"May Grey, Pacific Grove", 12x9, oil on panel, California coastal landscape by Maryanne Jacobsen

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"May Grey, Pacific Grove", 12x9, oil on panel

I tend to avoid painting scenes that do not have strong light patterns in them because they are a little depressing for someone like me that has seasonal affective disorder. On overcast days, the light key is very different from sunny days, with much less contrast and a narrow value range. It also has a tendency to be a light key in which the shadows are warm and the light source is cool.

The photo below depicts a fairly typical May morning  in Pacific Grove, California, in which there is a thick foggy mist in the early morning hours, with gradual clearing throughout the morning- usually turning to bright and beautiful clear sunny skies by mid-day.

Many areas of California and particularly the mid-coast region has what is called a micro-climate, which often features a weather phenomenon known as "June Gloom or May Grey", presenting overcast or foggy skies in the morning at the coast, but sunny skies by noon during the late spring and early summer months. I took this photo around 11:30ish in early May, just as the skies were clearing and the sun was trying to break through.

Although I tend to not enjoy painting a scene like this, I forced myself to do it, because I need the practice! Living in Florida presents fewer opportunities to paint this type of light temperature and so I felt it would be a good study for me.

We also do not have rocks and cliffs and cypress tress and iceplants like this in Florida, so overall, this painting was a challenge for me. I think for my next painting, I'll settle back into my comfort zone!

If you are interested in purchasing this study, please send me an email at maryannejacobsen@aol.com.

Thanks for visiting my blog today! To see more of my work, please visit my website at Maryanne Jacobsen, Fine Art.

"Pink Ice Paradise, Pacific Grove", 12x16, oil on board

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 "Pink Ice Paradise, Pacific Grove", 12x16, oil on board

One of the things that I enjoyed most about our recent trip to California, was painting the pink ice plants at Pacific Grove. So today and yesterday I set about to paint them again!

It was a cold and brutally windy April day, and as I set up I wondered if the wind would blow both me and my easel over the ledge and to the rocks below! In spite of the wind, I was totally enamoured with the idea of capturing these vivid pink carpets of spreading flowers, and set about to do so.

That's me in the distance painting away happily, as my hubby walked around taking photos of all the beauty:

In the end, I was really happy with my plein air sketch, and have already wrote about it on my blog here, but in case you missed it, here's the way my plein air painting came out:

I suspect that the plein air painting is closer to the local color than I depicted above, but I couldn't help myself in making a decision to push the color in the studio painting that I did today!

Here was the reference photo that I used. I decided to omit the sea wall and concentrate more on the pink carpet effect:

I really enjoyed painting this, and I hope that you enjoy it , too!