One of the most often painted stretches of beach in California, I’ve even painted from similar vantage points up here myself. It’s always fun to come back though- every day, every time, every painting by myself or others, each simply reveals yet another facet of this Jewel of California.
Commission from recent road trip. One of the more challenging commissions I’ve had in awhile. Mainly because there were incredibly fun lefts peeling over the reefs all morning just down the hill to the right. Left to my own ways I don’t think there is ever a time I’d choose to paint up the hill […]
Long walk to get here, hot day, no way to get down this cliff and into the water. Not complaining, just stating facts… in a complainey sorta way. On another topic, Southern California was fun in April/May, caught the tail end of the Bloom and these yellow flowers were seemingly everywhere.
Started this one a bit later in the afternoon than I typically would, after traversing the madness of the L.A. freeway complex, so I was part exhausted, part fired up to be out of the madness, and still in a rush to race the daylight. Turned out to be a very enjoyable paint session, in […]
The name of this spot is translated in the native Indian tribe’s dialect as “Above”, referring to their settlements location above the floodwaters of this creek. Given it’s proximity to the Metropolis in the distance, it’s definitely a place where one sees anything and everything at times. It was also very hard to find parking […]
Back when I began doing a lot of plein air work over 15 years ago, this was an early destination one spring while I was living in Southern California for a short time. I would spend the subsequent years developing my approach and focusing my art on the coastline (basically after a realization that painting […]
Much can be said of beautiful harmonies, but there is also a place in music for the discord, the feedback, the reverb, the chunks of rawness strewn about from a creative process that values expression above technical perfection. Even the ugly shorepound is beautiful to the bodysurfers. Oceanic mosh pits. Every song has its roots […]
Stringed instruments often contain a dizzying array of mathematical geometries; the length and/or thickness of strings, the placement of frets, the bodies themselves. All of it designed to produce the harmonic frequencies we hear as notes and chords arising from vibrating strings. But what is vibration, if not a wave? Reduce a wave, or for […]
Sound upon sound, wave upon wave, a simple strum of a stringed instrument produces a series of notes that can combine to produce a harmonious chord. Sound is a wave after all, and every wave forms from smaller waves, ripples even, joining each other in a synergy of moving water, liquid chords in the key […]
Many instruments have within their design a method of capturing, redirecting, focusing, and amplifying the otherwise not-quite-so-extraordinary sounds produced by whichever simple vibrating element they employ. When those vibrations bounce off chambers, refract around curving elements, they refract, combine, and grow to a beautiful pitch, much like a wave as it approaches shallow waters. Canyons, […]
Percussion, it’s the foundation of music. It’s been here all along, discernible all around and within us, from water’s rhythmic waves to our own heartbeats pumping our saltwater life force through our bodies. From the basic repetition emerges increasing complexities, and with a human intellect at the helm becomes the very structure upon which song […]
