It's been five weeks since the car ran into us (see below for details on that) but I am now able to paint for a while almost every day and that makes this landscape painter smile! Any time spent painting is for me a real good time. I can't yet go stand out in a scene and paint it but it's amazing how resourceful a person can be when driven to do something. I can sit in the car or wander over to a pleasantly placed bench, sketch the scene on canvas, and make some color notations in colored pencil. It works my visual memory to complete the painting in the studio and I do enjoy that. Then whenever I'm stuck I drive back to the spot with the painting to check my work. It feels like a "plein air pop quiz"!

Here are two new painting done mostly that way. The miniature is a view of the beautiful southern California coast and blue Pacific on a picture perfect day this week. The spring break visitors are all gone now and the beaches are less populated. I like that!

The second is my impression of a recent evening when I had a chance to visit a eucalyptus tree grouping surrounding a pool of water. It glistened brilliantly in the sunset light!

"Spring Wave Break", 6 by 8 inches, oil on canvas on panel.

"Eucalyptus Sunset", 9 by 12 inches, oil on canvas.