Tag: Channel Islands

Acrylic Painting Chatter

Carpinteria Bluffs

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Another attempt at acrylic painting. This time I used a sheet from a Fredrix linen pad. I gessoed it and then used, initially, the Open medium with the paints, but I didn’t like the way it was working, and so switched to regular matte medium to dilute the paints. I tried to use the paints fairly straight out of the tube, blending with white and matte medium. The result was a fairly thick paint that behaved well.

The Carpinteria Bluffs are located in the southernmost section of Santa Barbara County, just above the border of Ventura County, where I currently live. Carpinteria was home for many years and always enjoy returning, especially in summer when the light shifts and everything has a glow of its own. Eucalyptus trees and other plant life make for a wonderful walk along the cliffs above the Pacific, and across the Santa Barbara Channel are the various islands that make up the Channel Island National Park. This might be San Miguel Island, but I can never remember which one is which!

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Chatter Watercolor

View from the Hills

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The miracle of green always happens in the last of the year and the first of the next when the rains come and new growth begins to emerge in the hills of California.  After months of dry weather and fading landscapes. color erupts almost overnight.  Soon, wildflowers will begin to tinge the hills from green to orange and purple and yellow.  Here, a view from the hills toward the Pacific, with the Channel Islands in view, lost in the coastal fog.

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Chatter Gouache

Anacapa Island

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The Channel Islands off the coast of California are amazing to visit.  Only recently (don’t remember when) they became a national park, to protect both the islands and their flora and fauna, as well as to protect the waters surrounding them.  Anacapa is a very distinctive island.  It has an arch on one end, and zig-zags, snakelike, as it emerges from the water.  I have visited this island, both on the land, and in a boat sailing around.  It’s a truly lovely place, one worth visiting, painting, exploring, and photographing.

Here, I finished up using the available paints on my muddy palette.  The final painting with that mess!  As with yesterday’s painting, I have added white to the palette for colors, but for the most part, these are colors salvaged from the mess on the palette.

Truth be told, I really did not expect this painting to turn out at all.  My colors were just such a mess.  I simplified everything as much as I could.  I managed to get some sense of depth, which also surprised me!

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