It was raining too hard to go out and paint so I stayed inside and worked from some stereoscopic reference pics I took last week. This is the salt marsh creek near Kent Middle School on a high tide. I really wanted to paint this one in person but I didn’t have the time.
On Geyserville Ave just south of Asti looking east towards the geysers.
The big storm hitting Marin took out the power at my apartment this afternoon so I went for a little adventure in the rain. I headed over to Phoenix lake to check out the overflowing spillway. On the north end of the lake I found this nice view of some redwoods on Shaver grade. This is just before the Eldridge crossroad. I probably should have painted the flooding creak behind me but I liked the light on the road better.
After a few days of rain and gray, New Year’s Day brought us crisp blue skies, green grass and sunshine. It was absolutely lovely when I stepped out the door with my paints. I drove around the ranch looking for a creek to paint which led me to the spillways above my uncle Jim’s house. A short hike up the hill these oaks caught my eye and that was that. I was working with a larger panel and was only able to get a first pass in before the light changed, so I finished this one up at home.
Every now and then I make it to the figure drawing nights at Rileystreet in San Rafael. Here is a gallery of my figure sketches from the last couple of months.
It was a sunny day cast in a veil of thin fog. I hiked around the salt mash looking for a view to paint but the misty air made all the southern and easterly views blown out and a bit too contrasty for my tastes. That killed my painting options around the apartment so I drove up to the Ring Mountain trail head off Taylor road and found something north facing I could work with.
My brother wanted to go surfing out at Salmon Creek this morning so I tagged along to catch the sunrise. The offshore winds were really strong and stepping out of the car I could barely hold onto my painting panel. There was no way my easel was going to stand up in that wind. I came up with a pretty good workaround though, I clamped my canvas to one of the information signs next to the trailhead that leads down the cliff to the beach. That worked like a champ.
Stopped on the way back from the morning school drop off to paint Tam in the rain.
Sunset painting from the Bon Air bridge looking north towards Ross.
A concerned friend texted me about the beautiful weather yesterday and very colorfully insisted that I better be outside painting, thankfully I was or I think I would have lost my street-cred. I texted back this painting from the Big Rock trailhead overlook above Lucas Valley and saved my rep.
