The English Garden

May 3, 2012 by Daniel Aldana | Leave a comment

On the visit to “La Casa Pacifica”, I first painted in the colorful vegetable garden, but as the sun came out, I moved over to the more formal, and just as colorful English Garden.

The English Garden 11 x 14, Oil on Linen

 

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The Lettuce Garden

May 2, 2012 by Daniel Aldana | Leave a comment

In preparation for an upcoming garden show, Mr. Herbert, Chairman Emeritus of Allergan, and owner of Roger’s Gardens, arranged for a group of artists to paint on the premises of “La Casa Pacifica”, a mansion located in San Clemente, overlooking the ocean.

The Lettuce Garden, 12 x 16, Oil on Linen.

When Richard Nixon took office, he chose this house as his presidential hideaway.  On the property there are still a few guard houses that were used by the secret service, as well as pressure plates buried beneath the ground.

The day started a little overcast, which can make for slightly more challenging painting, but sometimes makes the colors appear brighter.  On the raised vegetable beds, a kaleidoscope of colored leaves drew my attention.

 

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Baby Painting

April 28, 2012 by Daniel Aldana | Leave a comment

My friend, and “King of Frames,” Randy Higbee is a great guy.  He has a large store (art complex) where I get much of my framing.  He also truly loves art, and is  a supporter of the arts.  He has also been trying to get me to paint some little paintings.  Meanwhile, my interest has been in painting bigger.  Randy can be pretty persuasive though.  The other day, when I went into his gallery, he gave me a few tiny, tiny canvases.

Sycamore Pattern. 4.25 x 6.26 inches. Oil on Linen

Two days  ago, I had a couple of hours to paint, and the weather was a little strange.  The sun would come out for a few minutes, before hiding behind the clouds.  I thought it might be fun to take the little canvases and experiment a little bit.  Sometimes if you force yourself to do something different you grow in other ways.

 

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Roadside Blooms

April 19, 2012 by Daniel Aldana | 1 Comment

The area in North San Diego County near the town of Julian, is very peaceful.  Although I live near the coast, again, I was drawn to the beauty of the foothills for my painting day.  Near the turn off toward Mesa Grande, I saw this large tree, that was beautifully shaped.  in the background, hills with oaks and in the distant background, some houses belonging to the local Native American tribe.

Roadside Blooms, oil on linen 12 x 16 in.

On the way down to the painting location, I focused on the variety of greens in the landscape.  This painting had the danger of becoming “too green”, instead, I differentiated the orange greens of the pasture, the yellow greens of the tree, and the blue-greens of the distant hills.

Posted in Landscape, plein air

Stables

March 30, 2012 by Daniel Aldana | Leave a comment

Highway 78 is a state highway that runs across the state from Oceanside to Blythe, much of the way as a two lane highway.  Outside of Ramona, a small stretch of road that parallels this highway is “Old Julian Road,” dotted by several picturesque horse ranches.

Stables. 12 x 16. Oil on Linen

The dirt path, bright green hills, and beautiful rusty red roof were  beautiful complementary colors that were impossible to resist. Maybe because, the sun was beginning to dip lower, by mid afternoon, when I started this painting, the colors were at their most intense.  I had to be careful to not over-mix the colors, so they maintained their brightness.  Yes, the colors were that intense.


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Watershed

March 29, 2012 by Daniel Aldana | 1 Comment

Near the city of Ramona, there is a pristine valley, Pamo Valley.   This valley is owned by the City of San Diego Water Department, and is fed by the waters of Santa Ysabel Creek, and Temescal Creek.


Watershed 12 x 16. Oil on Linen

From what I could see, there were two structures in the 6 mile long valley, if you include the dairy at the end of the road.  During the entire 3 hours we painted only 3 cars came by the road.  There are few places in Southern California that are quite this peaceful.

Click here for a history of Pamo Valley.


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El Moro Clouds

March 29, 2012 by Daniel Aldana | 1 Comment

After a rainy weekend, I knew that there would be some interesting clouds.  Although, the sun would eventually  come out and make it seem as if it had never rained, my only thought was to paint the clouds.  Painting clouds is a little like painting waves.  The scene is always changing.  So for this painting, I quickly drew out a massive cloud suspended over El Moro, just north of Laguna Beach.

El Moro Clouds 11 x 14. Oil on Linen

The shadows of the clouds made the ground dark. When I finished painting the cloud and moved to the ground plane, however, the sun had shone through, and I had to remember to keep the ground in shadow, rich reds, purple, and green shadows.

The painting progression below. I included photos of the scene before and after I finished just for fun (and to show how drastically the scene changes sometimes)

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Coastal Gathering

March 20, 2012 by Daniel Aldana | 3 Comments

Due perhaps to poor planning, today, there was a lot of driving around before Jim Wodark and I settled on a painting spot.  For those of you who live in parts of the country not blessed with year-round good weather, I apologize to sound like I am complaining.  I realize that there are many places to paint around where I live, but for those of us who have painted dozens of paintings at each spot, sometimes it seems like it gets difficult to get an exciting idea.


Coastal Gathering, Oil on linen 11 x 14

First we headed to Balboa Island, and then crossed over on the Balboa Island Ferry to the Peninsula, then we walked around the historic Pavilion, and explored some public docks on the peninsula.  Then we headed to the boatyard, next to the Newport Pier, before deciding that Laguna beach may have something more interesting.  We explored a great picnic spot with commanding views of the coastal town (off of a cul-de-sac on Pacific Avenue), and finally headed to Heisler Park.  Heisler Park, is a beautiful park in northern laguna, with dramatic cliffs and crashing waves.  Thousands of paintings have been made there (maybe thousands just this year alone, and there are some artists who paint there almost exclusively), we try to avoid this park, we know that we will paint here many, many more times, so we try to space out the visits to keep it interesting.

It was a relief to finally find a space to paint and I really enjoyed the warm sun and cool, ocean breeze.  I started the painting with bright orange paint for the palm trees.  I have been finding that painting fast has its advantages.  Painting fast prevents your eyes from getting a color fatigue; it also allows you to keep your values in order.

For this post I decided to put the “painting progress” separate from the painting (see below)

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Posted in Laguna Beach, plein air, Seascape Tagged |

Outpost

March 16, 2012 by Daniel Aldana | Leave a comment

After painting in Aguanga, I had an Idea that it would be interesting to paint some structures.  I had read that near Warner Springs, was the last remaining station of the Butterfield Overland Mail Stagecoach line (a stopping point in a mail delivery route from St. Louis to California).  We found the old station, but the gate was closed.  Down the road just a bit, however is a historic Civil War camp, Camp Wright, a Union Army outpost that was established to protect the rout to Fort Yuma.  When I think of Civil War history, I don’t immediately think “California”, so it was interesting to read that an actual skirmish took place on this site.  Essentially, in November 1861, a group of 1rst Regiment California Volunteer Cavalry and 1rst California Infantry captured a party of secessionists that were trying to make their way to Texas to join the Confederate Army.  No shots were fired.

Outpost 11x 14, Oil on Linen

I tried painting this old barrack building, (Now maintained by the National Park Service), a few different ways.  All of my sketches included the entire building, but none of the sketches seemed to work, then I asked myself, “what is it that interests you about this scene?”   I realized that I really liked the grass shadows.  So I reworked the composition.  The color of the barracks are a grey brown, but as with all desaturated colors, it is important to make them interesting.  I enjoyed playing with different warm and cool desaturated colors to paint the structure, and then focused on the area of the building with the stairs on the right.  In the end, I wanted to just capture the feeling of warmth on this beautiful late winter day.

Here is a link to more of the camp’s history.

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Agua Tibia Wash

March 15, 2012 by Daniel Aldana | Leave a comment

At the base of the Agua Tibia Mountain, near the intersection of highway 79 and highway 371, there is a three way stop that time forgot.  At that intersection there is a small post office, a general store, and a real estate office.  Across the road, there is a wide desert wash with trees and chaparral.  Several times on my way to some painting location or another over the years I have driven by this stretch of land and have thought that perhaps this would be a good place to paint.  Well, this week, I finally made plans to paint there.

Across the Desert Wash, 12 x 16, Oil on Linen

Early on Tuesday, Eric Bowman, Jim Wodark and I,  headed to the southern border of Riverside County in hopes of some clear skies. We got lucky.  The distant hills were a pale, clear blue, while the nearby shrubs had beautiful reds.

As we were finishing the paintings, a security guard for the nearby California Ranch Mobile homes came by (he had gotten a report that some guys with satellite equipment were on the property..we explained that we just had painting gear and umbrellas), he told us about a hidden canyon farther up the wash, and told us that we should paint there.  Maybe next time.


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Posted in friends, Landscape, plein air