Painting Month: Day 17 Recap

For day 17, I planned to spend the day in Benicia, CA, painting the bay views along the shoreline. Unfortunately, while driving up there, visibility dropped steeply when I started approaching the area with surrounding fog in every direction. After consulting satellite photos, it seemed to just be affecting that small region:

Screenshot of the Fog Today app's satellite view, a patch of fog over the Carquinez Strait near Benicia marked with a red arrow, timestamped Jan 28, 9:11am.

After searching for backup locations, I finally landed on attempting another Mt Diablo painting from Clayton, CA.

Donner Canyon at Mt. Diablo State Park

I had hiked this area before and really enjoyed some of the views so I decided to hike in and see what inspired me.

After a quarter mile hike in, I found this view and decided I would give it a go:

Dirt trail curving through golden hillsides dotted with oak trees, a shadowed ridge of Mt. Diablo rising in the distance under clear sky.

Despite the composition being interesting and the variety of colors, I struggled to get into painting. I pushed through for a while but eventually decided I would leave with my color notes and finish the painting in the studio at a later time:

Pochade box on the trail holding an early block-in: burnt-sienna outlines of mountains and a dark silhouetted tree on a white panel, mixed paint on the palette below.

Same pochade setup with the painting further along: blue-grey peaks, dusty rose midground, dark tree, olive grass foreground and tan path, palette now loaded with mixed greens and mauves.

One thought in looking at this after getting home is that it would likely be a more interesting painting if I remove the focus from the central tree and leave it on the distant mountains. When continuing that in the studio, I may give that a try. To be continued…