This amazing piece illustrates the coastland at #Jalama Beach in California. The motion sensor LED light is placed to the west of the coastland and casts shadows like the sun. The land is sandy #beaches and rocky #cliffs and rugged hills sporting a colorful red and green Christmas coat. My 3D painting of Jalama land is original, unique and ready for a new home.
Jalama Beach at Sunset, 36″ x 36″ x 6″ framed shadowbox
30″ x 30″ plaster relief model of Jalama Beach in Southern California. The winter landscape covered in autumn colored ice plant contrasts with the white sand beach and blue ocean washing ashore. Strong topography shows cliffs and rolling land as it appeared to the artist during days of study.
Jalama Beach is in California south of Vandenberg AFB. There are miles and miles of empty land. The video shows light from the left side of the model (west) at a low angle casting shadows on the opposite side of hills, waves, rocks. The model is colored like the land, a green and red scrub from the winter ice plant turning orange. The model was created using topography from Google Earth.
Photos
Here are some terrain photos so you can compare and judge how well I modeled the relatively untouched land I walked on and photographed.
As a landscape subject lighthouses are very popular. You’ve got oceans, cliffs, colors, and the romance of sailors at sea in search of land.
There are many lighthouses and many facts to go with the construction, use, and history of lighthouses. Many of them have seen their day to be replaced with digital tones (fog horn) and strobe lights. Sailors have satellite navigation now so lighthouses have become historical relics.
The great thing about painting is that you can modify the period by adding old ships, buggies, or a fresh coat of paint to remind us of yesteryear.
The core of me is art. I want to be an artist – a good artist. The mission of this trip is to paint en plain air on a regular basis, daily if possible. It took three weeks for me to reach the point where I could sit in front of my landscape subject and draw and paint. In getting here, I was met with logistical challenges, mental and physical challenges.
For the first en plain air location I chose a desolate location with complex topography and simple colors. Desolate because I fear people looking over my shoulder. Not because it matters but because it challenges my confidence. Much like public speaking, your ideas, talent, and personality are on display and open to criticism.
Anacapa Island is volcanic rock with a little dirt spread like frosting on the top. It is a critical navigation point opposite Ventura marking the west side of the Santa Barbara Channel. In fact, Anacapa is the furthest east island of The Channel Islands an holds a functional lighthouse.
Anacapa Island Lighthouse
While painting on location,, what I realized is that I could map the shadows to help create an authentic character of the scene. I drew what I could see for shadow shapes and later filled those in with my near darkest values. Here’s the photograph when I began drawing my pencil outlines of shapes.
South Anacapa – photo of watercolor painting position
I mentally assigned values between 1 and 10 to the top of the sky, horizon sky, ocean, shadowed ocean, sunlit land, and shadowed land.
Mixing colors with Nita Engle’s pallete of reds, blues and yellows turned out to be intuitive because she has thought through and practiced the most frequent color mixing. Here’s the result. Not a masterpiece but it captures the scene. This plein air painting was done in three hours including set-up and under drawing.
South Anacapa – watercolor en plein air
If you have Google Earth installed on your computer you can visit this location at https://earth.app.goo.gl/?apn=com.google.earth&isi=293622097&ius=googleearth&link=https%3a%2f%2fearth.google.com%2fweb%2f%4034.0109181,-119.37578355,-0.80644256a,1062.93184534d,35y,-112.97140112h,82.10455027t,360r The cliffs are amazing and dramatic in Google Earth.
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