Artist Prakash Chandras paints the essence of California — every day. He gets up each morning, makes himself a big cup of tea and takes it to his studio above the garage in South San Jose. Then he paints for two or three hours of California landscapes before he moves on with his day. Each painting is a postcard size and a distinct image of California — a poppy, the Big Sur coastline, Coit Tower in San Francisco. He displays and sells them on his website at California Daily Art. He calls it a “visual vacation.”

He was inspired by a poet he heard on the radio one day talking about his daily writing inspiration on his short walks to work, whether it was a flower or a cloud. And Chadras, who teaches art at De Anza Community College in Cupertino, knew how such an exercise would not only be a creative one, but a good daily discipline.

“I wanted to push myself every day,” said Chadras, who earned a Masters in Fine Art in 1983 from San Jose State University. He also had developed a special painting technique he calls linearism, where he paints only with parallel lines. And each of those paintings takes upwards of six months. His postcard images gave him a daily sense of creativity and achievement. He sells them for about $100 each.

“I only paint the places I have seen and experienced,” said Chandras, who takes snapshots of his California travels and refers to them in the studio. “When I paint in the morning, I remember being there. In my mind, I’m indulging myself with all these memories.”

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This entry was posted on Sunday, March 1st, 2009 at 11:45 pm and is filed under Art, Decorating, Home Decor, Julia, Landscape, Looki What I Found, Painting, San Jose, Wall Decor, Weblogs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.