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.