Friday, May 01, 2009

The Wild Pacific Coast

SOLD
"The Wild Pacific Coast", 8x10 oil on canvas panel

I'll never forget the first time that I saw the Pacific Coast. I had lived on the eastern seaboard most of my life and was never very impressed with the crowded Jersey shores that we vacationed at when I was a child. After getting married I felt fortunate that my own family had spent many lovely vacations in the turquoise waters in the Caribbean waters off Guadalupe and St. Lucia and Martinique and the Dominican Republic and many other islands, and it always was hard for me to go back to the cold, crowded, chilly and gray-colored northern Atlantic beaches after that. But in spite of those lovely turquoise waters of the Caribbean, the day that I saw the rough, wild and jagged Pacific coastline for the first time, I fell madly in love with the passion that those waters evoked inside of me! We vacationed in southern Mexico in the HUATULCO beach area a couple times and it was quite stunning though still foreign -feeling to me, a non Spanish-speaking American. We also vacationed in the Baja peninsula once and that was also stunning but rather too desert-like for my tastes with its iguanas and snakes everywhere. But the year my husband and I drove up the California coastline from San Diego to San Francisco really opened my eyes to the reason why so many people decide to make the Pacific coast of California their permanent homes. It is no wonder that so many artists thrive there, and I admit I am jealous of those that call the southern Pacific coastal area their home!

This painting was done with a palette knife from a photo we took as we drove up the twisting, curving Pacific highway a few years ago. If I were younger, I would move there in a heartbeat, perhaps to a place like La Jolla, which is just north of San Diego and very chic and very beautiful. I hope to go back one of these days soon, but in the meantime, I'll just paint the memories.



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1 comment:

Gwen Bell said...

Wow! This on stopped me dead in my tracks. The colors in this are just amazing. I'm not all surprized that you sold it so quickly