Last week I visited my brother who lives in Berkeley, California and did some painting while there. I joined my sister-in-law who is taking a watercolor class and painted with the group at the Berkeley Marina. I liked the calmness of the water in the foreground contrasted against the visual busyness of the boats in the marina. I also liked that vantage point best due to the fogbank and distant Berkeley Hills behind the marina boats. I wanted to show that atmosphere in my painting. I was close to being finished with the painting when the owner of the Endurance went on board and was preparing the boat to leave. He saw me on the shore and asked if I was painting his boat and left his boat and walked over with his old dog to see the painting. The boat owner said Endurance has been docked there in that one spot for 25 years and he was thrilled to see a painting of his boat.
Afternoon in John Muir's Plum Orchard, 9" x 12"
One afternoon we took a drive to Martinez, located about an hour east of the Bay Area, to visit the John Muir Historic Site where John Muir's home is located. We toured John Muir's home, his fruit orchards and the Martinez adobe home. The rangers said we were welcome to eat any fruit fallen from the trees. The apricots and plums were getting ripe so we easily ate our entry fee's worth of delicious tree-ripened fruit. The late afternoon light was beautiful the way it lit up the trees and I went back and forth trying to decide whether to paint apricot or plum orchards. I decided on the plum orchard because I really liked the sidelighting on the trees from the afternoon sun. The trees were closer together and the backdrop of the dark trees and hillside behind the orchard helped made the lighting on the trees stand out in a nice contrast. I set up my easel to paint in the cast shade beneath a sequoia tree that John Muir had personally planted about 100 years ago. The combination of experiences like this really make me love painting outdoors.
Morning and Old Boat, Tomales Bay 9" x 12"
Over the weekend we went to Point Reyes National Seashore which is about an hour north of Berkeley. We stayed at a B&B called Dancing Coyote Beach which was in Inverness, on Tomales Bay. We arrived as the sun was setting and if I had the time and light I could have painted a painting in every direction. I slipped out at dawn while everyone else was asleep and walked around by the bay taking photos and trying to decide what to paint. The water was very calm and the sun was just starting to come up over the hills across the bay and I knew I wanted to paint the water and hills. I stayed here more than 5 years ago and the decrepit boat was grounded on the beach back then. It looked a bit worse now so I decided to paint the boat with the water and hills since I'm sure it has a story and history behind it. The part of the boat facing me was entirely in shadow and as I painted, the sun got higher in the sky and started to reflect the color of the hills into the water. The tide was going out leaving mud along the banks, and the wind started to pick up and riffle the water, losing the reflections. I found the constantly changing conditions made this painting very challenging and had to rely on the dark/light shapes I painted in initially and the thumbnail sketch I did to remember the light and shadow areas which had completely changed by the time I finished.
I had a wonderful time visiting my brother and his family and came home with several paintings and the experience of painting something entirely different from my usual south Florida landscapes.
