Whale Breach

There are whales that migrate past my home every spring and fall.  This is just a quick representation of one of those whales breaching just outside the town harbor.


Oh, and by the way it come with a video to.  You can check it out here.

Thank you.

Morro Bay from Abalone Shell Beach

Abalone Shell Beach is my name for the beach and not the official name of the beach.  I believe its actually Bluff Park Beach.  I call it Abalone Shell Beach because the beach is made of abalone shells that are probably 10 ft deep or more.  There used to be an abalone cannery that sat at the top of the hill.  What became this beach was the area where they discarded their shells.  As a result they just stacked up and stacked up and stacked up.   Standing on the beach, you can look back at the bluff above you and see several feet of shells above the height of the beach, and looking into the water, the shells stretch as far as you can see into the water.  Its a fantastic place sit.  There are lots of boats tied up there, and I have tried to paint them before.  This is my best effort.  Hope you enjoy.

Smoke Stacks

If you have not been to Morro Bay before, then you probably don't know that there are actually two different thing that dominate our skyline.  The first is, of course, Morro Rock.  The second, which most people think of as an eyesore, are the smoke stacks of the power plant.  Personally, I think that the stacks have been here long enough that if they ever were to go away, people would work hard to find a way to restore them.  I've been working on a way to include them in a painting for a while now.  Well, I finally found one.  I painted this very quickly and loosely.  I think rock came out pretty good, and I even like the bushes in front of it.  I couldn't help but paint someone walking down the road.  All in all, I think its a pretty good representation of what they both actually look like.  Hope you enjoy.

Down on the Embarcadero

Ok, here we go again.  This is a second painting of Giovanni's Market and Gallery.  If you don't remember the first one, you can view it here.  This painting is from the opposite direction and some obvious differences.  

The first real differences is that this painting has all the proper colors.  The previous one was taken from a black and white photo, and I was working from memory on the colors. This one was painted from a color picture and so, all the colors are correct(ish).    I got a bit more ambitious with this one too.  Obviously there are people in the painting, but also there is tile and brickwork, among other things.

I used ink to outline and highlight edges on this painting.  My intent was to not to do that.  I wanted to only use paint to edge the painting, but I couldn't quite keep the lines straight enough, so i had to switch over to pen.  I like how the outlining turned out everywhere except around the main awning.  Oh well, that's how it goes sometime.

Anyway, I had a great time painting this, hope you all enjoy it.

Morro Bay City Limits

Yes, this is Morro Bay.  I know there was some question about what this painting is.  This was painted from a picture taken in Morro Strand.  You actually have the city limit sign with some bushes behind it, and the rock in the background.

The thing I like least about this painting is the sign.  I thought for sure I would like it best when I was drawing it.  As it turned out, painting around all the letters was pretty difficult.  I think I'm getting much better at letting the paint mix on the paper.  If you look at the bush behind the sign, there are lots of different colors, brom yellows to greens, blues and purples.  They all seem to work together to give you the feeling of a huge bush.  and if you look at the ground around the bush, it is blue at the top, which pushes it back, and has a reddish tint on the bottom which serves to pull that area forward.

Hope you all enjoy this.  It was fun to draw and paint.

Two Views of Morro Bay

The first picture is painted from Bayshore Bluff Park in Morro Bay facing north.  The second is from the same position facing south.  The building is the Inn at Morro Bay.  The north facing painting is the first one I did with my new travel pack.  I think it turned out pretty good for the first try.  The south facing painting is only my second.  I think it turned out miles better!