California Hills

California Hills

8x10 original oil painting
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I find painting pure landscape paintings similar to painting abstract paintings.  The lost and found edges are very important to define shapes that suggest a tree, a cloud or a path.  I took Randy Sexton's plein air workshop this summer and he talked about lost and found edges and manipulating your brush to create a variety of edges. While I was working on the painting above, I kept concentrating on the way I was handling the brush.

Eucalyptus 4, Woodside

Eucalyptus 4, Woodside

8x10 original oil painting

There are more than 700 species of Eucalyptus, but only 15 species occur outside of Australia. In the 1850s, Eucalyptus trees were introduced to California by Australians during the California Gold Rush. It was hoped that they would provide a renewable source of timber for construction and railroad ties. The wood was found to be unsuitable, so instead Eucalyptus trees were used as wind breaks in many rural areas.

My painting shows a Eucalyptus grove off of Canada Road.  I was attracted to the white bark on the tree contrasting with the dark trees in the background.

Eucalyptus 3, Woodside

Eucalyptus 3, Woodside

8x10 original oil painting

The leaves on the trees are changing to fall colors.  Yesterday we were watching the first storm of the season strip away the bark from the Eucalyptus trees in our front yard to reveal intense yellows, browns and green colored trunks.

Stanford Hills 2

Stanford Hills 2

8x10 original oil painting

The landscape surrounding Stanford is rolling hills and open space with ever changing colors.  As we're approaching winter, the golden hills are beginning to turn green. 

On my palette, I have seven basic colors of paint, plus white.  As I was creating this painting I was amazed at the subtle variations created from these eight colors of paint.

Pacific Heights, San Francisco

Pacific Heights, San Francisco

8x10 original oil painting

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Pacific Heights is located in one of the most scenic settings in Northern California with spectacular views of the San Francisco Bay, Golden Gate Bridge and the Presidio. It's an affluent neighborhood characterized by painted Victorians and mansions that were largely built after the 1906 earthquake.

I captured this view on one of those perfect afternoons when the Golden Gate was free of fog and the Marin headlands seemed so close across a glistening bay. I'm sure it was days like this that made Pacific Heights attractive to the builders of these beautiful houses.

Market Street, San Francisco

Market Street, San Francisco

8x10 original oil painting

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 I've always liked to paint architecture.  Josef Woodard of the LA Times described my paintings of Ventura as "townscapes."  Following in that tradition, I've painted a cityscape of San Francisco, looking down Market Street at the Ferry Building on the Embarcadero.

I'm attracted to the shapes and colors in architecture and the abstract juxtapositions.  I like the long shadows that tall buildings cast in the city.  With buildings of different heights, the sun can peek through in different areas. 

Cable Car on Hyde Street

Cable Car, San Francisco

8x10 original oil painting

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I feel lucky to live so close to San Francisco.  Over the weekend we went with friends to the ACT Theater to see the play "Scapin".  The evening was warm and when we left the theater at about 10:15 pm, the streets were filled with people.  I was inspired to paint a street scene of San Francisco.

In this view you can see the Hyde Street cable car with Alcatraz and Angel Island in the distance.  It was a clear warm day with views across the bay.

Capitola Beach

Capitola Beach 2

8x10, original oil painting

The end of summer brings warm, sunny weather to the California Coast.  Sometimes September and October are the hottest months of the year, but the days are shorter and the sun shifts lower in the sky, bringing more dramatic shadows along with it.

Capitola Beach is located along the Monterey Bay, just South of Santa Cruz.  The town hugs the coastline with shops and Spanish-style homes that date back to the 1920s.

My painting shows Capitola Beach on a warm, sunny weekend, when everyone was at the beach.

Alice Waters' Hens

Strutting Hen, Soul Food Farm

8x10, original oil painting

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Last weekend we visited Soul Food Farm in Vacaville with our friends Jim and Anita.  Soul Food Farm supplies eggs for Chez Panisse Restaurant in Berkeley.  If you're not familiar with Alice Waters, she founded Chez Panisse Restaurant in 1971 with the philosophy that the best-tasting food is organically and locally grown.

We stopped at Soul Food Farm to buy fresh eggs and support the local farmers. They have seven different breeds of laying hens that commingle on the farm in Vacaville. The chickens have a good life, they roam acres of beautiful pasture every day, foraging for bugs and laying eggs.

I decided to take photos and paint chickens.  The color of the hens are variations of earth tones, browns, rust, oranges and black. Above is a painting of one of the hens, strutting around the field.

VW Van, Santa Cruz

VW Van, Santa Cruz

8x10 original oil painting

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As unusual as it may seem, a VW van in front of a Victorian house is a common image in beach communities of California.  The Pacific Ocean seems to attract these classic vehicles.  For five decades they've been hauling surfers and their gear to the beach.  Just as the shoreline attracts people today, much of the Victorian building boom occurred in coastal communities in the early 1900s.

I was attracted to this yellow house on Broadway Street by the queen palm tree. The queen palm is ubiquitous in California beach communities from Southern California to Santa Cruz, but rare on the Peninsula. It's a soft flowing graceful palm tree, whose undulations in the wind, seem to mimic the surf nearby.

Summer Vines, Fogarty Vineyards & Winery

Summer Vines, Fogarty Vineyards and Winery

8x10, original oil painting

Fogarty Vineyards and Winery is located high in the Santa Cruz Mountains overlooking Silicon Valley.  As you enter the winery, off to the right you will see the Portola Springs Vineyard, which is the view captured in my painting.

The Portola Springs Vineyard is the steepest and most extreme site on the property.  The vineyard produces the grapes for the Fogarty Chardonnay wines.  When I created the painting, the vines were leafing out, but the grapes were immature.  The grass between the rows was beginning to turn a golden color.  The shale and sandstone soil conditions and extreme exposure, lead to some of the most unique and intriguing wines made at Fogarty Vineyards and Winery.

The winery was established as a commercial venture in 1981 by Dr. Thomas Fogarty, Professor of Surgery at Stanford University Medical Center.  While working as a surgeon Dr. Fogarty helped a colleague with winemaking. His interest blossomed and he later purchased acreage in the Santa Cruz Mountains and planted his first vines in 1978. The estate now consists of 325 acres, 25 of which are under vine.

Eucalyptus, Woodside

Eucalyptus, Woodside

8x10, original oil painting

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The variety of colors in Eucalpytus trees make them interesting to paint.  The Eucalpytus tree in my painting, has a light gray-brown colored trunk with red, yellow and blue tones in the peeling bark.  The immature leaves are rounded in shape and a cool blue color, while the mature leaves are elongated and a warm green tone.  As the leaves age they change to a translucent red-orange color.  Nature creates all the beautiful color, I just have to be observant.

Fog at Pebble Beach

Fog at Pebble Beach

8x10, original oil painting
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I do not like to paint in the fog, but the colors of the sky and ocean are beautiful variations of gray. I painted "Fog at Pebble Beach" while I was attending a plein air workshop.  The fog didn't lift all day.  The ocean was a calm, steel-blue gray, which contrasted with the hot pink ice plant on the cliffs.  In the background are the distinctive Cypress Trees that line 17-Mile Drive in Pebble Beach.

Summer at the Beach, Santa Cruz

Summer at the Beach, Santa Cruz

6"x8" original oil painting

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On the weekends my husband and I go to the beach in Santa Cruz.  While Craig surfs, I paint, draw, photograph and watch the surfers.  We go to the Hook, off 41st Avenue, near Capitola.

In the winter, the surf gets big and powerful, but in the summer the surf is usually small and glassy.  The steep cliffs lead down to the beach, where the summer sunbathers hang out.  This painting is the view from the cliff, overlooking the beach.

Eucalyptus Trees

Eucalyptus 2, Woodside

8x10, original oil painting

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My husband and I moved to Woodside last November.  We're living in a semi-rural area between San Francisco and San Jose.  We love the neighborhood and I've been inspired to paint Eucalyptus trees, because they are everywhere.  I'm posting one of my recent paintings.