Walk along the beach

At first glance, you might think I'm back to painting more scenes from Maui, but actually, this is based on a photo I took at Santa Cruz back in June. It was rainy today so I decided to look through my "art idea" file and see what project I should work on and this one struck me as a challenge! The photo was taken of a couple walking along the beach, but I thought it looked a lot like my wife and I (although I never wear my baseball caps backwards!). It is extremely rare that I put people into my landscapes, so this was a challenge for me, but at least their backs were toward me, so that made it a little easier. I had snapped the photo after they walked past me on the beach one morning. I wish the painting captured a little more movement in their walk but overall I think I portrayed the scene well.

Maui coast in Kihei, watercolor

I've been busy vacationing in Maui...seems like an oxymoron, but the way that I want to see everything there is to see, maybe it's not.  I've slowed down a little this week and had time to get my paints out. This painting was done from a picture that I had taken a couple of days before and now I'm just relaxing on the lanai of the house we are staying at, and painting.

Natural Bridges, watercolor

Another seascape inspired from my Santa Cruz vacation back in June. This was done from a photograph I had taken and done completely in my studio. With each one of these seascapes, I feel I get a better grasp of the waves. I have to really think ahead where to leave my whites. I was also trying to capture the reflection of the rock in the wet sand.

Round mound and Nevada beach revised

Frequently when I am painting outdoors, I miss details that I don't notice until I get back to my studio. This painting of Round Mound and Nevada Beach was one of those that needed a little revision once I got back indoors, especially since toward the end, I was focused more on the impending storm than the painting.
My original plan was to have the painting's focus be on the clouds and they just weren't capturing my eye, so I reworked them to be a little more eye-catching. Of course I also realized if I don't want the viewer to focus on the hill and beach, I would need to rename it as well...Impending Summer Storm

Round Mound and Nevada Beach

So I decided to find a spot without the crowds..a tough thing to do anywhere along Lake Tahoe. I went for a walk starting at Lakeside Beach and went past the No Trespassing signs (with fine print that says "ok to pass at waters edge"). I found a nice shady spot under a tree, and started to paint Round Mound...yes, that's the official name, I looked it up.  My main focus of this painting was the clouds (but I did get caught in the trees). The thunderheads were building quick, and you can tell by the how dark it got that I finished just in time.

Plain air painting at Lakeside Beach

Trying to escape the heat, my family headed up to South Lake Tahoe. The scenery up there never disappoints. One of our favorite beaches is Lakeside Beach. Although the beach can get pretty crowded, if you get there before noon, it's not to bad. I scoped out a spot back among the trees to avoid getting any more sunburned than I had the day before and started to paint. Already the sunbathers were out and I had to determine how many of them would make it into my painting.
I narrowed it down to three although my original sketch had 5. Painting subjects while they are moving around is quite a challenge, and although these sunbathers didn't move around too much, it was enough. I'm not sure I'm happy with the composition of the painting. I need to crop out some of the sand. The focus of the painting is also unclear: the lake and mountains, the sailboat, the sunbathers, the clouds?

Gristmill plein air watercolor

The weather here in California is just too nice to paint inside, so I took advantage of a warm February afternoon to head down to the river. My plein air supplies are pretty simple: a pad of watercolor paper, a pencil, a few brushes, my paint palette, and a cup to hold my water. I also grabbed a blanket from the trunk of my car since I forgot my folding chair I usually carry. I found a nice sunny spot on a log near the American River and started to paint. I love the little rapids flowing over the rocks but I am still trying to figure out how to convey that in the painting.

Kiva beach, plein aire

There are so many opportunities to paint plein air at Lake Tahoe, sometimes I get overwhelmed. I just want to soak it in mentally, take pictures, and say I'll do it later at home. That defeats the purpose of plein air though. So on a beautiful fall afternoon, I finally decided on a spot out on the Camp Richardson pier...the beach was all shady and cold. The sun seemed to be going down really quick and the shadows were changing even quicker. I did the majority of this piece in an hour. When I was finished, I was looking straight into the sun.
My goal was to make it look like the foreground trees were all in shadow with the light filtering through. I tweaked the details a little more once I was home. I think I could have gone even darker for the shadows, but I always worry it will go too dark and lose the color. 

The fun part of this was that every 10 minutes or so, people would be walking down the pier, stop and watch for a few minutes, make a few comments to each other about my painting and then keep walking. At first it was a little intimidating but then I got over myself and enjoyed the commentary.

Pencil sketch - coastal fog

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  Here is a pencil sketch inspired by a watercolor demo by Howard Luke Lucas...the fog coming in on a coastal canyon. Interpreting his watercolor with pencil was an interesting experiment. As he is putting down washes, I'm quickly trying to cross hatch or smudge the same areas in pencil. My drawing is a mirror image since we saw the demo through an overhead mirror. I will try to recreate this later in watercolor too.
  
  
  
  

Zephyr Cove reworked

It's interesting how things look different once you have different lighting on a painting. I realized that my Zephyr Cove painting did not have very much contrast...probably because I was out in the bright sun when I was painting it.
Once I got inside, I knew I needed to put more color into the water, but then I also worked more color into the mountains so that the white rocks would stand out more.

I also noticed how I "squished" the scenery in the photo to fit my painting and make the composition look better... artistic license! Next time maybe I will try using half of a horizontal sheet so I can stretch out the scenery more accurately.

Plein air at Zephyr Cove

Post 100 on my blog! Continuing my Tahoe vacation, I spent the day at Zephyr Cove hanging out at the beach getting thoroughly sunburned. This has always been one of my favorite spots on the lake because of the rock formations that jut out into the lake.

After completing the painting, I checked my reference photos and realized that my values were off...the sky was a lighter blue, the mountains were darker than the sky, but lighter than the distant lake. I will need to rework this one later, but I think I just need to add more color to the water to finish this one for now.

Beach meditation at sunset

I love sunsets and all the colors that light up in the sky, and the colors come even more alive with clouds. And here in California, sunsets at the beach hit water just right and the rhythmic waves make it a perfect spot for meditating. So here is a man meditating at the beach, part of a story I'm working on illustrating. The challenge here was getting the waves right as they come into the beach...

Original sketch in ballpoint pen

First layer of color