Lands End, High Noon

Lands End color study painted at high noon.

Sutro Baths Lookout

Last Sundays plein air study at Lands End in San Francisco, looking south towards the Sutro Baths lookout. It was one of those days where the color and light changes frequently and the scene you are painting looks completely different from when you start to when you finish. It's a good thing that I had a fairly clear vision of the final state. Otherwise you can end up chasing and correcting your painting based on how the color and light changes, which usually ends up a disaster.

Lands End, Warm Winter

Lands End in SF looking towards the Marin Headlands in warm Winter conditions in the last week of January. This 6"x 8" color study was painted around sunset.

Lands End, NBPLA Painter's 2011

Two paintings from Sunday's outing with the North Bay Plein Air Painters group meet-up. It's a friendly group of painters that meet on the last Sunday of every month. This time it was at Lands End on the Sutro Baths side in San Francisco.

Unfortunately for me, I was too picky about finding a location to paint. I didn't find a composition that really inspired me partly due to the heavy fog and lack of sunshine. So that meant I spent a lot of time walking around looking for a spark of inspiration.

The first painting is a 30-minute color sketch to help me loosen up. I didn't really care if it turn out in my favor or not. It is mostly painted with a palette knife. The second painting took about 70 minutes. I would have liked to have spent more time it had I started earlier. I'd say this is more of a study than a painting. I am not happy about the composition, but I always feel compelled to paint the ocean when I am near the coastline.

Summer in Honolulu

These are my three gouache studies from my summer vacation in Honolulu with my family. I wanted to do more paintings while on O'ahu, but my two boys a 4.5 year old and 15 months had different ideas like going to the beach and me being the lifeguard.

The first two are painted from the Moana Surfrider Hotel in Waikiki a little before sunset and a nocturne around midnight. The second painting is at the tide pools just north of Sandy's beach.

Palomarin Trail

Yesterday's plein air painting on the Palomarin trail in Marin County.

Lands End in Sequence

Lands End in San Francisco is one of my favorite places to paint en plein air, especially when it is warm and sunny. This may not be my best painting of the Lands End area but I had my camera with me so I decided to capture my progression as I developed the painting. I hope you find it useful.

I always find ocean water a challenge to paint, so here I am doing my best to simplify what I see. I don't always follow the same approach to painting but I do use a few fundamental techniques the majority of the time. Anyone who paints outdoors knows that the light is constantly changes, which meant that I had to move my easel several times during this painting to escape the glare on my canvas panel. For this reason, the colors in the photos will vary some.

I start by thinning out my oil paint with turpenoid and create a very simple line drawing. First, I focus on the biggest or most important shapes. I also consider the positive & negative shapes to help with composition and balance.

Next, I quickly block in some color and value with thin washes to get rid of the white of the canvas. When painting water, I think of three layers- top, middle and bottom. I put down the bottom color first. Since this is painted in oils, whatever color I choose for the bottom can affect the middle and top layer of paint, especially if you scrub or mix your paints while applying them to the canvas. Lightly mixing the bottom layer with the middle layer can create really nice effects. When it does not work, I'll scrape that section of oil paint off and start painting again until it feels right or until I run out of time.

From here, I'll put down some color notes and values in the larger shapes to give me a sense of what the finished painting could look like. This can take a few tries to get the right relationship between colors and values. Once I have that, then I start adding the finer details. I am very careful not to change the colors or values set up in the previous step because if I do, I end up "chasing" the continually changing light, value and color, which can result in a muddy, unfinished painting.

As the painting evolves, I make color adjustments to prevent certain areas from looking too flat or homogenous. I closely observe the scene to understand which edges need to be softened. In this case, water will obviously feel softer than the hard rocky surface.

Sea Bowl, Pacifica

The view from the Sea Bowl parking just off of highway 1 in Pacifica.

Conservatory of Flowers & Ocean Beach

Two more gouache paintings from Thursday & today. First painting is the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park. Second painting of Ocean Beach in San Francisco.

Lands End, February

This is last Friday's plein air painting at Lands End on a warm and clear day that changed from haze to sunshine.

Monterey Cypress, Point Lobos, SF

Wednesday's plein air painting of a Monterey Cypress tree around the Point Lobos area of SF.

1st Plein Air, 2010

Thursday I was my first plein Air painting of 2010. With all the rain predicted for the next week I decided to seize the moment and get out to the coast. This is painted just off the El Camino Del Mar trail overlook.

Hello Marin Headlands

Hello Marin Headlands. My view from Tuesday's plein air outing on the San Francisco coast.

Rocky Coast

Yesterday's painting off the Fort Miley trail.

Sutro Baths Ruins

Yesterdays plein air painting. What beautiful warm weather we are having here in the bay area. If I didn't know any better I would say it was summer. I actually broke a sweat standing in the sun while painting this, climate change I guess.

Warm Day at the Coast

Another beautiful warm day at the SF coast, I just had to go painting.

Foggy Coast

Sunday's foggy coast painting at the Point Lobos lookout in SF. I feel I have been spoiled over the last week painting outdoors with sunny and warm temperatures in SF. The sun and blue sky never really emerged on this day, however it was nice to paint with a few friends and have lunch afterward.

Sutro Baths

A mid morning painting at the base of Sutro Baths. Played a game of dodge with the sun while while half way through painting this one.

Landscapes in SF

Paintings from Thursday and Friday in warm sunny SF... sort of. It's some what rare to have 70 plus degree days at the beach so Thursday I went to do just that. Painted with a friend near the Cliff House by Ocean beach, what a beautiful afternoon it was.


Friday I was able to get in two paintings. The first was in the late morning at the water lily pond in the botanical gardens of golden gate park. I went painting with the same friend from Thursday and another friend who joined us. We all happen to be classmates and again the weather was great for SF. After lunch we headed out to paint another location in golden gate park. We ended up at Stowe lake and the fog rolled roll in on us, thus ended the warm sunny weather.