Lighthouses have always had a certain allure to them, standing alone on the edge of the ocean in some of the most scenic spots on the coast. With these two lighthouses though, that is about all they have in common. This first piece, a plein air pencil sketch, was done in my sketchbook at Santa Cruz, CA. This is not the same Santa Cruz lighthouse in pencil that I had sketched before. This one, the Mark Abbott Memorial Lighthouse (named after a surfer who died surfing nearby) is just east of the wharf and was built as a memorial in 1967. It was converted into the Santa Cruz Surfing Museum, "the first surfing museum in the world" in 1986. It is unique because it does not have a round tower, but a square one.
This second lighthouse is the Yaquina Head lighthouse just outside of Newport, Oregon. It is more of your typical lighthouse. It was built in 1873 and is considered the tallest lighthouse in Oregon at 93 feet tall. I painted this piece with watercolor, at home in my studio from a reference photo I had taken this summer.
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