Mesa of Many Colors

 

Mesa of Many Colors just finished this afternoon

15x 21 watercolor

This is the Mesa behind my house in North Coastal San Diego county.

The greens and their  complements of copper and rose inspired me to paint this. The colors glow under the May Grey sky.

Spring Radiance

 

Spring Radiance 12 x 12 watercolor on paper 

Newest painting of the bright colors of a sunny Southern California spring day.

Verdant Morning

 

Verdant Morning 9 x 12 watercolor on paper .

I still love to paint the  greenest California Hills in Spring.

Oceanside Museum of Art Plein Air Exhibition

 

Summer Hill 9 x 12

The Juried Plein Air Exhibition at the Oceanside Museum of Art runs through January 2024 and has 50 paintings from the Oceanside Plein Air Festival. I am honored to have a painting from the hills of Oceanside included.

California Art Club "Signs of Spring, opening Jan 16. showing "Tejon Ranch Spring"

Tejon Ranch Spring 14 x 18

Signs of Spring: A day in the Garden Jan 16 to May 20

Reception Thurs Jan 18 5:30 to 7:30

The Old Mill. San Marino

See the entire exhibit here:
https://www.californiaartclub.org/exhibitions/current-exhibitions/signs-of-spring

Monarch of Carmel Valley in California Art Club "Golden State Splendor" exhibit at the Santa Paula Art Museum July 15 to Nov 5

Monarch of Carmel Valley, 16 x 20  plein air
This was just painted this past May during the Carmel Art Festival.  I love this hill in upper Carmel Valley.  It is about 20 minutes beyond Carmel Valley Village and the drive to it is through some exquisite Oaklands, stands of Sycamores and horse ranches. I feel the tension leave my neck and back as I pull out here along Carmel Valley Rd. Often painting in absolute silence.

The title is cribbed from Hanson Puthuff who titled a painting "Monarch of Malibu".  If I can paint the hills of California half as well as he did I will be happy.
 I chose the title for this piece because this hill feels so majestic.
It is truly my vision of splendor!

California Art Club
Golden State Splendor
Santa Paula Art Museum
July 15 to Nov 5

Reception Sat July 15 4 to 6 pm.

Going Softly to Gold Plein Air Watercolor painted on Mount Diablo

Going Softly to Gold 14 x 14

I took advantage of an afternoon with no wind and continued my exploration of the scenery on Northgate Road on Mount Diablo. This meadow had the barest tone of green under the grasses going to gold that made interesting patterns..

Seven Layers of Spring, painted on Mount Diablo

Seven Layers of Spring

The dark pine-covered ridge was the perfect foil for the early spring oaks and poppies.
This was painted on Mount Diablo on Northgate Road looking down from the poppy meadow and across to the western ridges of the peninsula. there's not enough elevation to see it , but the San Francisco Bay is in between the last two ridges.

Diablo Ranch

Diablo Ranch 12 x 16

Painted east of Mount Diablo during the spring burnout when the bare hills are interesting to paint.
Plein Air Watercolor

Best Watercolor Award for "Carmel Valley Evening Glow" from Mian Situ at the Carmel Art Festival

The thrilling moment with Mian Situ.

Carmel Valley Evening Glow 12 x 12
Best Watercolor Award Carmel Art Festival 2017
Judge Mian Situ

The light in Carmel Valley is different, so close to the Ocean, it seems brighter, clearer there, the air is so clean. The land seems to glow at every time of day, but especially in the evening.

Here are the other paintings:

Monarch of Carmel Valley 16 x 20

I pushed myself to paint this subject at the largest size I can paint in these plein air events, it is such a monumental hill, it reminds me of a Henry Moore Sculpture.

A Morning Hike 12 x 12

I painted framed and parked during the Quick draw in 2 hours on Sunday
morning.
 I drove to Carmel River Beach Lagoon because the energy is so positive and there are lovely wildflowers in case the fog blocks the views. I concentrated my focus on the point of land and painted everything else in soft focus.

Lagoon Morning 9 x 12 Quick Draw

Quick Draw Framed
I like how it glows inside the black frame.

"Late July Hills" and "Flowers of the Sun in the Valley of the Moon" in CAC Miniatures en Plein Air

Late July Hills 9 x12 Plein Air Watercolor $700

Flowers of the Sun in the Valley of the Moon 9 x 12  plein air $700

Miniatures En Plein Air
California Art Club Gallery at The Old Mill
1120 Old Mill Road, San Marino, CA
September 9, 2014 – January 11, 2015


I painted "Flowers of the Sun in the Valley of the Moon" for the title. The center flowers were done a long time ago, in the scene they were surrounded by bright foliage. I decided to push it down in value to help you focus on the flowers.

"Late July Hills", Plein Air Watercolor Study 9 x 12

Late July Hills 9x 12 watercolor painted on location, Mount Diablo.
I needed a break from driving way up to the burn zone, this was a quick hour and a half in changing light.
 The faster the light is changing, the smaller I paint. I also stop when the light is gone and complete these paintings from memory rather than try to paint in the dark. The different scale of the shapes appealed to me and the value pattern was all there, one of those turn my head and say "that's a painting" moments

"By the Old Field" california plein air watercolor 16 x 20

By the Old Field 16 x 20 Plein Air watercolor

Painted in Northern California, it looks like August out there, not June.
 This solitary Eucalyptus is all that's left of what I imagine was quite an impressive windbreak. These hills north of Livermore are in a rural area outside the water districts and residents have to rely on their own wells.

Windswept

Windswept 14 x 14

More trees and pushing the colors of summer. The gestures the wind sculpted these trees into attracted me to this scene. Plein Air and finished in the studio. Here's an earlier state to give you an idea of my process:

Windswept, in process

Two Small Works, California Eucalyptus 6 x 6

 The Elder 6 x 6

Golden Afternoon 6 x 6

Eucalyptus trees have so much color  especially the  blues, teals and purples in the shadows and golds in the highlights, I like to see how little green I can use and still have them read as trees.

Flag Hill,Sunol, finished

Flag Hill Sunol,14 x 21
If you scroll down, you can see I made a change to the sky to reflect more accurately the way the vividness of the blue related to the creamy gold of the hill. Once I changed the sky, I found I needed to adjust some of the values of the blue and violets in the hill.  I am pleased that this feels like the summer day when it was painted..

New small painting of Mount Diablo

"Morning Has Broken" 9 x 12 watercolor on paper.

If you follow this  blog you know I have been working for a while to get more comfortable with painting smaller. My smaller works tend to read as studies and not as finished works. This time I had a reason for working small, the rapidly changing light on Mount Diablo. As in most of my plein air pieces, the shapes and hues were observed on location and values  were altered to suit the painting's needs in the studio..

Demonstration of "Water Line Napa"

Water Line Napa was painted during the California Art Club Paint Out at the Oakville Grocery, Napa. I was interested in how the irrigation changed the landscape into something completely different from what occurs naturally. With our drought here in California I've been thinking about water and it's uses ( another tenative title was "water into wine").Many painters look west towards the lush mountains, I feel more at home painting the eastern view. It reminds me of the forms and colors on Mount Diablo. This is the final ( I think )version, I need to recrop it because of the upper right corner.

 

Water Line Napa, 14 x 21

Here's my working process, which is basically top to bottom, using the patterns of oak trees to establish movement and direction. I love using diagonals.

Stage two, moving down  the painting to start to develope the foreground

End of plein air painting session, about 2 and a half hours. My composition is established and most of my thinking is done, I can see it finished in my mind's eye.( that streak of gray on the lower right is from a shadow cast on the paper.) I usually don't add shapes in the studio, just adjust values because I paint the lightest value that I think should work.  It is so much easier to make watercolor go darker, than to lighten it.

 Recropped and larger, Water Line Napa 14 x 21

New Paintings from the Studio

The Ridge After Sunrise 14 x 21

Ridgeline Rhythmns 16 x 12


In winter, I tend to finish paintings in the studio. These are the two most recent. In the studio , I can use my outdoor starts as compositions where I play with color harmonies and really concentrate on what the painting needs.
In Ridgeline Rhythms, I pushed myself to abstract the ridge. I love the diagonals of the mountains.
In the Ridge After Sunrise, I explored the darks from early morning.
There was a piece in the New Yorker Magazine a while ago that described these hills as a lovely rumpled landscape, a phrase I love and plan on using as a painting title one of these days. The Ridge after Sunrise is more about the low light and colrs but has some of that rumpled feeling.

Two Plein Air California Hill Paintings

Poppy Hill,14 x 14, watercolor en plein air

Spring Hill 14 x 14, watercolor en plein air

We have had a lot of wind and the driest April in years, so these may be the only green ones for this month. The Poppy Hill was painted near Morgan Territory. Spring Hill on Mount Diablo on SouthGate Rd less than 1 mile up. It is now that stage where half the hills are brown and half are gold. And of course ,the poppies are gone.