Hillcrest plein air- for sale
I love urban views. Here we are looking to the west over Hillcrest, towards Mission Hills.
This being San Diego in December, I did get chilly painting this in my shorts and running shoes, while listening to Christmas carols floating up from the plaza below.
View over North Park – Buy Now
This is the third or maybe fourth painting I’ve done here. I love this view of the city, with so many buildings and hills.
We’re looking out over North Park from the Georgia Street Bridge.
House in Mission Hills – For Sale
I love the old houses in Mission Hills, and I was especially captivated by the shapes and colors of this one, with its rooms over the garage and Airstream trailer parked out front.
Plein Air Outside The Laundromat While My Clothes Were Drying – for sale through Randy Higbee Gallery. 6 x 6 inches, oil on wood, framed.
I was very excited and honored to hear that this painting is included in the amazing 6″ Squared show at Randy Higbee Gallery. The opening Gala Artists’ Reception is Saturday, December 8th, from 5 to 9 PM. (102 Kalmus, Costa Mesa, CA Get Directions.) I’m looking forward to the opening next weekend, and if you are in Orange County, I hope to see you there!
I always liked the steepness of this street, with its pile of buildings crowned with giant, shaggy date palms and a Victorian commercial building housing a yoga studio. The street is lined with a mix of architectural styles, with Victorian cottages at the bottom, 1920s Spanish Revival buildings that house holistic healing places halfway up, and an awesome 1960s Modern library on the opposite side.
I wound up choosing this vantage point because it was the easiest place to park while doing laundry. Lugging the laundry up the hill was not fun, but it was the perfect place, it turned out, to paint.
Also of note, there’s a great Naples-style pizza place right around the corner.
On to other topics.
I’m also excited to announce a solo show of my urban landscape paintings at the Lyceum Gallery!
House in Hillcrest
The Gallery is located at the San Diego Rep Theatre lower lobby, in Horton Plaza in downtown San Diego. The show will coincide with Clybourne Park. Opening night and reception, Friday January 18; the play starts at 8 PM. More details to follow.
Sunrise on Cypress Avenue in San Diego – For Sale
A rare clear morning. So close to the ocean we usually have fog, or at least that’s my impression since let’s face it, I’m not usually up this early.
This is a painting of my street.
Not up quite this early today to meet other painters in the California Art Club on the beach at Coronado, right by the Hotel Del.
I wanted to do a painting of the hotel also, but was running late for a parade in North Park!
I enjoyed the samba dancers:
Kayaks on the Beach, La Jolla – For Sale
Kayaks drawn up on the beach in La Jolla. This is such a tranquil spot.
And unlike Black’s Beach, no need to climb down what must be thousands of feet of cliffs. 😉
Painting of Downtown San Diego- For Sale
Painted from life in Golden Hill, overlooking the crisscrossing freeways and towers of downtown.
I like to get out of the studio and paint the city of San Diego and the places I travel to.
San Diego Skyline Painting- from Golden Hill
Ocean Beach Painting, San Diego, California – For Sale
I painted this piece on a beautiful day in Ocean Beach last week. While I was working on it, I discovered the spot is a geo cache!
Sunset in Hillcrest – For Sale
The coastal clouds rolled in at nightfall and turned pink with the city lights. This is from a series of plein air night paintings I did last year. Despite the winter chill (low 60s, brr!), it’s easy to get into night paintings this time of year, when it’s just about fully dark around 5.
Sunset in San Diego – for sale
Sunset in University Heights. The Christmas trees just went up for sale in the vacant lot to the left of the painting.
The Alcazar Garden is one of my favorite, quiet spots in Balboa Park. It’s a formal garden with clipped hedges in patterns around flowerbeds, overhung with palm trees and surrounded by archways. This is my second painting from the OPA paint out a couple of Saturdays ago.
Victorian house in University Heights, San Diego
This pink Italianate Victorian is, for me, the definition of real estate envy. I love the house and it’s in a great neighborhood- University Heights.
I really, really love these old houses. If I had the time, I’d become a realtor!
Fog in Hillcrest, San Diego. For sale
This is an older painting from 2012.
Bougainvillea Painting, San Diego– For Sale
A sun-splashed alley in Hillcrest, with bougainvillea spilling over the fence… and recycling bins ready for their moment in the limelight.
The Palm, San Diego Painting- For Sale
I think this apartment building in Hillcrest/U Heights is probably from the 60s, since Modern design from that decade was more delicate. Whenever it’s from, it’s a cool place.
Decayed Modernism is so prevalent in southern California. Modernist architecture, urban planning, and design had mostly utopian ideals, trying to make people’s lives better through design. Did it work? I’m not sure, and there’s something poignant about the irony of those high ideals contrasted with buildings in disrepair.
