This area is called Allied Gardens, one of San Diego’s postwar suburbs. It has curving residential streets and culdesacs that branch off a busy road lined with strip malls. There are suburbs like this all over the country, places that once offered an idea of safety and a particular way of life and to some extent still do.
I have grown interested in this type of area recently. They really say a lot about American culture.
A hot day in January in La Jolla. Finished painting, put back on my shirt, went up the stairs, met a porn star.
Painted at Black’s Beach on a chilly day. Stiff wind off the water. It’s a nude beach but I was glad to have my down jacket with me. I frequently do prefer to strip down while painting here. In part because why not and in part because wearing clothes in this area often results in a weird vibe. I’m a weather wimp, that’s what brought me to San Diego in the first place, so too bad.
I am happy with this little painting, done as fast as possible. The trash guys dumped the tree out of the trash can into the street. I loved the passive aggressiveness of that.
Got here just in time before the trash men came, really had to work fast. They left the tree on the street, so I painted it again. Buy now
Painted on location last week in Mission Trails Park.
Painted on location in South Park, San Diego. Part of a courtyard apartment complex was tented, but not all of it.
Buy now
I rented an apartment on AirBNB in Rome with a partial view of Castel Sant’Angelo, an ancient structure later used as a fortress by the Popes. The view was very partial, you could really only see it by peering over the neighbor’s patio through some kind of spiky screen covered in plastic vines. To get around that for the painting, I stood on the rickety metal steps to the roof with my easel in a planter box, on top of the crusty remains of departed flowers. In gale force winds, but I didn’t blow off.
For 10 days this October I stayed in what was once a tenant farmhouse to a castle up on the hill beyond this field. Coming from a family that moved all over the place with the US Military, and having traveled quite a bit as an adult, I have seen a lot of beautiful places. I have to say that Tuscany in autumn is the prettiest place I have ever been.
The crops had just been harvested and the fields freshly plowed. To my left was a pig farm. I could hear and smell the pigs, but not see them. This was right on the border of Tuscany and Umbria- the castle had been in both regions at different times. Coming up the lane to the house, you left Tuscany briefly and went into Umbria, then looped back around. The lady who rented me the house told me the creek and the bridge (at the bottom of the painting) is the border. I was standing in Tuscany and painting Umbria. The color of the fields though, was Raw Sienna, a color I regrettably did not have on my palette.
The leaves went from summer green to fall yellow and russet while I was there. Through some magic, or maybe just the same climate change that destroyed the grape and olive crops this year in Tuscany, I was blessed with perfect sunny weather on this trip. I made the most of it.
We went to Idaho for a wedding and stayed in a beautiful secluded cabin. These are the views.
I painted this sometime last spring before I got sick. (Healthy now!)
Painted on location in Point Loma. The guys who live in the two houses behind me came out and told me the couch had been out there for a month. Apparently it was a rocking selfie spot. Also an unbelievably noisy place to paint. It looks like a quiet residential street, but there were cars and trucks blasting past in a constant stream like it was a freeway, and plane noise as well. But that’s San Diego. I’m sure these modest homes are worth close to a million dollars.
Painted in the middle of the street, under the landing path to the airport.
