I have a number of works in a new exhibit at the Grenning Gallery in Sag Harbor, NY. Check it out if you’re in the area. There is no opening due to COVID, but the gallery is open normally.
The paintings were all done either en plein air in California, or later in my studio from studies.
Here are some photos of the paintings, for those of you who can’t make it:
Wild Turkeys, Carmel Valley. 8 x 12 in., oil on linen.
Plein air painting in California is always a joy and I’ve said before that I believe I became a landscape painter because of the beauty of California’s Central Coast. Here are images of my recent paintings of the area. As always, I spent a lot of time scouting by car as I needed to find picturesque motifs to enlarge into larger pieces in the studio this winter.
Farm near Soledad. 8 x 12 in., oil on linen.
Chaparral at Garapata State Beach. 8 x 12 in., oil on linen.
Point Lobos. 11 x 14 in., oil on linen.
In an attempt to lighten my travel kit, I tried just using a cellphone to photograph my work this trip. It didn’t really work out and I apologize for the quality of the images. I’ll go back to lugging around a DSLR.
Belladonna Lilies. 8 x 12 in., oil on linen.
Tina Painting in Big Sur. 44 x 11 in., oil on linen.
I taught a couple of workshops for Carmel Visual Arts and we painted in two of the Monterey Regional Parks District‘s parks. They’ve done a great job of setting aside some of the more beautiful parts of the Monterey area for public use and preservation.
Garland Park #1. 8 x 12 in., oil on linen.
Garland Park #2. 11 x 14 in., oil on linen.
Garland Park #3. 11 x 14 in., oil on linen.
The Barn at Palo Corona #1. 8 x 12 in., oil on linen.
The Barn at Palo Corona #2. 8 x 12 in., oil on linen.
The Barn at Palo Corona #3. 8 x 12 in., oil on linen.
The last three are from around my parent’s house in Carmel Valley. I’m always really interested in the views of neighborhoods as I love art which is focused on local scenes, which people might not notices as they pass by in their daily lives.
Horses on Garzas Road. 8 x 12 in., oil on linen.
The One Lane Bridge. 12 x 8 in., oil on linen.
Garzas. 11 x 14 in., oil on linen.
Before heading to the East Coast we painted around Lake Tahoe and near Sacramento and I’ll try to post those images in a future update. It’s always hard keeping up with the online stuff in the summers as there is so much painting to be done.
Sycamore and Lupine, Toro State Park. 11 x 14 in, oil on linen.
Here are some recent paintings from the Central Coast of California. I’ve been painting regularly in the area since I first started plein air landscape painting in the early 1990s while studying art at UCSC. I say this every year but it’s always great to come back.
It’s the tail end of an El Niño year, which sometimes results in spectacular wildflower blooms, but unfortunately there wasn’t much of a show this Spring. So we painted a lot on the beaches.
Watercoloring, Marina Dunes State Beach. 8 x 12 in, oil on linen.
Carmel Beach. 8 x 12 in, oil on linen.
Patio. 8 x 12 in, oil on linen.
I spent a week down in Big Sur doing a large commissioned landscape as well.
The Temple, Big Sur. 35 x 43 in, oil on linen.
It was difficult doing a painting that large on site as the wind really picks up around midday. You can see the working situation on the last day in the short time lapse video below:
I was wearing really grippy approach shoes which helped a lot. It was about a ten foot drop off the rock where I was painting and it can be difficult to concentrate on painting and not slipping. I’ve switched to approach shoes in general for landscape painting as I find I’m often working or scouting in spots where slipping is a real risk. Here I was wearing La Sportiva TX2s which are a great minimalist/onebag/ultralight shoe with a very sticky grip.
Here are a couple of smaller pieces from the same spot.
The Temple, Big Sur, Evening Light. 8 x 12 in, oil on linen.
The Temple, Big Sur, Midday Light. 11 x 14 in, oil on linen.
Below are some paintings from the Central Coast of California over the last ten days. I was based in Carmel Valley, but moved down the coast quite a bit.
Green Valley, Cambria. 32 x 40 in.
Big Sur. 32 x 40 in., oil on linen.
These first two paintings were quite large so I tied the canvases to the ubiquitous barbed wire fences to keep them steady in the high winds. I picked up a lightweight rope-and-plastic-carabiner combo from Nite Ize at a local camping store and the system worked perfectly.
My set-up in Big Sur.
Rye Grass. 40 x 32 in., oil on linen.
One great thing about painting in the Monterey area is that there is a handful of world-class plein air artists who live there to paint with. On the above painting I worked with John Burton, and the sketch below is of Mark Farina, who we painted with one morning south of Carmel.
Mark Farina painting at Monastery Beach, Carmel. 8 x 12 in.
Hearst Castle Hills. 11 x 14 in., oil on linen.
San Carpoforo Beach. 8 x 12 in., oil on linen.
Cows at Notleys Landing. 8 x 12 in., oil on linen.
I’ve always felt I became a landscape painter because of growing up surrounded by the beauty of California, so it’s great to get back there and paint when I can.
My Folk’s Patio. 8 x 12 in., oil on linen.
Update: We stopped and painted for a bit in Lake Tahoe on our way out of California. Here are a couple images:
Tahoe Princess. 8 x 12 in.
Street in South Lake Tahoe. 8 x 12 in.