I spent Thursday painting a couple watercolors at China Camp with the Marin County Watercolor Society. What a lovely group! The morning started out all grey with a heavy mist and ended up a mixture of sun and clouds. I worked on the same scene twice from under the shelter of a covered porch at the little store. The second time to simplify the work I’d done in the first. I moved out to a better view of my scene as the weather cleared. Oh there were extraordinary clouds that day! After a while, I noticed a photographer making his way down the beach with an extraordinary lens on his camera. Obviously some pro equipment. When he came back toward my station I gave him one of my chips and asked if he’d send me a copy of the photograph if I was in it. He very kindly agreed to do so and offered to take another from close by. Here you see the two photos he sent. His name is Rick Pringle who turns out to be quite a nice guy.

Squid at Board of Supervisors

I just removed my watercolor painting “Squid” from an exhibition. The painting hung just at the entrance to the offices of the Marin County Board of Supervisors. The offices are located in a beautiful building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

One Man Show -- One Night Stand

I took 16 paintings and a pile of small prints over to San Rafael tonight. Bente Licht from Riley Street Art Supply invited me to exhibit for a single night as part of the San Rafael Second Friday Art Walk. They had live music, a feast of finger food and some pretty good wine. Not many people showed up because we had a bit of (much needed) rain all through the evening. I had a good time though and the Riley Street gang was great; the musicians "Diamond Ortiz" were a lot of fun to listen to. And hey, I sold one of my prints!

Rodeo Beach

I’ve painted at Rodeo Beach before but only on the north end. I got an email from Ed Terpening that he would be painting at the South end of the beach painting on Saturday with two other painters. So I packed up and headed out. I had seen a picture of his looking out over Bird Rock from up high on the trails so I thought that’s where they’d be. I found them down on the beach instead. The tide was coming in and Ed staked out a place by the rocky outcroppings that tumble into the ocean to the north. I turned to face the south and saw a couple of surfcasters with high bluffs behind them. The land rose above them like an immense wall not yet illuminated by the morning sun. As we passed noon the grasses that lined the rim caught more and more light. Eventually it skimmed down the surface catching turf on the wall that stuck out just enough to grow some vegetation. Waves lapped at the lower right with emerald water but the fishermen packed out to go watch the SuperBowl. I didn’t have a camera to catch them so they never got beyond a small scribble to show their scale and location, and a spot of color. That got wiped out in favor of pure landscape.