Tag Archives: point loma

Fortuna Wetlands San Diego Painting

Fortuna Wetlands Plein Air

Fortuna Wetlands San Diego Painting

Painted on location at the Fortuna wetlands reserve in San Diego. for sale

What a quiet, pretty spot with the occasional passer-by: bird watchers and people pushing small frou frou dogs in baby carriages (a California specialty). I’ll be going back.

Oh, BTW- this weekend is the Mission Federal Art Walk in San Diego. I’ll be in booth 353 near the corner of Columbia and Cedar with new paintings. The event is in the Little Italy neighborhood of downtown San Diego. You can take the train in to the Santa Fe Depot, ride the trolley to the Little Italy station, or it’s convenient to the 5 Freeway. If you’re downtown this weekend, it would be wonderful to see you. The event is from 11-6 Saturday and Sunday, and I’ll be live painting both days.

Fortuna slough

Boat Painting Shelter Island Marina San Diego Plein Air

San Diego Sailboats Plein Air

Boat Painting Shelter Island Marina San Diego Plein Air

Boats Plein Air- buy now

A nice sunny day at Shelter Island in Point Loma.

A while back someone asked me to post in-progress shots. I mostly do that on my Facebook page (KevinInmanArt on Facebook) because it goes straight from my phone, but here goes. This painting is from Shelter Island in San Diego.

Nothing special about my approach here. It’s a typical alla prima painting starting from the white. I don’t always work this way. I like to experiment.

Plein Air in progress

One rule I was taught in art school was, “never draw with a pencil” – as you can see I’ve disregarded that rule here. Actually the best piece of art advice I ever got was, “only follow advice if you are sure you understand it – and if you want to.”

So why do people say “don’t use a pencil”? Two reasons that I can see- one, beginning students have a tendency to get too tight with the drawing and two, because if the pencil drawing is wrong, your whole painting will be off. But I say, do what works for you.

Plein Air in progress

So here I’ve completed the plein air, alla prima portion of the painting. The next step was to leave it in a stack of paintings for several weeks/months and then I pulled it out, touched it up, signed it, and here it is.

Coronado Island Painting

Coronado Plein Air

Coronado Island Painting

Coronado Island Painting- For Sale

This painting is from the California Art Club paint-out a couple of months ago. November or December, I think. It was a day with huge, hard to believe surf crashing and unbelievable light.

Sailboats on San Diego Bay Painting

Sailboats on San Diego Bay

Sailboats on San Diego Bay Painting

Sailboats on San Diego Bay – for sale

Sailboats on San Diego Bay. I enjoy the challenge of painting water, which is so many different colors at once, and the challenge of painting boats, which have complex curving shapes. This painting started out as drawings in a lawn chair on Shelter Island.