This landscape painter is really reved up: boxes of stuff are clogging the enry hall! OK, let me explain about the boxes. I've ordered art supplies for summer painting and everything arrived at once. I don't know what it is about having a fresh supply of canvases and paints come to the door but it always feels like my birthday or something. Hard to explain because I do know what is in the boxes ... I ordered the lot:) That said, I get a smile just looking at it all and thinking of paintings yet to be painted. A very nice feeling, indeed!

The heat here is unreal. You leave the house all fresh and step out into - what - a furnace?! E-ooow! It's not conducive to plein air painting out on location, even though I am excited to capture the seasons changing and summer's arrival to San Diego's beautiful back country. That said, this landscape painter just about wilts in a heap at 100 degree plus temperatures out there right at the moment. Yikes!

So it's studio work for now and a chance to work on canvases begun in more agreeable times. And here's a painting, already spoken for, of a location at the edge of the Anza-Borrego desert near where the old Butterfield stage route went in days of old. It'll be about 114 there today... and I'll so NOT be there!

"Scissors Crossing", 11 by 14, oil on canvas.

It's finally happened and that one door has pretty much closed for this California landscape painter: I've been advised not to go standing on my recently refurbished left knee, which I would be if I continued teaching that Friday all-day, Advanced Drawing 6 hour class at the college. Went and cleaned out my storage closet, removed my name tag and photos from its door, shed a tear, and then went to lunch at the really good taco place near campus.

Oh good, I'll have another day to paint, I told myself. I know that I'm just saying that to keep from missing my students. They are the best part of teaching and why I always learn more from them than I give to them by teaching. (They say not, but I really do learn from them.)

But I have to take care of my knee lest the surgeon insists on giving me a bionic knee. Hey, I go to the same physical therapy place as where Tiger Woods worked out in the early morning before the Open!

But back to my true love: landscape painting. I don't know what the other door is that friends tell me will open because the teaching door has closed... but I'm looking;) Meanwhile here's another landscape painting of the hills surrounding Santa Ysabel.

"Oaks on a Roll", 9 by 12 inches, oil on stretched canvas. Available: $375

My muse is back! "Where have you been?" I asked her. She's not talking about it... maybe she was in Vegas...?

So this landscape painter is back at work. Uh, and now the weather is overcast at the coast! Yikes. With gas prices so high I'm trying to consolidate trips to various locations and have specific spots in mind before the trip starts. In the old days of gas prices that started with a $3 I would simply get in the car and wander about looking for something to speak to me. Can't be that wasteful right now... no way I can afford that!

So here's my first post-muse-vacation painting based on a sketch I did a  while back at Lake Skinner. Clear morning light was what I was after:) Hope I got it.

"Lake Skinner Morning", 6 by 8 inches, oil on canvas on panel. Available: $250

This landscape painter's painting muse is on summer break for sure. The paint has dried up on my palette and my brushes stand in the old crockery jars sorted by size looking at me with a blank stare. What's up, they inquire.

I've been at this long enough to recognize a "fallow time" when it's time to take a break. In the early 1990s I had my first large solo show and right after it opened I sat in my studio not knowing what exactly to do. I called my 80-something painter friend, now gone to that great art studio in the sky, and told her what was happening. She simply said, "Even the fields go fallow. It's time to rest."

There's no predicting how long this fallow time will last so I'll clean the studio, go buy a "summer reading" book and just kick back. You can fight nature's way! Ever since the day of the double car crash (details below) in mid-March I must confess that things have been racing along. I'm kind of glad to be having this rest period. Have any recommendations on good summer beach books? Email if you do: justpleinair@hotmail.com

This landscape painter has been in a storm of painting... until this week. Something in the stars or the air just slowed me down to almost a complete halt at the easel. It happens every once in a while: the painting muse goes on vacation, I guess.

Meanwhile, there's finally time to update postings here. Have a lot of new landscape paintings for you to see so here they are.

"Morning Mist", 6 inches by 8 inches, oil on stretched canvas. SOLD

"Trees by The Lake", 9 inches by 12 inches, oil on stretched canvas. SOLD

"Welcome to Borrego", 11 by 14 inches, oil on stretched canvas. SOLD

Summer Sycamores", 6 by 8 inches, Oil on stretched canvas. SOLD

"Ranch Oaks", 11 by 14 inches, oil on stretched canvas. SOLD

"Morning Mist over Oaks", 6 by 8 inches, oil on canvas. SOLD

Uh-oh! Just looked at those titles and there are two "Morning Mist"s. OK, so I'll have to do better writing titles!