Napa River Mouth, 8 x 10 inches, pastel.

Jessie's Grove Barn, 10 x 10 inches, oil.

Kim Fancher and I went out to Lodi to paint antique barns for a show at the Knowlton Gallery. Hey, sometimes the magic works-I like this one! It embodies the odd combination of freshness and precision that comes with plein air painting.

Carmel Dunes in the Morning, 18 x 24 inches, pastel.

This is a painting I did outdoors two years ago--reworked. I took it out last week and worked it over again, changing the format, cropping the base of the painting and enhancing the color. I am quite pleased with the result. It was too large a canvas to finish successfully outdoors. Sometimes that works, but sometimes the light just changes to fast to keep up.

Strawberries, detail of larger work, 16 x 20 inches, pastel.

I did this painting for a demonstration of few weeks ago for Artists by the Bay in San Mateo.
The painting, sadly, did not get completed. However, the small bits of cool blue really made the painting sparkle--without them, the strawberries looked dull and flat. That is a take home lesson that I can really live with, even though I did not get to finish the painting.

Whaler's Cove in Point Lobos, 10 x 10 inches, oil.

This lovely day had a strange natural history event in it. This lovely water was filled with 5 inch wide jellyfish--many schools of them.

Yay! Barak Obama!

Happy Inauguration Day!

Carmel Beach

Cypress on Carmel Beach, 12 x 16 inches, oil.

Here is a plein air sketch in impressionist brushwork from a lovely day on Carmel Beach last week. I will repost it soon, with before and after pictures--I have been working on it in the studio.

Delta Morning

Delta Morning, 20 x 20 inches, oil.

Here is even more impressionism for my readers. I am still working on infusing my painting with impressionist shimmer.

Pastel sketch of Maggie

Sketch of Maggie, about 12 x 16 inches, pastel.

Some friends and I are sharing the cost of a model about twice/month--this is a sketch that I thought was very nice and even though unfinished captured the sense of the person very well.

In the Marshes

In the Marshes, 18 x 18 inches, pastel.

This painting is an enlargement of a small 5 x 5 oil painting I did a month or two ago. You can see that I am using the speckled technique that I have been intrigued with lately. I like the little flecks of color scattered judiciously over the surface, but worry that I am overdoing it. The foreground of the painting is still unresolved...I am going to leave it up on the wall for a while. Usually a solution suggests itself to me after a few days of gestation.