Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Summerland Beach

Thought I'd try another beach scene from my trip down to Carpinteria with a stop off at Summerland Beach. It was early in the day...still morning actually, and the water was pretty calm for ocean water. Some people were walking down the beach looking for driftwood or other treasures. I like the bluffs and wanted to work on them in a painting. These are farther than I wanted so I'll do another scene with closer bluffs to paint. All of the beaches where I grew up in Southern California had no bluffs at all...ocean, beach sand and then parking lot...from there it was suburbia all the way to the foot of the San Gabriel mountains 30 miles inland. You know, in the early days of California there would be hugh storms and the rain came washing down from the San Gabriels and flood the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys. Eventually they built two large washes to carry all of that runoff water to the ocean...they are known as the LA River and the San Gabriel River...or San Gabriel Wash as we called it.
Anyway, here is the painting....

and my fun to paint birds near the waves....

6 comments:

Noel Gravelle said...

Hi Ron,

I just came across your blog and I find it so interesting. So, just to make things clear, do you take photographs and then paint or draw them? I've tried to do that and let's just say it didn't work out too well lol. But I do like to look at different books and try to draw that, but more of cartoons and such.

Your work looks very, very good.

Ron Guthrie said...

I do both studio and plein air work. I've also done some studio work from plein air paintings as references. I prefer studio work because it's a lot easier to control things and there is no driving involved, hahaha.

With landscapes is really easy to just sketch out a minimum of what the ref has...a line for the mountains tops, a line for the treeline or oval for a specific tree etc. Everything else has me doing much more detailed sketching on the canvas.

I used to draw what was in the cartoon section of the paper when I was back in high school because I was in a cartooning class. Oddly enough though I rarely did cartoons in that class...mostly illustration work, Time and Sunset magazine covers my teacher would ask me to do. Occasionally I would pen & ink editorial cartoons too out of the LA Times. I suppose that is where I learned to draw what I see to a pretty good degree. If you practice anything enough you are bound to get good at it.

Thanks for checking out my Blog!
Ron

James F. Smith said...

Peaceful Ron!! Very good!
Jim

Marian Fortunati said...

I see another Blinn House potential entry!!

Beautiful as always, Ron!!

Ron Guthrie said...

Hi James - Thanks a bunch. That little beach is really a place to enjoy some solitude for a few hours....funny thing is it is right off the 101 freeway but the bluffs are so high you don't hear car noise at all. Thanks again.

Hi Marian - Hahahaha...you caught me gearing up! haha. Trying to get something coastal that looks really good. I want big bluffs but those guys are just not my friend right this minute. I think it is a mental thing....I see beautiful sunlit bluffs and my brush freezes! Hahaha. Maybe I should go out there, find a bluff and pour myself a big margarita and relax! My luck the beach patrol would pull up about that moment.
Thanks Marian...hope we both get in!
Ron

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