Crystal Cove, Ca paint-out

On Thursday, October 16th, the Laguna Plein Air Painters had a paint out with a demo by Armand Cabrera who is an artist in the Laguna Art Museum's 10th Annual Plein Air Invitational. I arrived a little late and wasted no time to run down the beach to set up my easel facing south. Instead of watching the demo, I wanted to paint the subdued morning light. I saw a beautiful arrangement of low light on the last cottage with a point of perspective on the bluff beyond that faded out to a second misty bluff. Over the edge of the bluff was the kiss of light upon it and I was swooned. When I opened up my easle, I realized that I forgot my paints. I ran back towards the demonstration spot and asked Nancy Egan if I could borrow her oils, she was so kind to hand me her tub of Classic Oil Paints. I hadn't tried them yet so I ran back to my place and squeezed out my palette and then ran back to return the paints. I really didn't want to loose that special morning light. I moved very fast to set up the worksketch on the linen canvas. As soon as I was done with my preliminary sketch, the sun came over the bluff and shined on that last brown shake cottage with blue trim. All of that low light was gone. Incidentally, that is the cottage that was used for the set of "Beaches" with Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey. So, I had already put down the shadows in my sketch and lifted out the light areas and I was ready to lay in my colors from memory. I spent three hours on my little 8X10, 1 hour was used to eat my breakfast on the sand and contemplate how I would finish the painting to make it special. I felt a fire in me this day to churn out a beauty. I wanted it to be done alla prima, an 8X10 would be no problem for me. It turned out better than I thought it would in fact. I wondered if it had anything to do with the Classic Oil Paints? They went onto the linen with the ease of a gliding iron, the ending sheen was brilliant. I was excited as I neared the end of the painting. I had to leave to pick up a daughter from high school, so I thought I better not have anything more to do on it when I leave. All went as planned and I even had nice compliments from a Crystal Cove worker plus some visitors. It was a fine day that left me feeling so good to be alive and thankful to be an artist. The title of this little jewel is "Edge of Morning". email me if you would like to purchase one like this for $150.00. I have given this one to my husband, Tom, who fell in love with it. I can paint another but not exactly alike this one. I can place it into a beautiful dark wood plein air frame for another $80.00.