My "Valley" series represents some of my early works from the 1970s when I was living in Woodland Hills, one of several communities in the greater San Fernando Valley in Southern California, located over the  Santa Monica Mountains from the Pacific Ocean. 

 

As a young artist I didn't have the resources to use the relatively new medium of artist-grade acrylic paints and instead substituted acrylic latex house paints which were far less expensive but with a limited range of colors.

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As I was painting street scenes of the Valley I rationalized this limitation knowing that I was at least painting with the exact same paint colors that covered the houses, shops and industrial buildings which were my subjects.  I viewed this more in a humorous way than as any sort of serious attempt at artistic authenticity.  After all, I used these same colors to paint people as well.

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Most notable is that these works are heavily textured using acrylic latex paints emulsified in a more viscous acrylic polymer medium and applied using “squeeze" bottles on a canvas lying flat.  I created this admittedly unorthodox technique in order to produce  deep texture from what are normally thin liquid paints.

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