Afternoon Walk in Pacific Grove

Testing the finished painting in a hand carved gold frame

Finished painting still on the easel and wet

 My painting is finished, pending approval from my patron.  It now needs to rest and dry before varnishing it.

Testing another frame in the finished painting.

Side view of this frame

Afternoon Walk - day 2 progress

Day 2 work on the painting and I am about half way through.  

The weather was nice enough to get out to my studio and paint today.

Blocking in the green ice plant areas

Working on the path

Blocking in the cliff rocks

Refining rocks, blocking in the fence, figures,
refining grassy areas, water & distant hills, adding sail boat

Mixing palette

So the painting is coming along and about half way finished.

Afternoon Walk in Pacific Grove

Painting "en plein air" on location  - it was cold!

   

The original plein air painting created in PG

I am enjoying doing a commission painting working from a small plein air painting I painted along the Pacific Grove coast a few years ago.  These nice folks bought a note card of the painting at a bookstore that sells my art note cards.  They liked the painting on the card and asked me to do a larger painting for them.  The storms in California have made it difficult to get to my studio until today, but I finally got a start on the under painting.  I will post my progress as it goes.

Step 1 prep the canvas with red paint
and draw the composition

 

Blocking in some of the background color

DAY 1
I like working on a red background sometimes,
especially when there is a lot of green in the painting.
The red background will 
sparkle through in a few places, adding interest. 

Here I have started to block in the focal point tree shapes.  

             Hopefully, I will be able to work on the painting again tomorrow!

PASTEL: Calla Lilies in Pacific Grove

Calla Lilies in Pacific Grove  pastels  22" x 26

Calla Lilies on the Coast  8" x 10"  oil 

My friend and I decided to paint along the coast in Pacific Grove, CA in Monterey County.  It was such a beautiful day and we were delighted to find a big stand of calla lilies which someone had planted near the water.  We set up our easels and painted. 

< Here is my plein air painting / study from that day.  The calla lilies were thick and in full bloom as was the purple Pride of Maderia.  The sea was brilliant blue and there were large black cormants sunning themselves on the rocks.

It was a lovely day and I never forgot those pretty white calla lilies on the coast.

So when a pastel show was announced at our Carnegie Arts Center, I thought I might try working from my plein air study and create a new painting from that day.  The finished painting is above and below you can see a few shots I took in progress as I worked on this pastel painting.

Study for the final painting

 

< Here is a small study I worked up to get ready for the larger pastel painting.   Now for sale on Daily Paintworks.  

 9" x 10"   Callas and Butterflies in Pacific Grove

Pacific Grove is famous for its Monarch Butterflies so I added butterfly stamps around the border and colored them with the Pan Pastels.  

I have been wanting to try out my new Pan Pastels so here was my chance!  I bought a large sheet of Uart sanded pastel paper and cut it to fit a frame I already
 had.  

My idea was to have a painting within a painting.  Like you might look out a window to the scene.  I wanted to try some mixed media techniques as well  using stamps and a Versa stamp pad with the pan pastels.  

I wanted the area around the central square to be soft and dreamy, mystical and magical surrounding the more in-focus center.  So I began by taping around the central square to form a frame.

<  This photo shows the beginning stages of working the outer frame with the soft pan pastels and the sofft sponges.  Sofft sponges are specially designed to use with the pan pastels.  They are in the shape of standard artist's paint brushes so are so nice to work with. 

< Here I am starting to work the central section.  I wanted some of the leaves and lilies to overlap into the border for added interest, so I needed to plan it out a bit.

Close up.  Working with large sofft sponges

Let me know how you like my pastel painting and wish me luck getting into the pastel show!

My painting was accepted to this National Juried Competition along with a 2nd pastel painting.

On display at the 
THE FINE ART OF PASTELS
March 28 - May 26, 2019
Carnegie Arts Center
250 N. Broadway, Turlock, CA  95380

Also accepted is my pastel
"Carmel Mission Sanctuary"
Which won an award in another
show (shown in photo)

Painting along the Big Sur Coast

Let's Take a Long Walk
9" x 12"   oil on panel

A few years ago I took a photo while on a casual trip down the California coast on my way to Big Sur.  The scene was so pretty.  Rolling hills, native grasses and a path going off into the distance.  I painted the painting later, but was never really happy with it. 

This week I revisited the painting to see what I could do with it.  Now I am happy!  I remembered that scene and loved the beautiful, colorful native grasses.  How I wanted to walk down that path!  But it was a long walk and as I do not walk well, I could only dream.  

It is now up on my Daily Paintworks online Gallery.
If you click on it you can see close ups.   

$450  without a frame
If you are interested in adding this painting to your own collection,
 please send me an email via Daily Paintworks.