A Little Time Alone Is Golden

I am a big dreamer. I always dream quite vivid and colorful dreams. I am told that such is rare since most people dream in black and white and few have vivid dreams. I am not supposed to remember my dreams except if I by accident wake up for something before I finished my REM (Rapid Eye Movement) dreaming period, which happens more often than I like.

Sometimes though the dream fragment I wake up for is beautiful and I stay awake and continue where I wish the dream to go–sort of day dream but at night. This painting came out of such a dreaming. My friend sent me a link to a video where they showed the horses and their treatment that the British Royalty uses. the video was awesome. You could see the horses run free, trot in the water with a rider, etc.

On this picture there is no rider…

An unbridled horse walking along the golden sunrise of the beach.

Here in my dream the horse was in the very shallow water taking a morning stroll on the golden sunrise, which still has a bit of grayness to it as I saw it on the video, which would be typical for England I suppose; definitely not for California.

But this stroll along the beach alone has more meaning to it than the beauty of the colors. It represents the importance of freedom, of rest, of relaxation, of reflecting on one’s own past, present and thinking about the future. It is a happy scene but I feel there is some caution in there somewhere. Enjoy the present!

This picture can be purchased in print by clicking on the link here and as digital download by clicking on the link here.

Enjoy!

The Other Side

Montery Bay, Carmel, and many areas around–like Pebble Beach–are well known. Most people visit Point Lobos National park but end up visiting only one side. That side is huge by any standards. The rocks in the water are mini mountains; the waves are giants, and the water is crashing so loud you can barely speak. Marine life is abound. But there is another side! It is totally calm; the water is covered by a foamy layer of algae floating. In fact, if you look close enough at the shoreline, it is really a line of caves! I have never seen anything like this before.

You can purchase a print of this photo by clicking here or a digital download and other items by clicking here.

The trip to the “other  side” is a hike of various roads turning left and right with no name so in following the map of the park it is still a great puzzle where you may end up. The hike is not a hard one in terms of steepness but the terrain is rough from the rocks and the many branches that have fallen and its unevenness. Not very easy to find your footing and the place is full of poison oak.. something to definitely avoid touching by accident as you try to grab anything in site for your balance.

So when we finally got a first look of the “other side” I felt a huge relief, thinking “well, we are already there”.. no.. another 15-20 minutes… but the view was definitely worth it.

The other side at Point Lobos National Park

The view here shows you the water and what appears to be a “rounded” shoreline.. those are all caves; hundreds of them. A most amazing sight! Since we went at the time of the year when the June Gloom was expected, that is what you see being lifted for about 15 minutes mid-day. The trees here are covered with lichen and everything is very soft and cushiony; probably years of accumulated lichen and pine tree leaves several feet high that create a carpet that one can barely stand on without falling over. A most amazing place. It also put nature in perspective for me. Nature is huge and we are so tiny yet we have such a huge impact on it. It is an eye opened to go there!

Hugging the Coastal Mountains

I used to live in Northern California while getting my master’s at Stanford University and also worked full time. I lived there for 5 years. The place was in San Mateo, which is about a one-hour or so drive from Half Moon Bay. I seldom had the time to drive there but I did drive part of the way quite often. The view is aw inspiring!

First you see these amazing waves of thick ocean layer curling around the mountains as if to dress it in a veil giving it a huge hug. Whatever your imagination may be, mine was of a big squeeze of love. There was also a lake as you passed and I remember driving there many times to look back east to see the pink and clue setting skies opposite of the sun settling on the west. In this painting you see me looking toward the west. You see the mountains where the ocean layer gets stuck, beyond which is Half Moon Bay and its gorgeous beach by the Pacific Ocean. But to me to most exciting part of heading toward half Moon Bay was to go when the mountain was hugged by a big layer of white fluff. So here is my memory of that white stuff painted on my iPad using the Inspire Pro app and a precision stylus.

Mountains by Half Moon Bay are hugged by white fluff of ocean layer in the Bay area.

To purchase the print in any size or type, please visit my artist website and to purchase a digital download, please visit my main website (both underlined here for your quick access).

Not All Calla Lilies are the Same

My yard is not big but a good size as far as California yards go. It is filled with flowers, a few fruit trees, many HUGE Bird of Paradise bushes, etc., to the point that you cannot even see the ground. I am told by some (particularly my gardener) that it is too full and difficult to get though it but I like the jungle look and also like that the ground is so covered that weed has little chance to grow…

Little did I know that some plants that find it hard to grow elsewhere LOVE my yard so much that they pop up everywhere, taking the weed classification of equivalence to dandelion! One of these is the giant Calla Lily! Its stems can easily be up to 6 feet tall. To collect a stem, one does not cut but pull (I learned this from the gardener) so that way one gets to the bottom of the flower. I simply have no vases tall enough to hold a Calla Lily like that without falling over and if I placed them on the table, they reach the ceiling of my house… clearly floor vase is needed!

With that all said and done, they are actually very beautiful and hardy albeit much softer than the Calla Lily types you see in flower stores for sale. The leaves are huge and simple green–no spots–and the flowers.. well.. you can sink an entire wedding bouquet into a single one sometimes. So they are clearly NOT for weddings but can look great in the corner in a tall vase.

Their white is VERY white so hard to photograph without much reflection of the light. Their pollen is extremely long and yellow, very dominant in looks. They are bulbs but quite irregular in share–nearly tuberose type but not quite. In general they are a nuisance but a beautiful one at that. So I painted one long time ago–on the computer of course, digitally by hand. But that was in 2009-2010 and since then my digital painting has seriously improved. So here is a painting update I have created last night in a highly impressionistic style.

An impressionistic painting of a white giant Calla Lily

What is important to note is the pollen area. If you visit my artist website this flower by clicking on the word “Calla Lily” here, and click on the picture itself, it will bring up details of the textures in full size of a small area, so click on the pollen part. You will be amazed at what digital painting is capable of today! If you prefer to purchase a digital download, you should click here.

iPad Sunset is Nicer than Real in Southern California

Have you seen Southern California skies? They are blue. Yep. Blue… Clouds? You mean the cute fluffs or the angry storm clouds? What’s that will a SoCal person tell you. We rarely have clouds here and that is the norm. Oh yeah, we do get ocean layer, which is like being inside a giant dark brownish smogish layer of fog but nice clouds? Perhaps 5-10 times a year and to catch those you need to be at the beach since we have so many mountains and hills in the way. I have many times missed such beautiful sunsets in SoCal–mind you in the San Diego area they are luckier than in the Los Angeles area; San Diego does get its fair share of beautiful clouds a lot more than we do in the Los Angeles area.

So what does an artist do when no clouds show up? She paints them. And what do green artists paint them on? Why iPad of course!

So here is my latest iPad painting of Capo Beach, which is near Aliso Viejo and is in southern Orange County. I was there a few months ago photographing a model and though there was no spectacular sunset, the beach is actually nice there.. so here it is, as I wish it looked like on that day! iPad painting by the way is done with a stylus for fine tip painting, it is harder to paint on iPad than on canvas or “real” medium because the screen is smaller so you see only parts rather than the whole in one piece while working. It also has to be then enlarged on the computer to make it into print size and resolution. I used the app InspirePro to point this.

All of my iPad paintings have been enlarged in size and resolution to print beautifully and of you click here you can purchase this painting as print or if you click here you can also purchase a digital download of the same. Here is the painting in small:

iPad painting of a beautiful sunset on Capo Beach, California