last year, it seems insane that GM would get rid of the lines that might actually have products worth buying, and keep the lines that, well, pretty much suck. Furthermore, they keep talking about the Chevy Volt - the car that will "save the company" when it comes out in 2010.

Speaking of the Volt, I've read complaints that the car is "boring" - not very exciting to look at. Now, it does look a bit less like a toaster than the Toyota Prius does, but here's a chance for GM to show the world that a breakthrough automobile, that can go 40 miles on it's batteries before kicking in a small gasoline engine for recharging them, can also be beautiful. Yet, they responded to the criticism by saying that people would buy the car not based on looks, but based on it's technology.

I believe that this is additional proof that the movie "Idiocracy" was really a documentary!

Oh...and they've also announced that they expect that they won't make a profit on the Volt, due to the enormous R&D costs they've incurred during it's development.

And we wonder why GM is in trouble?

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