Spent the day social distancing in my moms garden, painting some lovely echium flowers. It was a beautiful warm afternoon until a large storm front snuck up behind me and it began to rain. I escaped back to my house to finish the sketch.
Painted on a freezing, wet and dull January morning. The boys were sick so I set up shop at grandmas house and while they watched cartoons near a lovely roaring fire I half froze to death while painting this sketch of my moms gravel driveway.
This sketch is from late January. No thanks to the Kincade fire, the family ranch had been charred black for weeks, then we had our first rain and they magically turned a brilliant shade of green. I did my best to capture it.
Interesting side note, because the fires burned back all the grass it exposed a bunch of petrified wood in the area where I’m standing.
A plein air study painted at the Robert Young Estate.
My boy Wiley and and I hiked up the hill behind my Grandmas house to do a little painting. It was blisteringly hot and we only lasted about 1.5hrs before we melted. Wiley was a champ, he painted for about twenty minutes then for the next hour shared an in-depth thesus on the pros and cons of different Minecraft hacks. We had a great time.
Below is his artistic contribution.
Looking west over Alexander Valley. This is a plein air painting I made in the family vineyards. We were experiencing a heat wave that day and I started melting after three hours in the sun, so I painted what I could then turned tail and retreated to a swimming pool. A few days later I cleaned it up in the home studio.