Artwork Notes & Backstories


Open Lanes

07/16/2017

6th day on the road, 16th painting completed, 1st on this day

I was hoping to paint the view north from this location, but when I got here I wasn’t feeling it. The linear elements of this reef meeting the microscopic 8inch lines of windswell wrapping around it got my interest though, especially with the backlit morning light peeking around the hillside I was on.

I did have to walk around a locked gate through an opening to a private lane where I noticed a large NO TRESPASSING sign spray painted completely black. I think that means visitors are welcome then, no?

At any rate, the few folks that came and went through that locked gate either didn’t notice me lurking with my easel in the ferns, or they just didn’t care, as nobody said a word.


Fault Lines

07/15/2017

5th day on the road, 15th painting completed, 2nd one this day

I’ve scouted around this cove a few times over the years, looking for an angle to paint this place, but never bothered to find a way out onto the cliffs that overlook it. Glad I finally did, I could spend weeks painting out here. What really stands out up here is the geological forces that have shaped this cove. I believe the San Andreas fault line runs right through it, and I was drawn to the linear elements of the scene before me.

Its a bit of a trek from the road to get out here when packing an art studio on your back, often hunting views on game trails through tall grass that had me tucking my pant legs into my socks and checking for ticks religiously. I was relieved to never see a single one, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t thinking of those little bloodsuckers nearly the whole time.

When I was nearly finished with this one, some ladies came walking by on the nearby trail. They stopped to chat and quickly made note of the waves I may have added on this flat summer day. Then they wanted to know where I was from, and who I was with, and let me know they noticed my van back at the carpark. I felt that I had to assure them I was alone, not part of a group and not connected to any other artists that have passed through these parts after the general grilling I received.

Maybe I read them wrong, but they sure seemed to be putting out some territorial vibes in that short conversation. But I understand, they live in a very small town, in a very beautiful place, in a state whose coast is being bought and sold at an alarming rate. Protectionism isn’t all their fault. It’s also their virtue.


Ticks Are Evil

07/15/2017

7th day on the road, 20th painting completed, 2nd one this day

This is another place I’ve wanted to paint for a long time, but it’s quite a walk from the road and just hadn’t had the time on previous trips. I knew the angle I was looking for, but it would require a fair bit of off-trail work to get there. Fortunately it was pretty much open grassland I’d have to cross, though the signs warning about ticks were a bit unnerving considering I the amount of shoulder high grass I was about to wade through. These paintings don’t happen without some effort though, so a quick tuck of all the loose clothing, a moment of prayer, a few deep breaths, and I was off.waawa

I made it through the grass and roughly to the vantage point I was aiming for, but off by 100 yards or so to the south.The wind was howling as it does in these parts in the summer (and, well… always) and unfortunately the vantage I was looking for faced the wind directly and the cliff face below even magnified it. I could head back through the grass or traverse the sandy cliff face over to the spot I was aiming for. Ticks being evil, I went with the cliff face. With the gusts of wind and all my gear flapping about it was dicey at best. And straight down 100 feet or so to rocks below at worst.

Did I mention these paintings don’t happen without some effort? Well, they don’t.

I was happy to get back to the van after this one. Nothing blew off the cliff (including this body I live in). I didn’t even see a single tick after an entire afternoon of constant checking. Go figure, but I still say those little buggers are evil… maybe not quite full blown evil, but somewhere on the spectrum I reckon.


In a Different Light

07/14/2017

5th day on the road, 14th painting completed, 1st one this day

Occasionally when I mention to folks that I travel up and down painting the California coast, they will suggest that I do paintings of all the lighthouses. I usually think that’s because someone once gave them a calendar with a different lighthouse on each month. Or because they think lighthouse paintings will sell easily (as opposed to the rest of my art? Gee, thanks. By the way, almost all of it sells these days- thanks you guys! Oh and by the other way, making art based on what sells when it’s not where your heart really is, well that’s basically just straight up worshipping money. Get behind me, Satan, I’m not going there. I’ve seen too many artists lose their joy, passion, drive, and ultimately their art as well and end up running aground when they chart their course in sole pursuit of Mammon… Ok, sermon over…)

The truth is I have nothing against lighthouses, in fact, I’ll happily paint them when my road leads to them and I truly appreciate a bit of the symbolism that I think people like to put on them- guiding lights, light in the darkness, etc… but personally I’m more a fan of the rocky gnarl that usually surrounds them. Maybe I just see some things in a bit of a different light, but I know I’m not the only one.


We All Stand Alone

07/12/2017

4th day on the road, 12th painting completed, 3rd one this day

I came around a bend on the winding highway 1 a bit south of here today and a large RV was heading toward me in the oncoming lane. It wasn’t swerving or dangerous, we were both moving slowly and within our respective lanes. What stood out was the clear view I had of the driver of the vehicle. She looked just like my sister who we lost to cancer several years ago.

It was a head on collision.

I’m not one to grieve outwardly too much so these things take time to slowly boil out over the years. I cried around the next few bends remembering her, all while laughing about the prospect of her driving around the country in a big RV. (If you knew her, you know of the humor present in that thought).

This painting was later in the day, I first surfed here on a road trip with my dad a long long time ago. It could have been that family connection, or the old church standing tall across the river in the distance that had me recalling her again as I painted this one.

The solitary beachgoer that waded out to the sandbar island that had formed in the rivermouth was a reminder for me, that at least on this side of life, we all stand alone on the face of the earth.

One day maybe we’ll all stand together again, but I’d like to get a few more waves first.


A Change is Brewing

07/11/2017

Often the main challenge in painting a location is finding an angle that condenses the story of being there into one frame. I’d surfed here years before with a friend, rappelling
down the steep cliff on a wet, gray day. I’ve been fond of the place ever since. That personal connection can make a painting even more difficult since I’m also trying to pack all those memories onto the canvas as well.

After scouring around, I settled on this view. I knew it was a little dicey parking on this narrow road, but I needed the elevation provided by the van to see down the bluff to the beach below. If I’d pulled up just another 50 feet or so, I’d have been in a wider section designated for tourists to park and take photos of the view (or themselves). But this particular spot was just right. This could get awkward.

It was a quiet week day and any ordinary car could still easily drive around my van so I figured I’d be fine.

At one point a truck rolled up with a trailer full of gravel, and after a minute he got out and approached my van. I’d already started putting loose items away and stabilizing anything that looked precarious for the impending move, so I was ready for him and offered to move before he asked. He was real nice about it and said it was his last trip
for the day. I pulled forward, let him pass, then backed up again to complete the painting.

Another lady wasn’t so nice about it, but her little car had no problem getting around. No harm, no foul.

-Entry on July 11, 2017


Heard from Across the Valley

07/10/2017

4th day on the road, tenth painting completed, first one this day

Some paintings I’ve seen for a long time before I painted them. When painting plein air it can take awhile since you’re not pulling images out of your imagination, if there’s a painting rumbling around in there, you have to wait until you put yourself in the right place at the time of day that painting is asking for.

This was one of those. I’d seen this rambling creek, this cove, this shaded valley in the morning light for awhile in my mind. I had a few different locations I was hunting for it on this foggy morning. The first two were beautiful, but the angles were wrong and the morning fog was a bit too thick to work with. Pressing on to this last option I thought had potential, the clouds breaking and lifting just as I arrived, I was a bit giddy at the site before me. It looked even more like the painting than the one I was seeing in my mind.

The freshly mowed poison oak/berry brambles lining the road here provided adequate space to pull over and work from inside the van, which was great since I didn’t want to set foot on all that chopped poison oak anyway.

Nothing about this painting ever really felt like work, it was just a pure joy reacting to the scene before me and listening to the steady crack of breaking waves on the sandbar that built up around this rock stack. I could hear them clearly from all the way across this valley.

But I saw this painting coming from much further than that.

The morning fog lingers
Until we finish our last cup of coffee together
Her timing impeccable
Her exit silent and unnoticed
Some folks just hate
Saying goodbye


Remnants of a Long Day

07/09/2017

4th day on the road, 13th painting completed, (4th on this day)

After a long day bouncing all over the area painting as efficiently and nonstop as I possibly could, I ended my 3rd piece with enough time to sneak in one more.

One thing that really jumps out about this coastline is how old some of these towns are and the degree to which modern development has passed many of them by. Old buildings from over 100 years ago, still stand and are in use today. The cabin I was staying in had a lot of art around showing some of these older buildings scattered around the coast, churches, water towers, etc… Remnants of a day long gone.

I think that got me fired up to paint one of these town scenes. It’s not my favorite subject matter, but in the interest of conveying the sense of place I thought it would be good to take a crack at one myself.

The hardest part was quickly finding an old water tower with a view of the coast in the distance as the light was fading fast. After driving around a bit I found this one and though it wasn’t quite as close to the water as I’d hoped, it would do considering I was working with just the final remnants of a long day.

Funny thing is getting back to the cabin, right next to where I was sleeping there was a painting on the wall of this exact scene, from this exact spot that I hadn’t really noticed before. Theirs was far more technical and accurate, but I did what I could. Not too often do I knock out 4 in a day. Going to sleep well tonight.


Glass at Dusk

07/09/2017

3rd day on the road, 9th painting completed, 3rd one this day

Not so long ago, and prior to the age of plastic’s dominance, one coastal town decided it’s beautiful bluffs overlooking the sea would be a great place for the town dump. It made all sorts of sense, what with the flat ground being suitable for simple pushing the refuse over the cliff onto the rugged beaches below for the ebb and flow of the ocean to do as it’s always done and make it all go away.

Well, it’s almost all gone now and you’d hardly know it ever was used as a dump, but what’s left behind is a bit of a wonder. All the glass bottles that were thrown away (this was maybe before recycling made economic sense) simply broke up, and worn by the sea and sand, filled entire beaches with translucent fragments. At first glance it just appears gravel, upon closer inspection it seems entire coves are made of glass.

I’d wanted to attempt a painting at beach level with afternoon light pouring through the beach glass, but the weather turned and I was left to wander around in the thick overcast evening air looking for a suitable cove. The first one I had in mind was blocked off from public access. No worries, I’d find another. Cove after cove was blocked and/or inaccessible. Well, I’ve hopped fences for paintings before and on account of the quickly fading light, I saw no reason not to add one more to the list.

It’s a perplexing conundrum this town faces now that it’s marketed this place as a destination for tourists, needing to keep them away from the best coves so the tourists don’t remove all the town’s old trash. Wait, what? Hard to believe that’s a real sentence, but there you have it. 


Untouched

07/08/2017

3rd day on the road, 8th painting completed, 2nd one this day. Making what I could of a rather dark gray day…

Well “Untouched” may be a misnomer for a title, this place has seen a lot of feet treading it’s paths being as close as it is to town. That said, it’s been spared from development and remains an unconsumed and pristine open space, a refuge for many from the trials of life.

She was dark and gray today, that open space expanding to the point where you feel that maybe you don’t belong, no one belongs. Almost as if the earth there is unsure of her beauty and just wants to be alone. The footpaths in the meadows yearn for healing, and are in the process now, but the scars of compression run too deep. They will not heal before the sun returns and brings the wounded from town back to these paths in search of joys, wonders, stoke and revelries.

She will open up to them, soothe them, give of herself for their betterment. But she will let not let them have her, she will send them all back after their brief dance. Some will return smiling, some in tears, but all will be changed by their encounter in some way.

On days like this, when she is dark and gray, she is also happy. It is these days she can be herself and wait upon her own healing. These are her sanctuary times, and they usually only come on moonless nights. Here on these dark days she can see herself better and she knows beyond the doubt of night that indeed she is beautiful. 


The Wind Blows Where it Wishes

07/07/2017

3rd day on the road, 7th painting completed, 1st one this day

The wind was blowing lightly onshore this morning but the fog was moving slowly out to sea on a seemingly different program altogether.

You never know what, or who, will blow in with the wind.

Besides fog, here’s what else the wind blew past me while I worked on this one on the side of the road:

A chain smoking man in a cowboy hat in a white ford 350 and a good several-song dose of country music.

A couple in a rusty blue minivan who appeared to be looking for something in the bushes right beside me, pulling out all sorts of random roadside detritus including but not limited to one busted chair and a pair of ladies jeans that they nearly kept but finally decided not to.

An old friend from Humboldt who spotted me at work and stopped for a quick minute to say hi.

A road-walking 20 something guy with a backpack who feigned interest in the art while scouting my bags for food (or whatever else he was looking for) and finally left with my Cliff Bar.

A grown man on a bmx bike asking directions to the next market north of us.

This is one of my favorite things about working on location: none of that ever happens in the home studio. Well, not very often anyway. 


Fading West

07/06/2017

2nd day on the road, 6th painting completed, 4th one of the day

I wasn’t planning to paint here at all, though I did stop and check it out the day before. This day I was planning to head south from my previous location, but the afternoon fog crept in and made a mockery of my plan as it so often will. Recalling this tightly arranged scenic cove complete with a eucalyptus foreground I thought this was a location that would hold up even in a fairly dense fog, and it was true. Had a really fun time painting this one without pressure of capturing a specific place, just a feeling of being there is all that I wanted here. Plus the burger and salad at the little hotel/restaurant behind me was delightful, and I don’t often think of salads in those terms. Of course after 4 paintings in one day, I reckon a stale peanut butter and jelly woulda been delightful too, but still, it was really good. 

There really wasn’t much
Of anything there at all
It was just another roadside stop
A place to rest before moving along
But somehow it seems
That we’ve left something behind
In the foggy haze
We’ll spend the rest of this trip
Wondering what it was
And wishing we’d not forgotten it


No Vegetarian Options

07/05/2017

2nd day on the road, 5th painting completed, 3rd one of the day

There’s a chunk of reef out here that I’ve always enjoyed pulling over for and watching when passing through this area. I’ve never seen it look truly rideable, but I wouldn’t put it past some nut to give it a go on the right day. Heaving peaks onto dry rock reef. Mindsurfing was never so fun.

It’s not just the water that’s compelling here either, it’s also the landscape leading up to it. The rolling hills lead down to rocky canyons with micro pocket beaches The open space of these tall grassy (ticks!) meadows is part of the California coast experience that just makes you happy to be alive. The sky is bigger. Your body is smaller. .

Sea lion locals stare you down the moment you peak over the grass into their private cove. They seem always on edge, even as they bask in the sun. A reminder of the food chain at work in these waters. No vegetarian options. 

Crashing like a stock market spooked by a bear
Waiting for the right moment to ambush the fat sea lions
And swallow their retirement pensions whole
There are no vegetarian options
In this wicked game


Nothing is Easy

07/02/2017

1st day on the road, 2nd painting completed

I pulled off the highway here on my first day down the coast. The light was of the flat midday sort where the shadows are still hiding underneath their rocks staying cool in the heat of the sun, waiting till things cool off to come out again in the afternoon. I wanted to paint here but the light was not working for me yet. That said, the color of the water up the coast with the distant haze of the morning marine layer hovering was interesting enough so I settled on a quick small one, figuring it would be easy to just paint real quick and move on.

2 hours later, what am I doing? And what is this tiny little brush doing in my hand? I can’t stand tiny brushes. My eyes are too blurry and my hand too wobbly to play around with them. But still, here I am, noodling around with all these little rocks trying to really illustrate the scene rather than just the simple goal of getting the feeling of that midday vibe. Good grief. I’ve painted 16×20’s faster than this little 6×8.

Oh well.

Nothing is easy.


No Turning Back

06/20/2017

I’d tried to get to this place, Rubicon point, located in D.L. Bliss State Park for two days in a row only to be denied by a full parking lot. On the first day, I was with my whole family and we looked at a map and decided to walk in on the Rubicon Trail. My six year old is a bundle of energy when she wants to be. When she’s walking uphill in the heat of a Tahoe summer day, well, that’s just not really her thing. We climbed the trail higher and higher, (odd because we were trying to get down to the water, not up) until we finally reached what seemed to be the peak, and then continued down the trail for a fair bit as well. My wife came around a bend with a view and saw just how far we still had to descend to the water (and hence climb back out later with our youngest melting into a puddle of hot complaints) and she wisely made the call. We would go no further. We would turn back, and I’d have to try again another day.

As for painting this one when I finally made it here, this is the only piece of the trip that had that feeling of ease about it while working. The water and rocks before me were just so perfect and defined that it had that feeling that it was ready to paint itself if I could just get out of the way.

Later when I went to title the piece I was thinking of a variation on the word bliss, but it felt so obvious that I just wasn’t ready to roll with it too easily. I figured I’d look up the word Rubicon and see what came of it and learned of the phrase “crossing the Rubicon” to be synonymous with passing a point of no return, named so after Julias Caesar crossing the river Rubicon in Rome with his troops which was an irrevocable declaration of civil war against Rome itself. If he’d had my wife along for counsel, oh how the world as we know it would be a different place today. Ever thankful to her wisdom that we avoided our own civil war that day and chose to live in peace instead.


The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth

06/19/2017

The bold get up early and seize the day. They also seize all of the parking spots on the southwest shore of Tahoe by 9 in the morning on hot summer days. Earlier this day I was rather bold myself, rising before 6am and seizing a primo spot just about the falls in the previous painting. I was done by 10am or so, thinking I would have plenty of time to get in to the beach lot at D L Bliss State Park for another painting before connecting with my family later in the afternoon at Meeks Bay.

That may have been bold of me, but it was also very mistaken. The bolder ones had already arrived and for the second day in a row I was denied access to Bliss. Meekly I headed up the coast to our campground and found a spot in the shade to paint this consolation piece, looking back at the shore where I’d spend the next day wallowing in the shallows with a camera hunting for tubes among the boatwakes on my own handmade artificial sandbars. But that’s another story…

In my defeat, my eyes cast downward and for the only time on this trip my painting’s composition contained no sky, instead focused solely on the rocks and water before me. In fact, since the other 9 sold so quickly I decided to hang on to this one for my family. Maybe one of my grandkids will inherit it one day.


Heaven’s Fourth Foundation

06/19/2017

How’s that cryptic title? Don’t worry I’m not starting some sort of religious new age cult or anything. I just have a tradition with my coastal paintings of not naming locations in the titles, but often providing obscure wordplay cues to the locations. I do this partly because as a surfer, no matter how much the internet gives all of our secrets to the masses, it is still taboo to name many of the places I paint in public forums such as this. The other reason is that I still need to be able to recall which painting someone is asking about when they inquire about a piece by it’s title and if I have dozens of paintings called “Afternoon Light on the Coast” well that won’t really help much will it? The wordplay references just serve to jog my memory as to which is what when I need to recall them later.

What’s all that got to do with this title?Well, perhaps it was just the overwhelming beauty of the place that gave a feeling of heaven on earth here, or maybe it was the elevation- being over a mile high in the sky. But either way as I named these pieces a somewhat biblical​ theme emerged. This is one of the most iconic bay views in all of Tahoe, sharing its name with the precious stone listed as the fourth stone in the foundation of the New Heaven in the Book of Revelation. Cryptic? Yes, but it serves its purpose all the same.

Sidenote: If I were to die today, I’d far rather go out with this view in my mind than the stone it’s named after in my hand. No doubt about that.

It should also be noted if we’re going to speak of nearness to heaven that this is the only painting of my trip that had water from the skies fall upon it while painting. The big round dollops fell steadily, but sparsely for only a few minutes, making only the subtlest of splashes and drips in the underpaint stage. But it was dicey for a minute there.


Eden Revisited

06/18/2017

Just after I had things blocked in on this one with a crisp afternoon light, a thunderhead developed to the south and within minutes the whole sky went gray. Had to make a choice, follow the changing conditions, or just wing it and make stuff up. Sometimes clouds bring out colors that sunlight washes out in the landscape. I wasn’t feeling it this time, so this became effectively a studio piece painted on location*, but no longer referencing much of the scene before me other than it’s most basic architecture, just operating on memory and instinct.

This is also the only piece from the trip that includes any human figures. It’s not that I intentionally avoid figures, I just don’t focus on them much. In this case, it was their interaction with the lake that carried the whole story here so there you have it. Humanity introduced in a pristine setting. Eden revisited.


Fit for a King

06/17/2017

Named for the stretch of coast nearby, King’s beach, it’s easy to see why a place this beautiful would belong to a King. That said, he’s lost some territory this year as the heavier than normal snowfall melting into the lake has the water level several feet higher than normal and this beach, like many others found itself nearly completely underwater. I found the only patch of sand I could to work from and even then I stood in ankle deep water getting a fairly proper chill on an otherwise hot day. The entire session was peppered with confusion of beachgoers arriving to their annual beach day on the northern shore of Tahoe only to find there was no… beach. But the water, oh my, the water. High tide on Tahoe is pretty awesome all the same. I’m sure the King is pretty stoked on his view as well.


West of Heaven

06/16/2017

I was undoubtedly the highest I’ve ever been while painting this one. Wait. not like that. I mean the highest elevation- 9,123 feet above sea level to be exact. Heavenly is the name of the ski resort here on the California/Nevada border and we arrived to the first day of the summer gondola running visitors up the hill for an expansive view of the entire Sea of Tahoe. From somewhere around the point where that central tree breaks the view of Tahoe’s shore in the foreground and sweeping all the way to the left then right into the far distance where the shore again disappears behind the tree on the far right, that is the entire East Coast of California in one painting.

Painting on this public observation deck was full of distractions with a higher than normal dose of confusing questions from the admiring public like: “do you do this on your own, or do you sell these?”…. um….?

Anyway, within these distractions an 8 year old girl wandered by who spoke no discernable english and watched enthralled, to the growing impatience of her younger brother. At times her mother had to pull her back as she wanted to put her face so close to the action I was worried I’d accidently paint a rainbow on her cheek and get busted for running an unauthorized facepainting scheme to profit from the tourist traffic. After several minutes of her being allowed by her family to indulge her fascination, she uttered the first english word to her family that I heard. Very clearly and unmistakably she said “Impressionism”. I thought that was pretty cool, even though the only impression I was giving through the painting at that stage was that of a snow-blinded elephant washing it’s back with river mud. Still, though, I strive to carry on in a long and deep tradition of California Impressionist artists, so it was great to hear the word uttered from the mouth of such a young person who clearly knows more about what I do than I would have at her age.

By the way, my entire Tahoe series is sold out (say what? That happened fast!), but I will be showing them all at my gallery before shipping them off. Stay tuned.


In the Beginning

06/16/2017

Arriving to Tahoe for the first time we approached from the south after traversing Echo Summit. The exposed granite boulders of the Pie Shop (what they call that hill in the mid upper right) in the distance gave just a hint of the aroma of the delicious feast of Earth’s wonder that was to come in the following days. The bits of snow still clinging to the shaded hill in the 80 degree heat was now a distant echo of the long dark and cold winter months that blanketed this area with more snow than recent memory could recall. And the fallen tree a reminder that life is never easy.. and even more so here in this place, in spite of its indescribable beauty.

Did I mention the mosquitoes? Talk about blood, sweat, and tears. Well not so much tears but those little bloodsuckers forced me to put on the only jacket I had on hand, a full on hooded puffy warm and toasty jacket. The hood was great to keep those buggers off my neck, but oh my, I think I may have sweated out an organ or two inside that little sauna.


A Strong Inclination

06/15/2017

This is the first painting I did in Tahoe. It was a real puzzle for me trying to sort out the values in the painting with that blinding white snow on the surrounding ridges. I kept feeling like everything should be lighter because of the distance, then I’d lose the contrast that would make that flat white snow appear so bright. I never really did figure it out, but had a ton of fun staring at that water all the same.

The town on the distant shore beneath the snowy peaks is called Incline Village, though that has less to do with the title than the allure of that ice cold water on a hot day, giving one a strong inclination to jump in, no matter how much the shock to one’s system the cold would bring.


I’m Going In!

06/15/2017

Close to the water’s edge and just around that boulder point known as Bonsai Rocks. By the time I was done with this one, staring so closely into that crystalline water while sweating in the sun, there was no holding back. 

I’m going in!

Wow, Tahoe. You’re cold. That hurt.


Geometries of Love

05/18/2017

Not plein air, but quickly painted in a public setting from a blurry overcast bootlegged photo, so not exactly a studio painting either…

This was done as a gift for the family that opened their home to me during my recent stay in San Diego. They spend their anniversaries down here every year, and though it isn’t technically within my usual range, figured it would be an appropriate gesture nonetheless.


Observation: North

05/16/2017

The view looking north from this science research pier. I could have approached this totally differently and used the perspective to really go after the unique view of the coast from just offshore, leaving out all the railing and hoists and sciency stuffs, but that wouldn’t really tell the whole story would it?

Big thanks to my friend Bruce who got me out there on this recent trip and made this series happen. Looking forward to touring the boat someday as well!