Thursday, January 24, 2019

Rain and Sun

After a spell of decent rain, with no major catastrophes attached to it, everything is greening up beautifully. Went to San Marcos Reserve to paint the view - the Channel Islands were clear, the ocean bright and the sky blue. The green of the new grass was intense - cadmium green out of the tube.


san marcos preserve, oil on panel, 6"x10"

A few notes: I generally work on site for about 3 hours - enough time to find a spot, set up and start to paint. I try to sight-size - work with the scale of what I am seeing. Working directly outside I see the colors, the light and the atmosphere, feel the conditions and the ground under my feet. A photograph doesn't do that. I more often than not finish a painting in one session, working relatively small and quickly.
I have on occasion gone back to a spot at the same time the following day, given the weather is the same as well. But that doesn't happen too often.
I do take photographs, in case something just doesn't work, but it's a poor substitute for the immediacy of painting in the moment.




Here's the next week's effort, looking back at the mountains from a different path.


san marcos preserve, oil on panel, 6"x12"

I did work on this one at home a bit, putting a blue wash over the back mountains, to push them back in the space.





Monday, January 14, 2019

Santa Barbara City Hall

Just a reminder to stop by and see the exhibit of "The River's Journey:Revisited"
at the Santa Barbara City Hall. The building is on the corner of De la Guerra/Anacapa/De la Guerra Plaza. It's a great installation of new work and work from the Wildling show that gives the narrative of our watershed.
The exhibit will be up through March. Work is available for sale through the individual artists as the City Hall folks don't want to act as a commercial Gallery.
All my works from that show are here with purchase information.

Grouped in loose categories - fauna and flora, human intervention (often combined with nature) and structures.


A murder of crows, 3"x5" gouache  $450
We were checking out the White Rock day use area and this group of crows were perching on the concrete pilings that mark out the areas. It looked like a good meeting place. I don't know why a group of crows is called a 'murder' - maybe they're up to something no good.



Small fry, 2 1/2"x4" gouache  $400
When we discovered the Fish Passage at Salsipuedes Creek, we found a beautiful, hidden micro-environment. The creek was running, there were wildflowers, birds, frogs, turtles, tiny fish (maybe steelhead?) - it was truly magical and peaceful. Looking in the clear water, a streak of sunshine illuminated water plants of all kinds and this small fish holding steady in the current.

Succotash, 3"x6" gouache $450
Driving along Santa Rosa road we realized that most if not all of that area is dedicated to agriculture - an incredibly fertile area along the meander of the Santa Ynez riverVineyards, fields of an astonishing assortment of crops, orchards and grazing animals. This field of lima beans (a historic crop in the area) had rows of corn planted between each field. 
The Jolly Green Giant would be pleased.




Flowers and bees, 4"x4" gouache  $475
Another area that takes your breath away - the flower fields in Lompoc. We 'off-roaded' a bit and found this area filled with rows of commercially planted Stocks surrounded by wild growing flowering mustard, and stacks of bee-hives. This is what bee heaven must look like.



Hwy 246 bridge, 3"x5" gouache  $450
Driving over the river on hwy 246 toward La Purisima Mission, you can see where the Santa Ynez enters the Lompoc Valley. This was in spring, just starting to get some flow down the normally dry riverbed.



Weir house, Juncal Dam, 4"x4" gouache  $475
Back in the early part of our journey, we had a field trip back to Jameson Lake courtesy of the Montecito Water District. The water was so low, they were pumping through temporary pipes from the bottom of the reservoir. The weir house has all the measuring instruments for flow release.
I believe that this structure was spared by the Thomas fire, while other historic building were lost.



Devil's Canyon Weir, 3"x3" gouache  $400
On another field trip early on, we toured Gibraltar Dam courtesy of the Santa Barbara Public Works Office. it was a hot dry day and we were hiking all around the area. this is an old weir structure meant to regulate flow of water coming from Devil's Canyon. One had to really use their powers of imagination to think that any amount of water would ever come through there. I loved it for being so not technical - it looked more like a Michael Heizer sculpture installation from the 70's.



Equipment Shed, Gibraltar Dam 4"x6" gouache  $500
Struck as I am by small buildings and structures, this little shed, perched on the edge of the dam and gleaming white, caught my attention. It contains measuring equipment and instruments for water levels and other information. The low-level lake is visible behind. this dam is automated, but also fully operational manually - amazing to see the mechanisms for this.




Oak tree, Cachuma lake 10"x10" oil on canvas  $750
The Rose Compass gals had a camping trip to Cachuma lake, staying in one of the yurts. That was a fun excursion - we took a pontoon boat out for a tour, hiked around, had great meals and of course painted. it was a dry Fall and the lake was still pretty low. The whole area below the oak tree would normally be under water. The evening clouded up and mostly obscured the full moon.



Estuary, Lompoc 10"x10" oil on canvas  $750
A blustery day at the mouth of the Santa Ynez river just as it reaches Ocean Beach Park. There are a myriad of sea birds that flock here - ducks, gulls, sand birds and local wild birds. We came the earliest day we could after a big storm to see if the river broke through to the sea. Low coastal clouds were billowing up the distant fields and across Vandenberg AFB.
This was a small flock of coots, actually called a "cover of coots" and a nice contrast to first painting in this group.


For information about purchasing any of these works, send an email to the address listed at the top right of the page
All gouache pieces are done on archival Arches watercolor board and framed in neutral grey Nielson frames, with UV museum plexiglass. 
The oil paintings are also framed, using natural wood floating frames.

Saturday, January 12, 2019

New Year painting

The first paint-out of 2019 was with the California Art Club at the old Wilcox property (now known as the Douglas Family Preserve). It was a blustery day, but many intrepid painters came out and made an effort. This was on Saturday, the 5th of January.
Grey clouds, beautiful skies changing as you watched made you work fast to try and capture the fleeting moment.




stormy day at wilcox, 8"x10" oil on panel


We enjoyed the day and decided to come back the following Monday, after one storm and before the next one hit. Same problem of changing clouds every time you looked up.



cloud view from Wilcox, 8"x8"

I've been using the rainy days to set up my new studio - it's a huge job, going through everything, sorting and finding a place to store things, while making a usable work-space.

The "Rose-Compass, Paintings of the Santa Barbara Watershed" exhibition opened at the Westmont Ridley-Tree Museum. We had a great turnout and the show looks really good - new work with some pieces that I haven't had an opportunity to show yet.



winter on the santa barbara coast

We've been finding some new (to us) places to paint for our Monday plein-air sessions. Stopping at some turn-outs on Faren Road, you get a gorgeous view of the coast below, the mountains and fields all around. In late November and December 2018 - between the holidays - we worked mornings most days, then tried an afternoon with low, strong sun on the water.
We could see the change week by week after the first small storm that greened everything up. It was amazing what a little rain could do.


hidden canyon, Faren road, 8"x8" oil on panel




first greening, Faren road, 6"x12" oil on panel



canyon view, Faren road, 8"x10" oil on panel



late afternoon sun, Faren road, 6"x12" oil on panel



Thursday, January 3, 2019

Rose Compass 2019

Beautiful, clear, sunny and cold - winter in Santa Barbara. Holidays always tend to put painting on hold, but now it's time to catch up and jump in.

Opening at Westmont's Ridley-Tree Museum of Art on Thursday, January 10 will be the last iteration of the Rose Compass project. 
Rose Compass: Paintings of Santa Barbaras Watershed
We will be part of a larger exhibition called "Watershed: Contemporary Landscape Photography". 
In this, our 8th year of drought, we feel the message about our watershed is more important than ever. We hope to bring awareness to the public of just how precious a commodity our water is.

I'll be showing 12 gouaches from our Santa Ynez river watershed series, several of them never shown before:




low lake strata, 4"x3" ($450)
this is the very first gouache I did for the 'River's Journey' project, from our first outing to Cachuma Lake in 2016 during one of the lowest points of the drought.



Bradbury dam, low water  3"x4" ($450)
this is the second gouache from that same outing. we are still at about 31% capacity for the lake.



high water mark, 3 1/2"x5" ($450)
sign posted at the Live Oak camp crossing to the equestrian area. 1998 was a real flood year, and today we are far below normal.



dam keepers shack, 4"x4" ($475)
from our first excursion to Jameson Lake and Juncal Dam. This was the original structure used by the Dam tender, way back when. It was burned in the Thomas Fire.



pool and pipeline, 3"x4" ($450)
at the very bottom of the old dam, there was a white PVC pipe rigged up to get water from the bottom of the lake - the water was so low, it couldn't reach the normal release area. In order to keep water moving through the weir, they had to use this temporary system. This was Montecito's main water source! People in the community had no idea how tenuous this was.



Gibraltar Dam from Camino Cielo, 4 1/2"x3" ($450)
snuggled down in the canyon, the second dam in the system is highly sedimented. The Santa Ynez mountains stretch off in the distance.


quonset hut, Gibraltar Dam 4"x4" ($475)
we were lucky to get a field trip to visit the dam up close and personal, thanks to Rebecca Bjork the head of Public Works in Santa Barbara. This is the visitor's quarters for researchers and other personnel that monitor the dam.



river shack, Santa Ynez 6"x4" ($500)
exploring along the river, we came upon a ranch that seems to have access only across the river when it is low (which is most of the time). I was struck by the variety of trees planted here - including the large palm.



river rubble 3"x4 1/2" ($450)
rambling around in the Santa Ynez river bottom, near the 101 hwy bridge, we found only a few puddles. This one was near some old construction detritus, that reminded me of ancient remnants from another time.

The last three images are all of the fish passages that are installed along the River to help the Native Steelhead find their way upstream to spawn (if we ever have enough water again for that to happen). These were installed and supported by various agencies including CA Fish and Game.



Hilton Creek fish passage, 4"x6" ($500)
this is just below Bradbury Dam, on Federal Bureau of Reclamation land so we had a special tour with the manager of the Dam. Water is systematically released from Cachuma Lake and diverted through this outlet to keep Hilton Creek alive and the fish population from disappearing.




Jalama Road/Hwy 1 Fish Passage, 4"x6" ($500)
this structure was built nearly underneath the bridge of the road that goes to Jalama Beach. It directs water from Salsipuedes Creek - a tributary of the Santa Ynez river. We hiked down a hillside of poison oak to get to it and found a truly magical spot - shady, cool, full of wildflowers and plants, tadpoles and tiny fish. Steelhead can travel up one level to the next as they make their way upstream to spawn.



Hwy 1 fish passage, 6"x4" ($500)
just a short ways downstream from the Jalama passage, we found this structure, also keeping water moving from Salsipuedes Creek. It was a steep hike down, but worth it to see how the passage worked. It was fascinating to see the blend of human-constructed forms in the natural river and the attempts to support what little fish population remains.

All works are matted and framed with museum quality plexiglass and are available for sale. Prices are shown in parentheses above.

The River's Journey: Revisited is also still on view in the Santa Barbara City Hall Gallery, downtown Santa Barbara at De la Guerra Plaza.