We spent a long weekend in Santa Barbara, CA, and drove up into the gorgeous Santa Ynez valley one day. This painting started as a sketch that day.
The Santa Ynez valley immediately made me think of Corot’s groundbreaking Italian plein air landscapes.
I was intrigued by the deep greens and bright blues of the water, and of course the crowd of sailboats around Dana Point. From the pier, I did a bunch of drawings of the water and the beautiful seaside town, and this studio painting from those plein air sketches.
This is the second painting in a series of 3 plein air pieces I’ve been working on in Balboa Park in the shade of the eucalyptus trees. I’m hoping to finish the last one tomorrow.
I’ve been working on a series of three plein air paintings of this location in Balboa Park. I love the combination of colors and the hot sun contrasted with the cool, deep shade of the eucalyptus trees.
As a pale, freckly person, I like to paint in the shade. 😉
The Santa Ynez valley up above and inland from Santa Barbara, California is really too pretty to describe. I hope the painting says enough.
While there we also visited the Fess Parker winery- delicious!
Along the hiking trail in Tecolote Canyon, San Diego, California. I really respond to the golden grass contrasted with the green California live oaks. When I lived in Virginia, that was the look of a winter landscape- but here that is the look of summer.
California Landscape Painting is for sale.
See my other San Diego landscape paintings for sale at Kevin Inman Art Etsy shop.
San Diego Urban Landscape Painting
Urban Landscape, San Diego – Oil Painting
This house and the garage- in the foreground- are Mission Revival in style, but due to the vantage point from the alley, they look like modernist white boxes. It is a strange but wonderful place. The front and sides are all different colors- pink and light green and taupe and beige for the different sides of the house and detached garage. But all close to pale so you don’t see it at first. After the recent rains, the yard is a green and gold carpet of California wildflowers.
Urban Landscape, San Diego – Oil Painting is for sale.
Pink Sky Palm Trees – California Landscape Painting
Landscape painting of 3 palm trees in silhouette against a night sky turned glowing pink from the lights of the stadium reflecting against the marine layer rolling in off the Pacific. This painting is from memory, trying to capture the colors of the evening landscape driving down towards Qualcomm Stadium in Mission Valley, San Diego, California. When I got home, I did a study in pastels, and completed the oil painting the next day.
SOLD.
My Etsy Shop
Drawing of Dana Point from the pier in San Clemente, California. We were trying to get to the outlet mall Saturday and my travel jinx* took over. Every time we tried to get to the 5 South we wound up on the 5 North. So we headed north along the California coast, aiming for San Juan Capistrano, but then we decided on beautiful San Clemente instead.
*This happens from time to time- though usually when I am driving- and I wind up going in huge circles before finally winding up somewhere I may not have intended to go, but where it turns out I am glad to be.
Urban landscape painting of the rooftops of the North Park neighborhood.
Looking out over the tree tops of North Park from an alley high on a hill in San Diego, California. Puffy little clouds out in the distance over the desert.
I debated another sitting to develop the sky more, but decided against it.
San Diego, California. Pacific Ocean seascape painting.
A view from the bluffs in the Sunset Cliffs area of San Diego.
This original urban landscape painting is the view from my studio, facing north towards University Ave in Hillcrest, San Diego, California. A pink summer sunset.
I created this original seascape painting in the studio from a plein air pastel sketch that I drew on the beach at Coronado. Sunset light had painted the sky a soft yellow and Point Loma went purple in silhouette against it. This is the end of the beach right before you get to the military base. The headland in the background is Point Loma. The fog hadn’t started to really come in, but there was a light mist forming.
12 x 16 inches, oil on canvas on panel.
