09/02/2018
This is from a quiet little beach near our home. The inlet to the sea out there was letting these perfect little 8-inch waves into the bay and watching them spin along this quiet beach is a rather hypnotic way to spend an afternoon. These flat and expansive beach landscapes have always given me trouble when composing a painting, but I’ve been really trying to make peace with negative space and enjoy a more quiet approach to composition when the need arises.
07/30/2018
Fueled up after a feast at Besta Wan Pizza in Cardiff, and armed with a headlamp, moral support from my pals in mischief Pierce and Petra Kavanagh, and further fueled by the french fries and milkshakes they brought back after dropping me off in this park just up the way from a pack of howling teenagers, well, this is what happened. The city lights in this scene are a good reminder to take nothing for granted as we are soon heading into yet another round of planned power outages because apparently Humboldt County’s power grid is not actually a grid, it’s more like an extension cord running through some gnarly fires that are burning south of us. Lots of trouble for lots of folks all over California right now. Some minor- we had to eat a whole bunch of weird frozen food today because it pretty much thawed in the last outage and it was either eat it, or toss it out. But many south of us are losing a whole lot more and it will take a lot more than a trip to the market for them to recover. Wishing everyone the best out there.
07/30/2018
A quick one first thing in the morning after spending a week painting with Wade Koniakowsky down in his neighborhood awhile back. I guess I wasn’t done painting yet. Pretty sure I did 4 paintings on this day to celebrate being done with a busy week of… painting? Don’t judge. Just like mourning, we all celebrate in different ways.
07/30/2018
3rd of 4 paintings painted this day- a larger piece for a single session plein air, but I was warmed up and found some shade so I settled into this one for the afternoon. Speaking of shade, how shady are some of the characters in this parking lot? Saw some things that can’t be unseen, but those are other stories and they aren’t that good anyway. I was focused on the scene beyond. The palms reminded me of ascending and descending notes on a piece of sheet music, the posts and rail a steady beat beneath it all. There’s music in every painting, but this one was louder than usual. Or it could have been the music through my headphones- I was feeling it and might have turned em up a bit. That’s also one of my strategies to get things done in a crowded place with lots of people looking to interact. Just blast music and sing badly. It keeps them at bay anyway. When the easel is rocking, don’t come knocking. Wrong metaphor, but for this parking lot, on this day, I don’t know, maybe not so off after all.
07/30/2018
2nd of 4 paintings painted this day- a quick study done in the midday heat. Figured since I mentioned my last one was the first of four in one day, I better own up to it and show the rest of them as well… bear with me
Painted and titled this a year before the recent fatal bluff collapse on this stretch of coast. On any given day down here, this is a common site- folks posting up right beneath these coastal bluffs. Everyone knows they can and do occasionally collapse, but it seems so easily forgotten when the sun is out and the sand is warm. I painted this scene without a thought for the danger these red umbrella folks had put themselves in. Just be mindful out there, that is all.
07/27/2018
I’d driven past this little dip in coast bluff several times over the prior week while painting with Wade Koniakowsky, Norm Daniels, Jose Emroca Flores, and Greg Gorgas a couple summers back. One crispy clear afternoon the scene here really caught my eye. A day or two later I’d dragged Wade and Norm back here promising them a beautiful sweeping scene in the afternoon light. It wasn’t. Turns out the view from a car on the highway is pretty different than the view standing on the scorched earth between the north and south bound lanes. Also an early afternoon haze can put a rather undramatic gray/white blanket across a landscape. Feeling just a tinge of guilt for dragging the guys to this bland scene, we decided to make the most of it, and I just painted this from that first 48mph fleeting memory instead. Pretty sure someone got attacked by ants also. Plein air painting is pretty fun.
07/26/2018
I recall that I really wanted to focus on creating a graphic band of information across an otherwise quiet composition here. It was liberating to not feel the need to indulge in extra information in the sky above or grass lawn below. The busy action that cuts across the canvas puts the busyness of our lives in context- together we make up a band of vibrant information in a cosmos dominated by vast empty spaces… trippy. I probably took that a bit too far right there but oh well.
Also I sat and painted this with 3 other artists sitting nearby: Wade Koniakowsky, Norm Daniels, and Jose Emroca Flores. We drank Norm’s fancy drinks while sitting on the edge of a playground cracking jokes and painting. Nobody told us to leave and the kids really dug watching the old guys do their art things.
Oh, and like always on this particular trip, it was rather hot, so I jumped in the water after painting this, and it was not much cooler. The whitewater, being made of air trapped in turbulent water consisted on this day of warm water and hot air, and gave the distinct sensation of not being even slightly cool at all. Not cool. I know this is normal in tropical oceans, but somewhat unusual for California.
07/26/2018
This was a quick one at the end of a longish day of painting with Wade Koniakowsky, Norm Daniels, and Jose Emroca Flores. I believe Greg Gorgas joined in for this quick later afternoon session as well. We’d been painting all week together so by now these guys knew when I wandered off with a 16×20 canvas that it could be awhile- I often spend well over 2 hours on a single painting that size in the field. They looked at their watches and exchanged concerned looks and promptly gave me a stern 1 hour curfew like good parents. I can only wonder if they said to one another after I went marching up the hill that it was “for his own good, you know”. It was a neat view up there. I didn’t have time to think it over much, so I just went after this one in a flurry. I think a few of them are in the painting too, painting by one of those umbrellas on the beach. I made it back right on time, and I’d be lying if I didn’t say they seemed surprised. I can be a good kid sometimes.
07/25/2018
That’s my dad’s 76 VW parked in the prime spot for this painting of this busy beach access trail down in San Diego. I believe Norm painted a closeup of the bus while I tried to bite off this whole scene. I have a habit of doing that, often taking on a bit too much. It’s not an easy place to get an angle to paint from and I really wanted to show the whole path to the beach, or at least as much as I could of it. At the time there was much discussion of a new proposed stairway to access the beach, and much resistance to the proposed design as well. I’m not sure where that stands now…
When I saw these old railroad ties sticking out of the eroded cliff face, I figured they must be part of an older trail long since collapsed. This trail will eventually suffer the same fate as well, like every sandcastle does. These cliffs aren’t made of stone. And they are also very dangerous as recent tragedies in the area have shown. Be respectful, mind your distance from the base of any steep cliff or coastal bluff, and tread lightly out there.
07/25/2018
This was a significant painting for me. I have a tendency to want to include everything, and break up every space on a canvas into smaller and smaller pieces. When painting flat beaches or spaces with a lot of empty foreground or sky I usually struggle with those empty areas. Here I finally just let them be. Not sure why it took nearly thirty years of painting to figure that one out, but better late than never, yeah?
Also it was super hot and humid and uncomfortable. I found shade under the stairs to the beach- smart! …And it rained sand every time someone passed overhead coming or going- not so smart!
07/24/2018
Summer is kinda over, except fall really is the best summer around here. That said, rain is in the forecast once again, which means I’ll be hunkered down and catching up on a bunch of studio work over the next few months. Looking forward to spring and summer 2020 road trip season already.
This was from a painting trip with Wade Koniakowsky back in 2018. He wanted to paint this tricky street view so as his guest I wasn’t going to argue. But Wade paints fast. And he had to meet someone that afternoon. We had 1 hour. Maybe less, at least it felt that way. Oh well, I tend to paint wonky cars even when I take my sweet time so there is that. Still a fun challenge.
07/23/2018
About a year ago, I spent a week in San Diego painting with my friend Wade Koniakowsky and wrapped it up with a show in his gallery. It was a hot week, and sometimes challenging to find the motivation. This was at the end of a long day in the bright sun as the afternoon finally started it’s turn into evening. The tide was high, and a largish swell was running with just two surfers out front getting pummeled for our entertainment.
I set up just up the road from Wade to paint this little bend in the cliff capped off by a scraggly stump of a windblown cypress hanging on for dear life- probably in a tree’s version of a comatose state dreaming of a life in Big Sur.
A group of guys walked by, tattoos, wife-beaters, socks pulled high, beanies even though it was still fairly hot out. They were stoked on the painting. Well not so much the painting itself I reckon, they seemed to me like the sort of crew that doesn’t encounter plein air painters too often, so I think they were just stoked to see a real life hipster version of Bob Ross doing his thing out on a cliff in the wind. They were so jazzed they gave me a cold beer out of the paper sack one of them carried. Heroes.
A short while later, Wade was finished up with his painting and he walked over with his wife and a friend who had brought more beer, and… this is key… wait for it… Chips and salsa. Oh my. I don’t even care how this painting turns out anymore, this might just be as good as it gets right here right now.
07/23/2018
Another rainy day morning here has me thinking back to hotter times, like summers in San Diego. I’ve realized later in life that a lot of folks actually and truly like hot weather. Like it feels good to them or something. I imagine folks from these climates heading north and braving the cold (55 isn’t really even cold, but it’s relative, yeah?)… They probably look forward to getting back home to trunks and flip flops and t-shirts. For me it’s the exact opposite, I survive these 90 degree days (not really hot, but it’s relative remember?)… Always looking forward to getting back to our northern coast. This painting brings back warm memories. Sweat mostly. But shoot, no complaints… Just another day at the beach.
Why the Fahrenheit 451 reference? Aside from the heat, I just got to thinking of the landmark power plant that looms over this stretch of coast, and how we’ve become so dependent on modern technologies fueled by electricity. Old methods are being lost. The internet provides unlimited information, but at the expense of hard-earned knowledge. Libraries keep closing. We’re burning the books ourselves now, and posting shots of the bonfire on social media. Yes, irony. Part of the fun. Do you smell smoke?
-Not that anyone would gather that sort of message from this painting, and not that it was ever intended either, just an insight to my process of coming up with titles after the fact. Since I never name locations it forces me to think a bit too much occasionally.
Apologies.
Maybe I’ll read a book today.
07/23/2018
The first painting I ever recall painting of a specific location on the California coast was of the Seal Beach Pier. It was for a 7th grade art class. It wasn’t painted on location. It was painted with watercolors. And I’m sure it had lots of details conveyed through the awkward lens of a 12 year old’s eyes. I don’t know where it ended up.
They say some things never change, and I’m inclined to agree.
Except this is not the Seal Beach Pier. It’s not for an art class. It was painted on location. It wasn’t painted with watercolors. And it’s details are conveyed through the awkward lens of my 43 (now 44) year old eyes instead.
Speaking of this pier and my eyes, I’ve never seen a pier with architecture quite like this one. I should have just painted that part on the left that really interested me, but there was that wave that kept breaking off the pier that I just couldn’t leave out, so I ended up foolishly attempting to paint it all in one painting. When it’s my first time painting a place I have a tendency to do this so it’s nothing new, but 2 1/2 hours into these paintings I start questioning my life’s decisions when I realize how much tedious work I’ve taken on. Once finished though, the burrito that follows tastes that much better.
07/14/2018
Plein air from one of California’s other coasts
Not too often do I paint from places I can’t drive my van to, but it sure is fun to see these coasts with no roads and crystal clear waters. I’m stoked to be heading south for another round with one of our offshore islands next week.
07/09/2018
There was a day back in July of 2018 that saw record breaking heat all over California’s coast. This was a few days after that when temperatures here cooled down to a chilly 96 degrees on the coast. Believe it or not, this was a relief from what it had been two days prior. This painting required a mile long uphill hike in this heat. It may have been ill-advised, but I drank a gallon of water and survived. The day before this I had come to the area to scope views and about a mile from here I drove up a little one lane road to a pullout with a commanding view. I passed a biker on the way up, (I know you’re thinking I’m exaggerating- how hot was it if there was a guy on a bike cruising up the hill, but what can I say? Bikers are nuts, you’ll see…) When I reach the top I got out to check things out and considered painting, but decided with no shade to be found it just wasn’t gonna happen in this heat. The biker finally reaches me up there, pauses for a minute and turns to go back down the hill before I’m ready. When I finally leave, I was surprised to come around a bend and see him walking his bike. I stop and check to see if he needs help, and we load his bike in the van and I bring him back down the hill where he can get cell reception and call a friend for a ride home. He wasn’t a novice that didn’t know how to patch a tire either, it’s just that those patch kits don’t really work on tires that completely MELT. OFF. THE. RIM. I told you bikers are nuts. At least this one was. But he somehow made it up that hill in the heat so he is the hero of this story and I’ll stop saying he’s nuts now. But he was. In the best way.
07/07/2018
This was from a heat wave last July that saw temps in the 100’s at the water’s edge. If you could find parking, you could attempt to cool off in the water with your family and everyone else that lives in a hundred mile radius and who have no AC at home and who are flocking to the ocean to cool off, just like you. (We’re all one family anyway when you get down to it yeah?)
You guys know I don’t paint human figures much, and it certainly shows here. I couldn’t avoid them this time though. I didn’t make much effort to get em’ right. Mostly I was just interested in conveying the activity and atmosphere of a midday heat wave at sea level.
I don’t know that I’ve ever painted in trunks at the water’s edge before, but it sure was nice to paint for 10 minutes then run out and bodysurf a little shorepound, then paint for another ten minutes, then repeat the cycle maybe 5 or 10 times throughout the painting.
07/05/2018
I scour the coast looking for views like this- familiar places from unfamiliar angles. They don’t always reveal themselves right away. This one took years of following hunches and calculating the risks of trespassing on these multi-million dollar properties (or in this case, nearly trespassing, but not quite) . If they can afford real estate here, they might have other homes elsewhere as well, so what are the odds of them even being home at all, right?
Besides, even if they were home, if you were found painting on or near their property, instead of calling the police they might just walk over and chat with you about art before inviting you in for a drink.
I have to admit I was hoping for a stronger drink after a long day painting in the heat, but a cold glass of lemonade is nothing to scoff at. Thank you, Sarah.
07/05/2018
Painted en plein air, summer of 2018
Temperature at 10am: 92 degrees and stupidly humid.
Vaudeville [vôd(ə)ˌvil] noun. a theatrical genre of variety entertainment, typically made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill.
Act one: The rugged beauty of a pristine corner of California’s coast- and a truly magnificent little wave that lines up nicely beside a large rock.
Act two: Tourists peering out from beneath beach umbrellas while shouting at their kids and inadvertently feeding seagulls who are smart enough to know a distracted parent when they see one.
Act three: Perpetual novice surfers who eternally bob around the lineup, pushed along by the wind of their joyously clueless whims.
Act four: A testosterone-fueled circus act where the slightly more experienced surfers, having discovered the art of paddling into waves right beside a large rock, now firmly believe they must demonstrate their prowess by physically paddling into and over one another in the attempt to get closest to the rock and thereby prove their superiority, thereby botching 4 out of every 5 set waves.
Act five: Wait patiently stage-right for the circus act to miscalculate and let a good wave go. This is your cue.
Break a leg.
06/22/2018
Seems like my van was in the shop for repairs more often than not last year. One particular stint was over two months long. After awhile it started getting me down. This was from a beautiful day last summer, but I remember having to stop and remind myself how wonderful it was to just be here- even though I kept finding things to grumble about- mostly the tiny size of our little honda fit. It’s actually an amazing little car, but rummaging around the open hatchback for gear that might be stashed behind a seat, or in the front passenger seat- every door open on the side of the road as I hunt for my brush roll, or my sunscreen, where’d I put that paint rag anyway? As amazing as this little car is , it is not my mobile studio.
On a lighter note, this was a rare foray into painting with oils, which I do from time to time, just to check in and see what it’s like to paint with a medium that isn’t looked down upon by many art-world types. It’s nice over here on this side of the great oil/acrylic divide. Not nice enough to keep me here, but it’s still fun to visit on occasion.
06/12/2018
Plein air painted last year from a portion of the California Coast that might fall into the sea at any moment if it hasn’t already…
I’ve wanted to paint this one for a long time. Not sure why it took so long, but it was fun to finally take the time to make it happen. It’s not a place I’ve spent a whole lot of time at, but I’ve driven past it dozens of times and made a few memories here and there. Every time I see this place I remember one of the first times I was here, over 20 years ago. I was maybe 21 years old, just a kid really. I wound up staying in the hostel tucked away just at the bottom of this hill. I arrived at the last light of day and was looking forward to getting up early and enjoying some of the small clean waves I saw out front before heading on to wherever I was going the next day. At first light I awoke and slowly, quietly, gathered my belongings and softly made my way to the door so as not to disturb the other travelers still soundly sleeping. Well, all but one. She was at the door before me, perplexed and fumbling with the handle. In hushed tones she explained to me the door was locked, with no way to unlock it without a key, which was not to be found. Really? Granted, we were probably just a little too groggy, young, and dumb to figure out the locking mechanism, but either way the effect was the same. Trapped. Together we strategized the finest plan ever put into action. Running out of options, it was likely our One Last Chance to break free. We did what we had to do. We climbed out the window. I know you were hoping for something more dramatic, but what can I say? That’s all there was to it. After a quick embrace, like captives about to go our separate ways after a daring jailbreak, we parted into the misty morning.
06/12/2018
I seem to remember several occasions over the last 20 years where my van wouldn’t start after a surf here. Probably because it was just an old Volkswagon and that’s kinda how they work. It was as good a place as any for the old van since the road makes a gentle descent to beach level just past the little carpark on the top of the bluff. It was never hard to get it pointed down the hill and pop the clutch to get it going. The day I painted this one, in my fancy big sprinter van, I noticed a foul smell just before arriving. I had hoped it was another car on the road, but it followed me a little longer than I’d liked. Just as I pulled up I saw the old Check Engine Light on the dash. Nuts. Ah well, let’s hope it’s nothing major. At any rate, nothing to do about it here anyway, may as well paint the place.
05/16/2018
Occasionally the California Coast sleeps in during the May Gray/June Gloom and has this recurring dream.
She sees a distant marine layer and no other clouds in the bright clear sky. She sees the shade of an old and twisted eucalyptus. The tree itself- invasive, and beautiful, and loved- a rare combination indeed.
She sees the memories of her adolescence, the old rail, the lifeline that connected her various towns and settlements when she was just coming of age and didn’t know the difference between a scoundrel and a gentleman.
She sees the running barbed wire fence placed to keep the cattle in place, another reminder of her adolescence when shots fired from a rider on horseback could signal fear, or theft, or love, or life, or all of them at once.
She sees a couple of painters standing over this vista scribbling away at their canvas, while sipping cold beers as a herd of cattle is moved down the road behind them.
In a moment of lucidity, she wakes within her dream to wonder what it means. She asks a man who smiles beside an old faithful Toyota truck and offers her a beer as well. It is then she hears the answer coming from the open cab of the truck and spoken to the wind through the crackling voice of a young Bob Dylan.
-Entry on May 17, 2018
05/15/2018
A funny thing about life, that we don’t really ever consider the miracle of our birth until we’ve truly reckoned with the reality of your impending death. Standing here, two feet planted firmly on the path to the cemetery (let the reader understand), this is the first time I ever laid my eyes upon the moment of conception (again, let the ready understand).
When confronted with metaphor of this proportion there is no need of a horizon line- that usual separator of the known and unknown is no longer relevant when faced with this stark reality. There is nothing really to do now but just stand here and look back at our lives and face the rushing wind as it hollows out the spaces in our souls that turned to stone while we were busy dreaming of the points in between the Grave and the Cradle.
-Ok, that was cryptic. The point in the distance is the corner where the California coast makes a sharp right hook and is often considered the terminal of the line separating central and southern California… also the road we were on is named “Cementario”. Still a bit cryptic, but that should help make a bit of sense of the symbolism in those notes.
05/14/2018
Some islands are formed by water, some are formed by the long standing legacies of private property dating back generations to a time before “coastal access” was even a thing. Some of these have effectively become islands in their own way shielding their environs from the outside world and preserving these lands in a state of blissfully arrested development.
I haven’t spent much time on this particular stretch of coast, but the short windows I’ve been blessed with have been spectacular immersions into one of the most well-preserved portions of an older California still remaining on the mainland.
Some folks even call this place their home. This is the view they see coming home every time they leave and return.
I sometimes half-jokingly call the entire California Coast my home- and if the whole coast were a magnificent house on a hill, this would surely be the entryway to it’s Great Room, it’s focal point, where all of the architectural nuances used to great affect elsewhere culminate to a sublimely perfect crescendo of the Architect’s true genius. This is only the entry mind you, you’d have to explore around the corner to see the rest.
It’s not likely that I’ll ever live here in the normal sense, but still, when I consider this scene, I feel I am Almost Home.
