The last plein air painting from last months trip. (18 paintings, 12 days, 1 parking ticket…)

This particular stretch of California coastline intrigues me. Miles of coastal bluffs lined to the edge with row upon row of crops, a highly productive and active agricultural zone, and dotted with sculpted points and coves so abundant you always feel like you’re maybe missing something up the coast a bit. It’s gonna take more than a few trips to really sort this zone out in my mind, but I’m looking forward to all of them. Beauty for miles, but not without challenges…

The wind was howling at my back as I painted this one. Rarely did my hand leave the easel for fear of losing my gear off the cliff into rocky tidepools below, which would have been doubly troublesome due to the audience of surfers that sat just about in the middle of the painting (I somehow don’t always include them…) I can’t imagine the grief if I’d lost my gear off the cliff in front of that pack. I’d get run out of town most likely. Always a relief to survive a windy paint session and return with the painting in tact. I was so focused on handling the wind logistics here that I sorta painted this one on autopilot. Wasn’t till I got back and looked at it with the others that I realized how much I really like this one, it brings me back every time I look at it.