Overlooking Carquinez Strait

Blue Tower    acrylic on canvas

Painting at Cummings Skyway has been interesting.  Views at both the sites we have gone to are good.  On one side you see the rolling hills that bring to mind so many California landscape paintings. the other side at the large turnout you can see the Carquinez Bridge and hills also. You are right at one of the entrances to the regional park. But it is not a well maintained entrance and you go down an overgrown path to get there.  There is also a short tunnel that takes you to wonderful hill views with grazing cows.  But there is something that feels a little isolated. I don't think it is a good place to go alone.

Karen

Meeker Slough

Here is one of the ones I did at Meeker Slough, this one at low tide. I had planned to work on a smaller piece, canvas all ready, but was surprised by low tide. I had an old dud painting in the car, so I slathered paint over what was there, and finally it worked out! Betsy K

View of the Bay

I painted this watercolor and ink some time ago during one of my first outings with the group. It is a long composition: 5 1/4" x 14 1/2" I gazed out at her beauty and painted quickly, basking in her azure-lavender, always changing loveliness, San Francisco's eloquence. 
Curtis Burbick

SF from Grizzly Peak

I was very cold when I first got there, but it seemed to warm up a little soon after. The colors were very muted. Occasionally the sun would warm up the color of the water and I tried to catch that. I felt that I overworked the sky. It rained on the way home, so we had just enough of a dry window to paint. I was glad to get out after not painting for so long.

Treasure Island From Oakland

This time the painting faeries smiled, despite the weather (cold and windy). I painted over a 15 x 30" canvas that I hated, climbed on the observation tower, pulled out a cardboard viewfinder to help me come up with a better composition and used a ruler to keep my lines straight. The dried-up grounds where the paths are were done with matte medium and Treasure Island and the foggy sky were done with with retardant.

San Franfoggy

Pretty windy out on the observation deck at Middle Harbor but a great panorama and lots to see. I decided to paint the SF skyline because it completely fascinates me and I try to memorize the buildings whenever I see it but I never can. Fog kept rolling in and out and the sky changed second by second. I only had some unmounted canvas with me and ended up with a very vertical sketch because it was all I could strap to my easel. Very interesting place and I will definitely go back at some point and try and tackle those cranes.

Middle Harbor Shoreline Park

Ever since moving to the Bay Area, I've wanted to paint the Bay Bridge and San Francisco. Today the opportunity arrived!

The wind at this park is fierce. It blew my palette onto the ground once and almost tipped over my easel. I used bungee cords to fasten my easel to the boardwalk and keep it open at the correct angle.

Over the course of three hours, the mist on the skyscrapers dissipated, the brooding cloud cover lightened up, and the sun increasingly warmed up the buildings. The water level must have been changing, too, because brown, muddy areas began to emerge.

Around 1 PM we all gathered at the parking lot to look at each other's paintings. I had brought my camera and a nice groundskeeper agreed to photograph us. What a great-looking bunch of artists and art!

Observation in Oakland

I have started to concentrate on the figure in the landscape and started this one without any figures on the observation deck. Finally a man came and I quickly put him in. He was carrying a baby but that was too much for me and I got something blocked out on his back before he left but it did not look like a child. I continued with the city in the background. I wanted to control how the viewer could see the city and I used a lot of medium so I could move the shapes around. When it dried it started to loose its lights and darks. I am waiting awhile but I may go back into the picture. Karen

Yerba Buena Island and the Bay Bridge

I had to fix the image I first uploaded. I had forgotten to put in the cross beams on the lower half of the bridge tower, not up to code!

This is a view from Middle Harbor Park at the Port of Oakland, CA. The water came easier this time. I practiced some different techniques at home since Monday's frustration. The fog is rolling in like a train through the Golden Gate. I got a real case of the shakes when I was trying to paint the cables on the bridge. They are a little wavy but its too scary to try to fix it. There was no shade where I was so I was baking. That encouraged me to paint faster. I think that helped with the water.
Larry Hatfield

Up High in Miller Knox Park

I climbed the Crest Trail with 30 lb worth of gear and a 18 x 24" canvas with the idea of looking east and painting the marvelous tanks of the Chevron plant, but after spending more than 20 minutes at the top looking for a decent place to paint, I gave up on this plan and looked west again. I went down the switchbacks a bit and found a wonderful pine that allowed me to sit in the shade with this view in front of me. The ground was very steep and I was not very comfortable, so I decided to call it a day after almost two hours. I still ended up painting tanks, but not up close like I originally wanted, maybe I have a craving for basic shapes or something. Rebeca