Urban Seascape 2

"Seal Beach 2"    SOLD
oil on panel, 2011
6" x 8" (15.24cm x 20.32cm)

Seal Beach is quietly tucked between the two more well known Long Beach and Huntington Beach. Long Beach known for it's Grand Prix race every year and Huntington Beach, a major surf town, for it's surfing competitions.
This is the second painting of Seal Beach and is a variation of the first, "Seal Beach" click here. The first focused more on the water, this one features the sand more prominently.
Both are of the same time of day. A hazy, warm summer day, late afternoon. Silvery surf and bronze sand set against the backdrop of the LA Harbor. Visible are the harbor cranes, an oil drilling island, downtown Long Beach and the Palos Verdes Peninsula in the distance.
The beach is fairly empty after some kind of event earlier in the day and a few of it's remaining denizens lazily head for home.119

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Harbor Colors

"Sunken Dock, Cranes (w/Bird)"   SOLD

oil on panel, 2010

6" x 8" (15.24cm x 20.32cm)

I was lamenting awhile back that mother nature was holding back spring in favor of an extended winter. Now she still has spring or at least spring like weather on the table. Our 4th of July was only warm, not hot, with a rather cool evening. We have not seen any real hot, blistering summer days and nights yet. So, with that, here is another spring painting.

The harbor, looking east, a bank of rain clouds. This is a common site in Los Angeles this time of year (early spring). The weather will move off shore and along the mountains, leaving the LA basin to the sun, a sort of hole with no weather, much like the eye of a hurricane. This does lead to some dramatic backdrops and here it provided a deep cool gray for the brightly lit red cranes.

These are the colors of the harbor. The equipment... whites, reds, blues, greens, yellows, oranges, some bright, some pale. Docks and piers... earthy siennas, oxidized gray browns, dark wet chocolate browns. The organic... green waters, ochre dirt, various shades of gray and tan in jetties and rocks.

This is another palette I like. Saturated color, but deep, still weighty, with bright accents. A good mix of artificial and natural earthy color. Man made and nature together.

Bright days don't necessarily have to be depicted in high key (lighter) values. If done right, middle and even low key values will represent a bright day.

The only light values here lie in a thin horizontal strip at the base of the cranes... sunlit whites, blues and yellow. The color saturation too, aids in depicting a sunny day and distant atmospheric conditions... wet air.65

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Icy Blue

"Blue Skyscraper(w/crane)"

oil on panel, 2009

5" x 3.5" (12.7cm x 8.89cm)

private collection

A building in downtown LA near the end of it's construction, rising into the icy blue. This image shows the crane still in place. The yellow band at the top is part of it's construction and doesn't show after the building is finished.

Although I don't know if one was used here, sometimes you will see what is called a 'peri wall', which serves as a safety barrier for both the workers on top and pedestrians below. The wall is actually a device that climbs the outside of the skyscraper as each floor is added.

Technology is pretty amazing, and this serves as a nod to the engineers who dream this stuff up.50

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Urban Seascape

"Seal Beach"

oil on panel, 2008

6" x 8" (15.24cm x 20.32cm)

private collection

Thought I'd throw in a seascape to mix it up. Although it still shows the harbor cranes(industrial) and downtown Long Beach in the backround.5

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Urban Seascape 2 "Seal Beach 2" here.