Plein Air Painting at Pt. Arena

 Here are a couple of small paintings I did last week off the cliffs at Pt. Arena, near the lighthouse. I used a limited palette suggested by Terry Miura, not much more than this:

ultramarine, ivory black, cad yellow light/lemon pale (I can't read the tube anymore), cad red light, transparent red oxide (he calls it magic brown...), white, cerulean, and yellow ochre

I decided to limit the colors I use for a while, although I am going to play with Sarback's colors this summer. I'm thinking that using her method of underpainting warms and cools will work for a number of things.

The day I was painting the lighthouse, the wind was blowing so fiercely, that I taped and tied and bungee'd everything down, and started roughing in the composition. Jim stayed in the car to read where it was warm (don't blame him). After about 40-50 minutes, I had the "bones" but realized that the wind was so strong, I couldn't keep my hand steady, so I packed up my kit, and took my frozen fingers back to the cabin, and painted on the sheltered porch. It's amazying what a row of cypress as a windbrake can do for temperature and wind speed!

I am going to pick a day this week and set up my paints for another session. Might also try to drop by an open studio and do some figure painting as well.