Artwork Notes & Backstories | MATT BEARD ART

I Shall Be Free

Plein air painting from the Hollister Ranch on the Santa Barbara coast of Southern California

05/01/2019

The third of three paintings from a quick trip last summer. The titles for the three are all chosen from Dylan tunes for various reasons. This one was chosen because the actual name of this creek comes up in the song. Also, as an artist I often do claim the right to freely edit a landscape if I choose. In this case I should have edited it further the first time around- when I got home and pulled it out I was shocked at the weird choices I’d made including trees to the left of the creek which effectively turned this idyllic beach scene into a fish-eye bubble of distorting confusion. Also the creek placement was technically pretty accurate but compositionally quite awkward. The painting just had all sorts of problems. But in keeping with my freedom, I just went ahead and fixed it all in the studio later. Open heart surgery to revive a plein-air painting from a near death experience. Thankfully, it now lives on to be enjoyed instead of relegated to the graveyard of painting mishaps. Artist as surgeon. Freedom and all. Why not?

And also a random poem I wrote later…

What do you see?⠀
A land taken by zeros?⠀
More zeros than you’ll ever know?⠀
By money changers⠀
That take all they want⠀
In exchange for their soul?⠀
If that’s all that you see⠀
You’ve only read headlines⠀
In the red letter press⠀
This isn’t your land⠀
This isn’t my land⠀
This is my father’s house⠀
⠀
Some small success⠀
Some chance at a dream⠀
A life built for two⠀
But what is life if not pain?⠀
A standalone shack⠀
In a narrow ravine⠀
All that’s left⠀
And it’s all that he needs⠀
But this isn’t his land⠀
And it sure isn’t ours⠀
This is my father’s house⠀
⠀
This land he travelled⠀
Paving the roads with his bike⠀
He’d led them all onward⠀
Riding further each day⠀
Riding for their lives⠀
Through sweat, tears, and smiles⠀
Roadside sandwich breaks⠀
He watched a wayward driver⠀
Drift out of her lane⠀
One from his flock⠀
Laid to rest that day⠀
It wasn’t her land⠀
And he wished it wasn’t his⠀
This is my father’s house⠀
⠀
A son that knows⠀
Too much about too many things⠀
Nothing to gain⠀
From his father’s love⠀
He’s moving fast⠀
And his dad moves too slow⠀
The son doesn’t see⠀
Just how much his father carries⠀
But one day he’ll know⠀
That his father’s failure ⠀
Was his greatest success⠀
And that he’s not the only one⠀
That was carried in those arms⠀
It’s not his land⠀
And it never will be⠀
This is my father’s house⠀
⠀
So get out of this house⠀
If you think you’re any better⠀
Get out if you think⠀
Your owed a damn thing⠀
Get out you bastards⠀
You never lived here⠀
You only came when invited⠀
To feast on his generosity⠀
There’s no gates of gold⠀
It’s worn down and rusty⠀
Broken and dirty⠀
But we’ve kept it clean⠀
It will never be your land⠀
It will always be his⠀
This is my father’s house⠀

The Ceremonies of the Horsemen

Plein air artwork from the bluff over Bolito Poin on Hollister Ranch on the Santa Barbara coast of California

04/30/2019

The second of three paintings from a quick trip to this slice of California paradise last summer (I posted the first a few weeks ago with no commentary). The titles for these three are all chosen from Dylan tunes for various reasons. In this case it’s a double-meaning referring to the occasional cattle roundup on this working ranch that sees horsemen (and women) leading herds of cattle down the narrow roads, like holiday parades but with more leather and fresh pastures instead of presents. Also, it’s a fine place that has been used for many a fine wedding ceremony over the years.

What you don’t see in this painting is the two figures painting away in the shade of the tree closest to the water in the middle of the painting. If one could zoom in to the scene in real life on this day one would see none other than Wade Koniakowsky and Jose Emroca Flores painting this iconic headland from one of it’s most easily recognized vantage points. Part of me really wanted to join them and crack jokes in the cool shade, but then I am always a sucker for an elevated point of view. And there is just something about standing out on a hill in the wind that makes me feel alive, so up that hill I marched. One and a half hours later I came down with this painting (that needed a bit of touch-up later but was more or less all there).

Holy Ground

Plein air painting from a volcanic hill on Santa Rosa Island in the Channel Islands National Park in southern California

03/21/2019

This is the view from the top of a hill that overlooks the entire crescent of this coast. Though there was no trail up here, and no clear signs of humanity in this refreshingly pristine landscape, I know I wasn’t the first to stand in this exact spot. The way the peak looms over the landscape beckoning the human spirit to ascend, it’s only natural that others have heeded that same call- both in our times and long before them. From the peak, you can feel a human presence. An old presence. A place where eyes kept watch. There is an ancient history here that doesn’t belong to our age, but to a people that did not believe they migrated here, but were rather created here (or at least just across the channel). Sure the volcanic rock where I stood is full of holes but there’s more to this title than that. Just a feeling really, but some places seem to carry a significance all their own. This is one of them. Holy ground indeed.

An Unfamiliar Song

Plein air painting of East Point area of Santa Rosa island in the Channel Islands off the coast of Southern California

03/21/2019

This was the endpoint of my longest hike on this trip, 11 miles total, and it took me past several miles of coast I’d hiked and painted on a previous trip. On that trip, I thought I’d gone about as far as I could reasonably go in a day’s work of hiking and painting. But this trip was a chance to smash that mental barrier. I’d been out here hiking and painting daily for 4 days straight, so while my feet hurt, my body and mind began to love the new “normal”- especially if it meant seeing another corner of California for the first time. This hike also required hiking with a heavy pair of waders strapped to my pack to cross an almost waist-deep creek that had washed out the trail entirely. That was a first. Huge thanks to the crew at the research station and Dr. Dan for having me along, and letting me enjoy this place so fully. I wouldn’t have had a dry bed, hot food, or these borrowed waders if it wasn’t for you guys. Cheers! The hassle of this creek-crossing was offset by the knowledge that past this point, it was now exceedingly unlikely that I’d see another human being.

The bunkhouse that was the home base for the trip was situated in a long crescent of shore where from nearly any point on the crescent you can see both ends bending out to sea in the far distance. This was after a mission to reach the farthest end of the crescent to the east. Once I got there and climbed the hill that overlooks it I decided instead to keep going further out along the ridge, traversing another mile or so through high grass with no trail across the tip of this headland and getting my first look around the corner and back up on this unfamiliar stretch of coast. Like a song you’ve not heard before but instantly love, I wish I could have heard more, but with the rain in the distance and facing a long hike back to the station, I thought it was about time to stop walking and start painting.

Wish You Were Here

Plein air painting of two barns and the pier at Becher's Bay on Santa Rosa Island off the coast of Southern California

03/20/2019

Those two old barns standing together in this distant outpost reminded me just how much I miss my best friend, my wife, when I’m out wandering around on the edge of the earth. I hope to bring her back here soon. One of the nice things about this region of California’s coastline is that this once private land now is now National Park land, so when you encounter a barbed wire fence standing between you and the view you desire, the only concern is getting around or over said fence, and not whether the owner and their dogs might find you. Also there are no snakes hiding in the grass, which is hard to believe, but true in these parts. Double win. Good things come in pairs.

Island Time

Plein air painting of an Island Poppy and a cow skull on Santa Rosa island looking toward Santa Cruz Channel Islands

03/20/2019

I sort of saw this one developing over a few days out here. First off, the evening light over the nearby island as the full moon rose was always a subtle delight. Secondly the poppies out here, only grow on these islands. Unlike the poppies of California that are very deep orange, or the poppies of Mexico that are bright yellow-orange, these island poppies are a two-toned mix of both. And thirdly while wandering down from a hill I came across a series of cow bones in the grass, finally crowned off with this skull. I made a mental note and came back for it on a clear evening. It’s not often such poetic elements come together in a line for a plein air painting, but with minimal editing, this is more or less what was there. Almost a Georgia O’Keefe inspiration in there, but mostly just a fun visual commentary on the passage of time.

Moonshine

Plein air nocturne painting from the pier at Becher's Bay on Santa Rosa island off the coast of southern California

03/19/2019

Painted on location from a pier on one of California’s offshore islands during a full moon back in April. We’d bodysurfed that right in shorepound on this very beach earlier in the afternoon. Super fun. I can’t imagine too many paintings have ever been painted at night on this pier though. Pretty cool eh? The moon changes everything. I’ve been drawn to some nocturnal paintings from a few of my favorite artists over the last few years and since getting out for a few myself I’ve discovered two things.

1. It’s a pain- it’s dark, colors are hard to see on the palette (and painting), a headlamp helps, but can be too bright, lots of straining to see, it gets a lot colder standing around at night.

2. It’s super fun.

The Apex of Spring

Plein air painting from Santa Rosa Island's Lobo Canyon trail in Channel Islands National Park in Southern California

03/19/2019

Visiting this hard to reach outpost of California’s coast during the Spring Equinox after a few wet months, I was hunting not just new corners and vistas, but had wildflowers on my mind as well. Elusive creatures, they can be, I didn’t see as many as I’d hoped. But I did spot this little patch on my way past this point earlier in the morning at the base of a canyon named after another hunter, an apex predator. It would do just fine. Toward the end of this painting the weather shifted. I packed this one up quickly in a heavy, darkening wind and retreated back into the canyon from which I had come.

Strata Various

Plein air painting from the coast of Santa Rosa Island in Channel islands National Park in southern California

03/19/2019

This headland took some serious work to get to. All said, this ended up being the furthest point reached on an eleven mile round trip solo hike, which required several creek crossings up to my calves, washed out bridges, wet sloggy socks, and by the end of the day getting soaked to the bone in a late afternoon downpour. I might not have painted here at all, except after hiking all the way up and over to the other side of this island and venturing along the coast as far as I could this was the point where the trail came to an abrupt halt. I’d have gone further, but this headland was daunting and would have required a seriously steep and sketchy backcountry mission to navigate up and over, if it was even passable at all. It’s a beautiful place, but perhaps more than just the beauty inspired this painting, I felt I just had to paint the place simply because I was here and could go no further. I’d reached the edge of what I could do this day. A truly rare painting of a truly rare place- has it ever been painted in plein air? Certainly possible, but considering the effort required to reach this point, I’d be surprised.

Prey For Rain

Plein air artwork from Santa Rosa Island's Lobo Canyon trail in Channel Islands National Park in Southern California

03/19/2019

Deep in this prehistoric canyon, I was watching the weather shift quickly as I made my way back to the cabin. I was still a solid hour and a half of hiking from dry shelter and warm food. A spattering of occasional raindrops peppered the hike with questions of doubt. Will I make it back to the cabin without getting soaked? Will the two wet paintings in my box survive a good soaking if the skies unleash? Will my wet socks matter so much anymore if everything else gets wet too? How much rain did it take to wash all the little foot bridges out earlier this year? How fun would a flash flood in this little canyon be? How can I pass this little creekside scene without stopping to paint it? That was the only question that mattered in the moment, and I had no good answer. So I stopped right there and painted it. A brief window of blue sky had me feeling pretty good for about 20 minutes. Then the dark clouds returned. Then the canyon wind started howling. Then the drops started falling again. I was pretty close to wrapping it up anyway, so for the second time today, I scrambled out of there pretty quickly.

Post-script: Yes, I did get completely soaked. Yes, the two paintings and this fresh new one all survived the soaking when the skies finally unleashed. No, my wet socks no longer mattered to me one bit once everything else was dripping wet too. I still don’t know how much rain it would have taken to wash out all the footbridges, but it was probably a lot more than today’s rain. And no, I have no idea if it would be any fun at all to get stuck in this canyon in a flash flood situation. Depends on the outcome, I suppose. Any other questions? I think that’s all of em. Unless anyone was asking about the deals I’m offering offering on my site right now. For that answer you’ll just have to go and check for yourself.

Trifecta: Ticks, Wind, and Poison Oak

Plein air artwork from Santa Rosa Island in the Channel Islands National Park off the coast of Southern California

03/18/2019

I didn’t have to hike far from the cabin for this one, I just wanted to peak a little around the corner of the beach straight out in front. There’s a small hill that blocks the view here, so I made it my mission to get on top of this hill and paint from there. The afternoon light here has always struck me as special. But just because it wasn’t far doesn’t mean it was easy. I had to tromp up a steep hill with all my gear, slow-dodging poison oak, paint in a howling wind, perched on a steep awkward grassy slope, constantly checking for ticks after picking up at least one while wading through the high grass to get here. A perfect trifecta, if you will. Ended up working a bit faster than usual, just to get out of there, but that lends the piece a nice urgent honesty and I’m glad for it in the end.

Hold Your Ground

Plein air artwork overlooking Becher's Bay and Santa Cruz Island from Santa Rosa Island off the coast of California

03/18/2019

I spent this morning drinking a bit too much coffee in the kitchen of a bunkhouse with a group of college students. Well not drinking coffee with them, I was just on a trip here with them. They had science to do, and science doesn’t care if it’s raining or not, so they were out counting species along designated transects to compile a visitor’s guide in the nearterm and add to the overall observations for future reference in the longterm. Or something like that. I was just the resident artist on this trip. At any rate, they were out there counting in the rain, so there I sat sipping away, watching out the windows for blue skies as the downpours came and went.

At last, the blue skies won out and it was time to go hunt a painting. I’d had my eye on this old Cypress tree that overlooks this bay so I went straight to it and went to work. During the course of the painting a few showers passed by, some getting pretty close. It was a battle of nerves for a tense while as the sky grew dark with one final band of showers that passed by a little too close for comfort. I was in deep on the painting and didn’t want to pack up, so I just nervously worked through it, holding my ground. The weather is a mean opponent in these games of plein air chicken, but in this case she swerved at the last minute and I was spared for the time being…

Distant California

Plein air painting of wildflowers on Santa Rosa Island off the coast of Southern California

03/18/2019

It’s not the California coast that most of us are familiar with, but good to know it’s out there. These old barns down at the bottom of this valley are no longer used, the sheep and cattle ranch ceased operations years ago. In some ways its sad to see this era come to a close, a page of history has turned and the story just keeps going forward year after year. Most often we see these pastoral settings replaced by condos and cookie cutter retail outlet centers and that is where the real sadness comes from for me in those situations- the steady march from natural beauty to udder mediocrity. In this case though, for the ranch in this painting, the end of its days brings no such sadness. It is in no danger of being paved over. It is heading the other direction. Even the changes that ranching brought to these hills are slowly being undone. Nature plays a long game, but her strategies are a joy to behold.

Water Under the Bridge

Plein air artwork from Carrington Point on Santa Rosa Island off the coast of Southern California

03/17/2019

This was my first day on a trip to this fairly remote piece of California. I wasn’t alone out here, I was a guest artist travelling with a group of science students from the CSU system. Right on arrival the group decided to jump right in to a 7 mile round trip hike to a prominent nearby point. I took off early giving myself a head start so that I could get the painting started and let them see it in progress, looking forward to the subsequent conversations- those kids always point out the tidbits of information so easily lost on me: the plant names, the geology at play, the fauna that dwell here, and how they impact the flora we see around us- always interesting things for a person who mostly just sees the world in red, yellow, blue and white distributed on x-y axis. When I reached the end of this trail at the destination point, I had to go around a corner to get out of the strong wind and that’s when I saw this cool little sea arch down below. I set up quickly and went to work, keeping my ears out for the group to round over the hill behind me. But on account of the steep hill and the strong wind, I never did hear or see the group and they never spotted me on my perch over this cove. We just went separate ways. Looking back I realize that I spent this entire afternoon hiking and painting surrounded by phenomenal natural beauty and never saw a single other human. Can’t say that very often, but out here I have found it’s not all that unusual out here.

The Onslaught of Spring

Plein air artwork of California Poppies superbloom near Walker Canyon in Southern California

03/15/2019

Back in March I made the effort to immerse myself in this infamous superbloom* in southern California. I had so much fun painting these flowers the first time that I stopped on my way back through a few days later, on a weekend no less, and braved the daunting prospect of immersing myself into the onslaught of humanity that had arrived to see this spectacle of color. The intensity of the orange poppies was nearly rivaled and definitely complimented by the intensity of the spring greenery bursting forth from these hills. The Onslaught of Spring indeed.

Sidenote: This was a commissioned piece- already sold and delivered, I know there’s a few of you who were asking for more poppy paintings. I didn’t find as many poppies as I’d hoped on my last trip in May, so we’ll hopefully sort something else out down the line. Spring will come again. I’m sure of it.

*also known as “spring” throughout most of time

Movers and Shakers

Plein air artwork from La Jolla cove looking toward the Shores on the san Diego Coast of southern California

03/14/2019

A quick trip to the southerlies of California brought me to this vista in search of a similar but different scene I’d painted for a friend a few years earlier. Apparently after some flood damage their place needed extensive work done and movers were hired to take all the necessary belongings out and store them while the work was completed. Not everything made it back though, the painting was “lost” along the way. Good taste, shady movers… that’s all I have to say about that. That original painting was also one that I never got a really good photograph of, so it’s double hard to see it go like that. But that’s neither here nor there.

Well it is here, this is the spot I chose for the replacement painting of the one gone missing. It’s right in front of one of those Sotheby’s mczillionaire ocean front homes. A realtor was showing it while I painted. I wasn’t much in the mood to talk to them, though I sensed the group behind me chatting and watching while I ignored them and sang badly. After they’d left the realtor came back and interrupted me to chat with a bit more intention. Turns out the couple buying that house wanted the painting. Now my friend who I was doing this for wouldn’t have minded if I sold this one and painted another, but in my mind I’d been wrestling with this painting for Pancho, not for some yahoo investor couple that would just as likely call the police if I walked up to paint near their house in the future. I told the realtor it wasn’t for sale. It wasn’t.

Some might say I should have offered it at some inflated price because of, you know, oceanfront zillionaires and all, but I wouldn’t anyway. I ask what I ask because it is fair. Games are for kids. I love what I do too much to play chutes and ladders with my livelihood. That game was never any fun anyway.

Just Past the Ice Cream Truck

03/13/2019

Right before heading down on this trip I started hearing about these epic poppy blooms and being a color junkie I ended up juggling my plans around to get to see this bloom in person.

I thought I’d meet up with my friend Wade Koniakowsky and go paint this place with him. Neither of us quite anticipated the madness of humanity here. Getting off the freeway to orange cones and sirens and traffic cops I knew this might be a little hectic. Deep breaths, and in moment of clarity I didn’t even try to park close, I just turned the other way and drove down the road until I was out of the madness and parked on the empty shoulder to wait for Wade.

But he was taking forever and I was impatient so I walked the mile up to the trailhead to check things out. I found two food trucks and an ice cream truck and mass confusion everywhere. The ice cream truck man seemed unhappy, which really bummed me out because ice cream is the opposite of unhappy. The mass confusion on the other hand seemed thrilled to be there.

I found a couple of other painters and chatted while waiting for Wade, who finally arrived and parked by my van, so I walked the mile back to meet him, let him borrow a pack to haul his paint gear and together we walked back under the freeway, past the traffic cops, into the mass confusion, past the ice cream truck and joined the procession of souls seeking the color orange.

Not too far in, and we found this bend in the trail and it seemed suitable to both of us, so we set up and basically chatted with strangers non stop for the next two hours while we painted.

All worth it. I don’t care how cynical and jaded we can get after seeing nonstop images of these blooms and hearing how overrun with people it can get. Sure, people can be a bummer, but I didn’t go here to see them, or even to get away from them. I came here for the color orange, in an intensity that nature rarely produces. Overwhelming. And wonderful. And never disappointing.

Headwinds

Plein air artwork the view from Trinidad Head on the Humboldt Coast of Northern California

03/04/2019

This is the last painting I recall painting along our local coastline before the summer road trip season kicked in. I had recently rebuilt my painting kit to be lighter and fit on a smaller pack with the ability to carry multiple freshly painted still-wet stretched canvases hands-free on a single outing. This was the maiden voyage for the new setup. It performed quite well and has since been trail-tested (and off-trail-tested) all over California, from the border fence at Tijuana, to the Smith river on the Oregon border- hiking through terrain that would a have been a nightmare with my old giant rig and no way to safely carry a wet canvas, let alone 4 at a time.

This coast is so beautiful here in Humboldt, I sometimes wonder why I bother to leave it at all and why don’t I just paint here all the time? It really boils down to a lifelong passion for exploring the California coast. After all, that’s what brought me here in the first place. I’ve never had more fun in my life than in these recent years taking the time to put myself out there in the fringe places and walking off into the mist and returning not just with paintings, but with experiences of new places and the joy of revisiting old favorites. Still though, when it’s time to leave here and hit the road it’s like plowing forward into a mighty headwind. You have to really want it. The easy path is to just stay and paint these vistas here and keep it easy and sleep in a real bed without wondering about a cop tapping on the window of the van in the middle of the night.

Morning Gems

Artwork for agate hunters of a pebbly beach at Dry Lagoon on the humboldt coast of northern California

December 1, 2018

Much like with many of my paintings, there are no humans visible in this piece. To be fair, that’s not much of a stretch here as sunrise on this part of the coast is often a cold and lonely affair. But just because humans aren’t visible, doesn’t mean they aren’t part of these paintings. For me the landscape itself is a very human story, and if you’ve actually read my musings over the years, you may have gathered that just under the surface, my artwork is really exploring, celebrating, and honoring our human connection to these places I paint. The scattered ashes of loved ones, the wedding vows still hanging on the silent air, the reckless abandon of youth, the adrenaline surges of lifethreatening miscalculations regarding the immense power of natural forces… all of these and more are intertwined in our reactions to places that we know. Each of us brings a different set of memories, a different set of connection points to each place I’ve painted.

This painting perhaps more than most celebrates the uniqueness of each of our lives more than any other I’ve done. It does this through metaphor, the gravel on the beach, each of these bodies of rock are different, each unique, each beautiful in its own way, each reminiscent of yet another miracle of life living in these bodies of flesh and bone that we call our own, crafted from the elements of earth itself.

And some, if you look closely, seem to glow with their own light. It’s only the light of the sun passing through them of course, but it is their rare gift of clarity that allows the light to fill them and flow through for all to see. We cherish them and hold them near to our hearts.

And we’ll never forget the morning we found them, nor the night we lost them.

Sticks and Stones

Plein air artwork from Pebble Beach in Crescent City on the Del Norte coast of Northern California

10/30/2018

I had painted this same scene a few months prior, but only focused on the rock stack and ignored the view of the sweeping beach as it arcs its way around this bend in the coast. In the middle of painting this one, a tricky situation arose. My nose just started bleeding randomly. Maybe a bit dehydrated? It happens every few years and always unexpectedly. I saw drops of blood on the palette and had to act fast and dig up a clean paint rag (an old cloth diaper, they are the best) from my pack and hold it to my nose. There’s a chance this painting contains my actual DNA now. Kinda weird. Sorry if it grosses anyone out. It’s just life. And a reminder that our bodies are made of flesh and blood. Fragile like an ecosystem. Eventually unstable like an eroded cliff. We all fall back to the sea, eventually. On this particular day, I did not fall back to the sea though, hopefully my time is a long way off. But it was an awkward way to paint- holding an old cloth diaper to my bleeding face, while sorting out the colors of sand and water, sticks and stones…

When our Day Arrives

October 22, 2018

By day they theorize, philosophize, and lay their eyes
On this predicament
From old lawn chairs
Behind a makeshift barrier of plastic tape

By night they await the higher tide
Under the spotlight
Searching for answers
But generating none

Once a proud vessel
Named for nobility
Now on the rocks without the gin
Or perhaps because of it if the wind spoke truly

Each morning brings a new revelation
Coffee and binoculars the psychoactive agents
Of this daily vision quest

She is a solar eclipse
Her shining brightness now darkened
By the lesser light

Shucked like an oyster
Removed from her shell of open water
She now sits waiting for the ocean to swallow her hull

The heiress watches on
A mix of rage and longing
As she carves an homage of color
To the one she once knew

All the while they watched this maiden work
And no one said a word

It is no different with you or I
While our voyages may end differently
Still every voyage must end
And we can only hope there is
A daughter by our side
To mourn and remember us when our day arrives

MOURNING AND REMEMBRANCE

That poem is a true story. The boat that got stuck on the rocks here was still stuck on the day of a solar eclipse, and over a meal of oysters with an artist friend in the area, Colleen Gnos, I learned that the boat used to belong to her grandfather and was originally named after her brother. I told her I was thinking of painting it before they managed to get it out of there, and convinced her to come with me the next day and we stood on the bluff and painted while the captains came and went. I suppose I could have just written this plainly right off the bat, but the whole thing was too poetic to merely leave at that.

-Entry on August 24, 2017

Southern Vista

Plein air artwork from Grandview Beach on the san Diego coast of southern California

10/08/2018

This was painted months before the somewhat recent fatal bluff collapse incident. You can see the warning on the beach here, that circle of boulders isn’t some hippy stonehenge setup, it’s the remainders of a previous collapse. The sand and soil has washed away, leaving just this ring as a reminder of the footprint these bluff collapses can leave. A sobering thought. But it’s a beautiful coast, and this southern view from one of the stairway’s landings was a joy to settle in with for an afternoon.

But the best part of this one for me (and also having nothing at all to do with the painting or the place), was unlike most of my trips to SD area, my wife came along for the ride, so instead of finishing this and scrounging some dry bread and salami and warm beer from the back of the van after finishing this painting, I got to kiss her beautiful sweaty face after her long jog on the beach while I painted. The multi-million dollar homes on the coast here are nice and grand, but it’s the simple things that truly make a man rich.

Marine Layers

Plein air artwork from Asilomar beach near Pacific Grove on the Monterey coast of California

09/27/2018

I enjoyed this moody midday painting. Sometimes I go to a place hunting bluebirds and sunshine. In this case all I found was clouds and crows. For real. A friend that lives nearby showed up midway through the painting with some amazing deli sandwiches which we shared by his van up on the road. Halfway through we looked down to my easel and a crow had landed on my palette and was just standing there staring at the painting- which contained no shiny objects, or food- so nothing came of it. But it’s those small moments that remind you that this isn’t your home studio. Well except the time the neighbor’s chicken wandered in, that was kind of similar. But mostly birds don’t generally get too involved in my art world. After the crow took his turn, I returned to finish this one beneath the marine layer that kept threatening retreat, but never quite mustered it. I’d left the sky pretty raw, just my typical underpaint of thin washes, as I waited for the sky to figure itself out. By the time I realized these clouds were here to stay, those faded dripping clouds that were painted with zero intention actually seemed perfect for the piece, so I left them as they were. I know this is all pretty uninteresting for a backstory. I blame the bird. He had every opportunity to make something happen but he didn’t do anything at all. No crowfeet in the palette, no beak scratches on the painting. Nothing. It just stood there until it was done and left. Apologies.

Tide Falling

Plein air artwork of McWay Falls on the Big Sur Coast of Monterey in Central California

09/26/2018

One of the most iconic waterfalls in all of California and one of only two year-round falls in the whole state that land on the beach. This one used to land in the water, but a landslide deposited so much sediment up the coast that the gradual drift of currents built this beach where none previously existed.

I’ve heard stories of repeated rescues of tourists who get the wild idea to climb down to the beach here get stuck on the cliff face halfway down and have to get lifted, dragged, or otherwise hauled out. I was cognizant of that as I edged around some fencing to a private perch of my own so as to paint this scene without interfering with anybody’s view.

During my short time there I saw repeated groups of tourists go half-stomping/half-sliding through the brush and poison oak down the hill in search of some better view to photograph (or more than likely just a better backdrop for their selfie). I often thought to say something about the oak, but then figured the deed was already done, why ruin their moment?

My first plan was to charge the trail up the hill behind this cove and seek a more elevated overview of the coast, but a low cloud cover prevented visibility and even threatened to descend while the overcast daylight was fading fast. I had to work a little more frantic than usual to make this one happen, but I’m glad I stopped and made the effort. Even on a gray day, the color of that water stops you in your tracks.

Some Things Money Just Can’t Buy

Plein air artwork overlooking Sand Dollar Beach on California's Big Sur coast in Monterey county

09/26/2018

Like most surfers who’ve visited the area, I’ve collected some great memories of this place over the years. I’d wondered about painting this rock outcropping overlooking the beach for a long time. The last time I tromped around it there was quite a few years back and there was no trail that I can recall, just a lot of bushwhacking though blackberry bramble and poison oak. Now there’s a trail that goes right up to it and I’ve got mixed feelings about that, but that’s a whole other story…

When I was nearing completion on this one a group of 4 guys, maybe just out of college, walk up and see me painting. They all have their phones out to take photos of the scene, taking turns walking up and shooting from right beside me, as if I was in the only designated photo-taking area. I thought it was odd, but people can be odd so I didn’t think much about it. But then they turn to leave and one of them walks back over to chat. He seemed friendly, and I thought it would be a typical out-in-the-field conversation- (How long you been painting? Is this your hobby? Do you sell these? Etc) But no. He explains that he went to design school himself and seeing me paint reminds him of a cartoon his professor showed his class in which a photographer walked up to a painter at work and held up his camera, aiming it in the direction of the artist’s subject (at the same time this kid held his cell phone up and pointed its camera at the scene I was painting) and pressed “click” (at which point he took a photo) and turned to the painter and said “Done.” As he said the word “done” with a smug satisfaction he turned and walked away in a mic drop sorta way.

I hope his design school didn’t put him in too much debt because clearly he still has a lot of learning left ahead of him. I’m hoping the best for him though. When the light bulb finally goes off he’ll probably end up becoming a serious art collector, or maybe even an artist himself. I hope he reads this and I can meet him again on the flipside of that equation. We can laugh about that cartoon together over cold beers. I’ll buy.