Santa Ynez Valley

"Central Coast Splendor"

12" x 24" Oil on Canvas

I was able to paint this one Alla Prima yesterday despite all the fun of having 2 teenaged daughters and their multitude of dramatic events. This explains why I love to paint late at night! I used to think painting was something you could do like drawing...anywhere, anytime. Nope. Painting demands a lot of concentation, (whether you know you are doing it or not). Lifes daily occurances really throw you loops and makes painting take forever at times.

This painting was done mainly to just get better at depicting these scenes of the central coast. One day I will do a fantastic painting of the central coast capturing it's beauty in any light. This is a springtime scene with green hillsides and wildflowers...I chose white instead of doing lupine or poppies again. Did a couple small touch ups this morning and I think it is where I want it to be...for now.

I like to ground the trees with bushes at it's base and dark shadows there. That method seems to work well.

Making that trail meander into the painting was fun...gives the painting some added depth too. The grasses you see here are just vertical strokes with a knife. The base for the grasses are just vertical scumbling with the knife done prior to any grass blade highlights. The dirt areas are also scumbled in with a knife...to finish that off I flick tiny grasses up into the dirt from below. A fun painting to do.