Fog Over San Francisco

I'm fascinated with the fog and how to capture it with my watercolor painting. The fog gathers on the California Pacific coast and builds up so that it pours over the hills of Marin, over and under the Golden Gate Bridge and finally into the city. There are areas on the Bay known as 'banana belts' where the fog only reaches as a last resort. The sun continues to shine and the sail boats are out. Tiburon California is a 'banana belt' and sailing continues as the fog moves across the Bay.
I tried to put such a scene together in this painting with the boats and houses in the foreground in sunlight and the fog just starting to roll over the headlands of Marin.

Brrr

Got home from a week with friends in warm Palm Desert and got a bug, virus or something. Shaking chills for a couple of days. Maybe it influenced my subject matter but this is a cold snowy scene. It is the kind of place I avoid because I hate being cold. Spent many winters in the cold northeast, so I've paid my dues and crave warm.
This painting is a total mind picture with the light staged 3/4 left. It reminds me of skiing in Colorado or Austria. I used to love those snow fields and broad trails but have not done it for awhile. When I think back now, I really liked getting out of my ski boots and getting warm; orgasmic.

San Francisco Summer

Next May marks the 75th anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge. I love painting it from the Sausalito side and looking up from underneath at Fort Baker. Summer in San Francisco has a lot of fog which rolls in off the Pacific Ocean and eventually occludes the Golden Gate. It is pretty much a daily occurrence. The bridge and city are scoured and cleansed so that it can sparkle. There is a small light house under the bridge which I put in this painting. While the breaking fog covers the bridge and city, the east side of the bay including Sausalito, Tiburon, etc are spared until the very end.

Some Still Life Painting

Spent a couple of Friday mornings painting at the Senior Center Watercolor Class. I do not usually get excited with still life but wanted to help out . This first one was a flower pot next to a Kleenex box with some limes in a dish. The scale is right (three different sizes) but have to question the unity of the composition. I guess anything goes when painting a still life. I remember many paintings with pomegranates and fish pairings in the European galleries.

The other still life painting was a grouping of organic vegies. (In Davis, organic is preferred.) This was a quick 20 minute painting. The lighting is poor at the center with overhead fluorescent bulbs. I had to create some shadows in order to sit the items on the table.

Sunny but Windy on the Backroads

It was a cold, windy morning last Wednesday but I was out painting first thing. Found some trees to get behind. I think that wind is the single most difficult element to deal with when painting plein air.
The structure is the Plainfield Station. It was once a fire station and now serves up burgers and soups...pretty good. There are some rousing parties there and the bikers love the place. It is on the backroads of Davis.

WELCOME

I have not blogged for the past month. Lots of travels, some computer glitches and other priorities. I have been painting and they have accumulated so I will post some this month. I'm on my Davis patch on the west coast. There is quite the contrast with life on Cape Cod. The tempo here is much more upbeat with students buzzing around and keeping the downtown busy. It feels energizing compared with the slow shuffle of the Cape. Both places work for me but I do like to be warm, so this is right for me now.

Cat Boat Under Sail

My preoccupation with Cape Cod Cat Boats had me sketching out different sized ones. I used Google to find a dealer who had pictures and specs on several models of boats. We have only the larger ones moored out on the river.
This is from a sketch of a small cat boat and I imagined the feel of sailing by the fish shack. When I sail small boats, the pilings and wharfs seem so daunting and overwhelming. That is what I was aiming for in this painting.