Category Archives: San Diego Paintings

Del Mar Sketch

Del Mar Landscape Painting Kevin Inman


NFS

I usually try to get my plein air pieces to a higher level of finish. This one didn’t quite get there.

I decided to post it anyway because I thought you might find it interesting to see work in such a raw state. So often, we are exposed only to polished work- which sets an impossibly high standard for students.

Even though this piece didn’t make it, it’s still handy for me to be able to pull these studies off the shelf and double check the light, the atmospheric conditions, the colors in the water and so on, how it made me feel. Also the things you notice while spending time in a place- trains going by, many surfers, the wind too strong for my umbrella- all the little details that might be important in a future piece, especially one conceptualized in the studio.

Del Mar Plein Air

Evening, Coronado

It’s always tough painting into the setting sun, but I gave it a shot. Painted on the beach in Coronado.

Painting in Coronado

I’m trying out my new ultra lightweight easel setup. This weighs less than 3 lbs total, including the somewhat rickety $8 tripod. I like to travel light- this is going to be great for trips.

Coronado Beach Plein Air

Painted on the beach in Coronado last week, before I left San Diego for a few days in Las Vegas. Just got around to photographing it today.

I’ve been playing around lately with a more conventional approach to Impressionism. In this piece, Pissarro’s ‘petite tache’ and palette and what all. My approach to painting doesn’t tend to come from that place- I got here via a winding path out of modernist abstraction that eventually led to being on a street corner with a paint box. So it’s fun to tinker with the style, so familiar from childhood visits to the National Gallery of Art in DC. We’ll see if it becomes a thing.

Plein Air, Coronado

Coronado Beach Plein Air

Heat wave in San Diego. When I started this yesterday it was very clear and hot, with strong gusty furnace like winds.

Coronado Day 1

I didn’t quite finish, so I decided to go back this morning. The light, though, was very different today. Sort of like the apocalypse, with a brown haze over the sea horizon (which lifted eventually as it usually does) and a strange murky quality to the air.

Coronado Day 2

Sometimes you have to choose between the act of copying what you see- that’s what Monet was generally trying to do, as accurately as possible – vs poetic license with your color. It would have been easy enough to edit the color to match a brighter, prettier day, but I decided to tread the path of angels and painted it over with today’s overcast light effects.

Termite Tent, North Park

Termite Tent Painting San Diego

Before moving to San Diego, I don’t think I’d seen any buildings in fumigation tents. Like trolley and telephone wires crossing the sky, dumpsters in alleys, and trash cans lined up like soldiers for inspection, I think they add a really exciting decorative element to the urban landscape.

This is an older piece, probably from 2013. for sale

Night on the Prado

San Diego Night Painting El Prado

Night in San Diego. for sale

The Prado seen from the Cabrillo Bridge. This piece is on display at the historic Marston House in San Diego as part of Art of the Park, an exhibition of paintings of Balboa Park dating from the 1915 Panama-California Exposition to today.

Throwback, Rigoberto’s

Taco Shop North Park San Diego Painting

Rigoberto’s – buy now

For a painter of topography even minor changes in locale can be significant. This painting is from mid 2013, and near my old house. A transitional time for me, when I moved from Hillcrest to Sherman Heights. Night and day different neighborhoods though only a couple of miles away. This piece reminds me what it felt like to live in the old neighborhood, what those artistic motivations were, not so long ago.