The Douglas Preserve

"Morning Shadows at the Wilcox Property"

18"x24" Oil on Canvas

This painting of mine is now at the Reinert Gallery in South Carolina. I shipped it there not long ago and am hoping it goes to a good home. This painting was painted here in the studio and came out quite well. Of course it helps a lot when you have a great view to begin with. The Douglas Preserve, which is also called the Wilcox Property in Santa Barbara is a beautiful place. If you are ever in Santa Barbara please do yourself a favor and visit this local haunt....it is really breathtaking. I will go back here and get some more reference photos, maybe do some sketching too. We'll see! 

Hotter and My Neighbor Jim

Well, it's been getting warmer now that summer is here. I hate the heat because in the afternoons there will be no painting in the studio because it gets too hot in here. One day while I was working on the bluff painting my neighbor Jim came by. Jim is 92 now and a WW2 vet. We can both talk each others ear off. If I was going to remember Jim for anything it would be not for his part in WW2 but more for his love of nature. Jim grew up in Santa Barbara and as a kid he would ride his bike to the bottom of the mountains and then thumb a ride from anyone headed up the mountains so he could hike miles to a campsite. From there he'd watch for animals, hike more, fish and just enjoy being a kid up in the mountains surrounded by nature. Age keeps him from doing all of these things now but he can name any peak I point out here in the valley. He can describe in depth details about any area around here. Jim, more than me or anyone else I know around here, is who God created this part of California for.

So Jim comes by and tells me that before he dies, which I suppose at 92 he thinks about, he wants to paint a life sized California condor....they are very big birds. He wants me to give him advice for either stretching the canvas or just making a panel...at that size I suggest stretching canvas over a frame that he plans to build. I suggest paints, acylics, and other details for him and off he goes. A week goes by and Jim calls to tell me he'd like me to come see his setup before he stretches the canvas. Linda and I go by and he's got a frame the size of a garage door! No I'm not exaggerating. Needless to say Linda, Jim and I all tackled stretching that canvas which was actually a paint drop cloth he bought at the hardware store since he couldn't afford or find regular canvas in that size. It took us about and hour to do it. I loaned JIm my canvas pliers but we didn't use that, just pulled on it with both hands. We had my electric stapler with lots of extra staples so thank god for that! 

Right now Jim is painting that baby. Why? Because Jim has a love of nature and wants to share his love of the California condor with anyone who can't miss running into a life sized painting of a condor....that is a big painting and if I can get some shots of it when he's done I will post them. Did I mention Jim has only sketched when he was a kid growing up....never painted at all! I'm proud of his drive. Helping Jim with his goal has been the most fun in art this year for me. He needed the help and I enjoyed sharing whatever it is I could share. Fun stuff!          

Shared Visions Show

Shared Visions Plein Air & Studio Show 

A group show of Plein Air Painters of the Central Coast Apr 4 - May 31, 2013

 I will be part of the PACC show "Shared Visions, Plein Air & Studio" show at the Divine Inspiration Gallery of Fine Art in Santa Barbara, CA in April. The show is comprised of 7 Central Coast artists who paint plein air and of course create paintings in the studio. PACC was formed this last Winter and we have had several group paint outs. All of the artists have participated in various shows with each other over the years but never as a group. Each member has a their own unique way of painting scenes of the Central Coast and we saw a really nice balance of those styles when forming the group.

The artists reception will be on Thursday, April; 4th from 5-8pm at the gallery. If you are in the Santa Barbara area please come and enjoy some great art by some fine artists. I'll be there showing my paintings of mostly works depicting scenes of the Santa Barbara area. Should be a lot of fun!

More Douglas Preserve Painting

So on my way out of the Douglas Family Preserve, (or, the Wilcox Property), Out of the corner of my eye I see a small flash of color. Turns out to be a lady out walking and she has on this bright red jacket or shirt and it caught my eye. All of my painting gear was in my backpack and my camera was in hand so I snapped a quick pic on the fly. I like when someone is near big trees to show the scale of the tree height. Later I was looking through my pics of the area and came across that photo. I took it into Photoshop and zoomed in on that area with the lady and liked how there was this nice gap in the treeline showing the distant mountains in the background....I live on the otherside of those mountains in the Santa Ynez Valley by the way.
I cropped that area and decided to paint it.....nice distance with the mountains while at the same time giving good contrast with the foreground trees. Couldn't do the height because I wanted to go horizontal not vertical....purely a framing decision. Here is my cropped area........

  I cropped about 5 or 6 different scenes based on this area of the photo but this one worked for me. I really like eucalyptus trunks.....nice creamy whites/pinks/gray and a bit of orange on the bark. Long slender trunks with gentle curves and all of that green foliage and skyholes.....they are just too fun not to paint.
Here is my finished painting below. I didn't want the houses in the dip in the landscape nor the lady walking in there....just a personal thing. I also pushed the background more than what's there to give the painting more depth than what nature was offering me. The visibility was awesome that day making the backgroundtoo intense for a painter so I use artist license to grey it down pushing it into the distance.

"View From The Douglas Preserve"

12X16 Oil on Panel

Douglas Family Preserve

It's been a while since I've done one of these so I'm going to post this one with work in progress shots. These are always fun to do because I like seeing a painting progress to it's finish. I painted this scene today starting this morning and finishing later this evening. This one is from the Wilcox property, or the Douglas Family Preserve if you want to go by the new name of the area.

 1 ) Above shows the block in...laying in the base colors of each specific area of the scene. When I block in I tend to start with the sky and background, then move forward from there. I spend a little more time with the background trying to actually finish it up before moving forward so the trees back there are pretty much about what they will look like when the painting is finished. Later I will do some small tweaking of the background to tie it in with the foreground more but not much.

2 ) My foreground shadow colors are in and later I will add the highlights there to give that large shady area some dappled light coming through the trees overhead from the left and slightly behind the scene here. The tree darks are put in as thin as I can get them before they lose too much color....you don't want them transparent. I use copal painting medium to thin it and that also helps it to tack up a bit before the mid and highlight colors are painted over it. What I don't want is for that area to dry because I don't like painting on dry paint. I like it tacky so I can blend into it where I want it.

 3 ) Once all of the colors are in I start working the trees. In this painting that was the longest process. On large canvases it is easy to get a little depressed because it is all done by eye...just working the trees till they look right. The larger the painting the slower that all goes and it seems like they will never get done. Eventually they start to happen and the mood changes drastically, haha. I imagine working with glazes can give an artist the same feelings...."when is this going to start working???" I take breaks doing the trees because each time you come back to the painting you see areas that need adjusting. Getting the colors right on the trees will really help add the right light to the scene too so it is a lot of mixing to get the right greens. After the trees were finished the next step was to add the highlights in the foreground shadows and then go back and tweak, tweak, tweak the entire painting to pull it all together....you know, the fun part!

4 ) ......and all finished! In painting these scenes of the DFP I have found my "way" of painting in the foreground shadows. I don't worry too much about painting them in exactly the way they will look at the finish. I mix up a dark violet and paint it in...it was either going to be more blue or more red depending on what I wanted....I like more blue but the actual color was more red because of the dirt here....it was a very reddish dirt. Later I add my highlight colors, sort of a dirty pink, I go over some areas of the shadow with either that color or a mix of light blue which lightens parts of the shadows....you can see it in the lighter areas of the shadows. This lighter area gives the illusion of shadowed pink dirt. This is done mainly in the foreground area of the shadow and would be areas in shadow that are getting more reflected or diffused sunlight. In reading articles about painting shadows they tend to have you put your strongest darks of the shadows in the foreground area. I imagine that is an art rule and generally it is probably the way to go. Here in this scene the shadows were varied depending on how much light was being blocked out by thick or thin tree foliage. The other reason I painted the shadow this way was to vary the large dark mass of shadows....instead of a large flat dark area I have "holes" of sunlight streaking across the shadows in random shapes and the values of the rest of the shadows are varied. This keeps it interesting for the viewer, elliminates a boring large flat area of the painting and makes it fun for the artist to play with values. Hope you like it.    
 

Wilcox Property

"Wilcox Property Shadows"

12x16 Oil on canvas

 Another painting from my visit to the Wilcox Property in Santa Barbara. Actually, this area is now called the Douglas Family Preserve but most call it by the old name. The first name came from the fact that it was the Wilcox Nursery...then the area was going to be developed but Santa Barbara residents bought it to keep it undeveloped.....and that's where the second name came from, actor Michael Douglas donated $600,000 to help with purchasing the property....a good guy with 600,000 reasons why it should be called the Douglas Family Preserve. On a great sunny day, walking in the shadows of these old trees and looking down into the swells of the Pacific ocean below the bluffs it doesn't really matter what name it is called....it just feels good.
The morning shadows were just so cool there that day. I'm glad I got there early. I really would like to go back down there in late afternoon and see what the lighting is like. The cool thing about that place is the nice stands of eucalyptus, pine and coastal pines. There are many other types of trees there and the trails under the strees reminded me of hikes in forested areas in Washington and British Columbia. Very cool place.

A detail of the small coastal juniper.....rough bark and big branches shaped like banana trees.       

   

Wilcox Property Shadows

"Wilcox Property Shadows"

18" X 24" Oil on Canvas

More fun with some really nice morning shadows down at the Wilcox Property in Santa Barbara. This is the main trail that runs parallel with the bluffs overlooking the Pacific to the left side of the painting. There are a lot of coastal cypress trees there and they make for a nice change in painting eucalyptus, oak and sycamore trees. Of course, the Wilcox property has some nice stands of eucalyptus so I had to paint some of those too. I saw these shadows while walking in and knew right away that I'd do some sort of painting with them. It was a lot of fun painting the shadows.
I plan on going back down here when the foggy days are here in summer. I'm sure there will be some killer atmospheric images to be had in this area. I cant wait!

Sunset Above Santa Barbara

"Sunset Above Santa Barbara"

12" X 20" Oil on Canvas

I almost hated to title this piece ignoring the large storm clouds moving over the mountains. What a great scene this was as Linda and I were leaving Santa Barbara heading over these dark mountains back to Solvang....ominous but majestic all rolled into one.
I painted this scene over 2 years ago but something never seemed quite right. After it had dried into the storage room it went. After Christmas had passed I was going through the paintings in there deciding on what old ones would be painted over. I came across this painting and took another long hard look and decided to throw it back on the easel and revamp it with a new foreground. I'm glad I did because it works much better to me now. I added the eucalyptus trees and background trees, I reshaped the bushes and really exagerated the grasses. I also went back over the mountain in sunlight and added more rocks jutting out of the mountain. The scene is now not quite what was actually there but works better as a painting I think.

A detail of the painting.

Click on image for a larger view

Oak Above Santa Barbara

"Oak Above Santa Barbara"

22" X 28" Oil on Canvas

I was driving back from Pasadena when I saw this oak tree on a hillside off the highway just above Santa Barbara. I've seen this tree many times and in different light. Normally, I don't paint midday scenes but actually I took the reference photo around 4-5 pm. The fact was the sun was slightly above and behind me putting the tree in direct sunlight, casting shadow to the backside of the tree.

What drew me to paint this scene was working with a tree that was in full sun. I liked the dark shadows under and behind the tree and the sweeping hillsides. I liked the Santa Ynez mountains as the low looking backdrop with the cloud formation covering the tips of the mountains. It is a scene that I see a lot around here. During the day this is a pretty typical scene up here. I've done plenty of late afternoon scenes so catching a scene in direct sunlight was refreshing to me.   

Manu Mele Aground at Santa Barbara

"Manu Mele Aground at Santa Barbara"

12" X 24" Oil on canvas

This is another of the wrecked boats from out recent storms this winter. On the transom of the Manu Mele it says she was from Maui, Hawaii. It's a shame to see this boat end up like this. Around 12 boats snapped their anchor lines in that storm and they were hammered onto the beach by the rough seas. 2 more of these boats are seen further down the beach in this scene. Once the owners get what they can off of their boats the city would crush up whats left and cart if off in a dumpster. That would be hard for any boatowner to stand and watch.

The Demise of The Allegro, Santa Barbara

" The Demise of the Allegro"

16" X 20" Oil on canvas

The Allegro is one of 12 boats that were washed ashore on East beach during our recent row of massive storms. Heavy surf at Santa Barbara's East beach, which is nicknamed "Fools Anchorage" by the locals, proved fatal as many boats snapped anchor lines during the week of storms. The Allegro was one of several boats wrecked by the unprotected anchorage and washed ashore at the foot of the bluffs near East beach. 2 other boats were down there but strong surf and a risky hike kept me from getting any better photos of them.


While taking photos the owner was down there removing what he could before the sea took care of the rest of the boat. Her rudder was missing and half of her was buried in the sand. Scattered nearby were bits and pieces, rope, a tv, shattered fiberglass pieces. I saw one boat that had 2 anchor lines both snapped by the heavy surf. The deck cap, which is the molded deck and cabin tops that are bolted and glued to the hull, was ripped loose at the stern and her hull had 2 foot cracks in it.

Bluffs at East Mesa

"Bluffs at East Mesa"

12" X 16" Oil on panel

Finished this one up tonight. This is an alla prima painting of the bluffs at East Mesa near Ledbetter Beach in Santa Barbara. There is a very pretty view of the ocean and Santa Barbara harbor from there. A nice little park winds along the bluffs so it would be a cool spot to paint from....a little too many people though. I am determined to paint coastal bluffs better so I'm sure these will be popping up from time to time. It's not like I don't have enough reference material either. The California coast, especially around here, is full of nice bluffs to paint. I feel guilty that I haven't painted them more often. I love how they look and when the morning sun or late afternoon sun hits them they just glow. There is an artist named Richard Humphrey who has done some wonderful paintings of coastal bluffs...some of his work wll make you drool.