While spending a week soaking up the sun, making new friends and eating sparsely from my ice chest, I also painted at the San Onofre surf beach. I want to share one of the images here called “Two for the Show.” When I asked Jack, my VW man what year the red bus was, he says “Its obviously a 71, you got it all there.” The blue one is mine, which is a 77. Fun times spent at San Onofre.
|
So the theme of the week is San Onofre. Here Is a collection of what’s been happening so far for the Paint San Clemente event. I’ll tighten the bus painting soon. Here is a collection of some more photos of the beautiful California that I live in. It is truly a wonderful part of the world to live in. Most people only get to visit. 
So, on Friday (June 19th) I will be leaving the daily grind to be a gypsy artist for a week. I will take my newly gesso-ed birch panels with me to San Onofre Beach where it will be my outpost for the week. San Clemente hosts a week long Plein Air competition and I will be taking the entire week to get some sun and painting done. I always look forward to my little trips about once a year… usually alone. It is a necessary thing for me to be in solitude. Distance from the stuff of daily life has a way of giving a new perspective. Interestingly, Saturday evening will be Summer Solstice. I do not necessarily “celebrate” this, but it offers a reminder that seasons do change and life goes on even after drastic life changes happen to us. There are these threshold moments in our lives that we can look back on and see where everything became different. We can not prepare for everything that lies in the path of our future, but we can know that the trail that we have been on so far has brought us to where we are now. My artist friend Michael Pearce has a spool of shoelace material. Stitched into the lace is the word “Solitude” which is a word that I cherish. It is idealistic of me to think that I can have solitude in the chaos of my life, but I try to be reminded of its value. In the book “The Way of the Heart” Henri Nouwen has an entire chapter talking of the importance of solitude in our busy lives. It is a way to spiritually re-charge. It is infact the first step on a path that he describes as the way of the heart. (the next steps are silence and prayer) Of solitude he says “Solitude is the furnace of transformation.” He goes on to say in another book “In solitude we discover that life is not a possession to be defended, but a gift to be shared.” It is there, in solitude that I do recharge my gift. I am able to go back to the daily life of family, work, community and share the gift of life. I am truly looking forward to filling up with grace and the suns vitamin D boost as I paint along the coast next week.
Ah water! I love the sea. There is something superbly wonderful and beautiful about water. Not only is it relaxing and peaceful to be near, it also symbolizes the spirit moving in us and through us. My favorite place to paint is when I am standing at the edge of the ocean. It is a moving experience to gaze into the far horizon – beyond the waves – knowing that the love of God reaches far beyond that… and in the darkest hours, we can rest assured that there are harbors of safety to enter when we find ourselves on troubled water. I am glad to be near the ocean when I can. It is when we take our first steps into the ocean that we begin our move into deeper waters. Walking along that edge is a metaphor for that threshold-of our-outer-life that we experience with others, and the inner-spiritual-life — one that is harder to perceive, but has a depth and mystery and a reality that is pure and unavoidable none-the-less. Last weekend, while my wife, who does not swim in the ocean, watched from the distant shore as I swam free in the waves of San Onofre Beach… and in that freedom, I felt the love of God’s gentle hand lifting me. It is there that I love to paint.. and to be… and to heal.
Walk This Way (16 x 20 – on canvas) – 12.31.2002 $650
I made it to San Onofre this morning. We got there just as the tide was going back out and the surf was getting slightly bigger. I had a lot of fun meeting a lot of the locals today. I had one lady walk up with her pre-teen son and ask “are you somebody famous?” I just smiled and said “soon.” There was a professional surfing photographer that stopped by for a while too. Bob Foster has a dad who was an animator with all of the studios in LA. I asked him if his dad was Walter, and he said that he was his GRAND-father. Pretty cool. Walter Foster helped me in my early days by supplying me with some great starter drawing books. In a big way, those Walter Foster books got me started. What a cool full circle meeting I had today with Bob. Each day I paint, I am learning more. Today’s big revelation was painting the trunks of palm trees. I was reading about how Monet, Seuart, Van Gogh and the rest, were able to mix color not with the brush, but by putting a red spot next to a blue spot. The result is an “optical blend” of purple. I experimented with more of the brush-work that they used to create this effect. The colors I used however, were simply mixed on my palette. Last night was the first Thursday of the month so I went to Laguna Beach’s Art Walk. I met many artists and saw a lot of paintings that I was inspired by. I was introduced to some folks that form the Southern California Plein Air Painters Association as well as the Laguna Plein Air Painters Association and I am thinking about joining both. The So Cal group goes out every Friday and paints and has monthly outings and potlucks. Sounds like a fun group to be with. The Laguna group has some much more well known artists, and do not meet so often, but they host an invitational in Laguna Beach that I want to be part of this summer. Many painters are members of both, so I think I will be too Back to San Onofre today. I saw a few of the same locals I met last week. This set of palm trees sit near the south end of the parking strip. They are this lone clump of palms that have always been watching the surf here. Their spent palm frawns have never been removed from the trunks, so they look like they have these long ZZ Top beards. This is my first beach scene with no beach in it. The ocean lies just to the left of the parked cars. I am really enjoying the simple palette that Ken Auster showed me. It contains Cad Yellow, Alizarin Crimson, Ultramarine Blue. Also Carbon Black and Titanium White. Most of my greens are made from black and yellow. Sometimes there is a touch of blue to cool down the shadows. I met John Eagle at Art Walk and he uses a very bright color palette. I want to do some workshops with him also to get a bit bolder with my colors and spread my wings a little. |
||
|
Copyright © 2010 A Plein Air Life - All Rights Reserved Log in |
||
Recent Comments