Leadbetter cliffs at dawn, the beginning of a perfect day in Santa Barbara.
Tag Archives: painting
Santa Ynez Valley Painting, Santa Barbara
Shadows on the hills in the Santa Ynez Valley, in Santa Barbara County, California. Such beautiful farming country.
East Beach in Santa Barbara Painting
Painted on location on East Beach in beautiful Santa Barbara.
Someone asked why I mostly have paintings of East Beach. Well, the answer is we usually stay across the street at the Motel 6, which as I understand it once cost $6 per night.
The thing is, when you are a painter and you are traveling, you really HAVE TO GO PAINT or you will go insane but you don’t want to wreck everyone else’s vacation. I try to compromise.
So a typical Santa Barbara painting day is, I get up just before dawn and try to be on the beach as the sun is coming up, and then I have a solid five hours to paint before we move on to lunch or wine tasting in the Santa Ynez Valley. So I mostly, but not always, just walk across the street to East Beach.
And I could probably paint on this beautiful beach every single day.
Kensington, San Diego Watercolor
Sunday at Starbucks, painted over morning coffee from the patio.
A pen and ink and watercolor sketch of a midcentury gas station in Kensington.
Leadbetter Beach, Santa Barbara California
Leadbetter Beach in Santa Barbara. I think it’s also spelled Ledbetter Beach. Beautiful place.
Giraffe on an Ottoman
A herd of these small giraffes lives in the canyon behind the house. They are somewhat skittish, but we’ve befriended this one.
Santa Ynez Valley Landscape Painting
A glorious day in the Santa Ynez valley, in the mountains above Santa Barbara, California.
Hillcrest Watercolor Painting, San Diego
Painted over breakfast on an overcast Sunday in Hillcrest- at Whole Foods Market.
Santa Barbara Beach Sunset
Mellow sunset light at East Beach in Santa Barbara.
Coconut Birthday Cake Painting
This is another from a brief but obsessive period when I painted baked goods, mostly slices of cake. Half of this slice got eaten, half of this slice got painted.
Marshmallow Peep Painting
One blue peep.
Santa Barbara Sunset Palms
Sunset in Santa Barbara.
Miniature Eggplant Still Life Painting
So miniature eggplants are good for cooking. They’re not bitter, and you don’t have to soak them in salt water. This is also true of Japanese eggplants, by the way.
Food lesson over!
They are also fun to paint.
San Diego Bay Plein Air Painting
An open air painting overlooking San Diego Bay, the airport, and Coronado from Mission Hills.
Kensington Cafe, San Diego
Painted over morning coffee on the patio at Starbucks in the San Diego neighborhood of Kensington. It’s a really nice area.
There were great views in all directions, including a stunning Sixties Functional gas station and a Modernist library with trees growing through the architecture. I didn’t paint the library though; I got too discombobulated from Spring Forward. I’ll have to go back.
While I am primarily an oil painter, I love the immediacy of completing a loose pen and ink sketch highlighted with watercolor.
At this point, I think I’m going to have to call this a series: Sunday at Starbucks.