As part of the Oceanside Museum Plein Air festival, I painted most of Sunday at Batiquitos Lagoon in Carlsbad, north of San Diego. By my fourth painting, I was ready to try something new. I looked across the water at a little house perched on the edge of a mesa that was surrounded by strong shadows, and sketched it out on paper prepped with a red casein underpainting. I blocked in the sky and water with gouache, but by the time I got to the dried grasses on the hillside, I realized I loved how the blue contrasted with the beautiful red color of the underpainting. So I revised my plan and let the red dominate the scene.
Many thanks to the festival jurors and judges, Peter Adams, Toni Williams, and Maria Mingalone, for selecting it for the festival exhibition.
Deliberate Sketching 
love this! It’s exciting
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Thank you!
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Love it !!Sent from my iPhone
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Thank you, Laura!
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So wonderful!
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Thank you!
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Nice! It’ has the feel of a warm glow as the sun is starting to set at the end of the day. Love the red. Catherine
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Thank you, Catherine, that red is a magic thing!
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Love this….
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Thank you, Janet!
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I love this. The red is what turns the scene into a whole other dimension, another world, a new perspective. It’s so exciting.
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Thank you, Claudia, for your encouragement. I plan to do more of these, although I can’t yet describe why I like all that red with the blue so much.
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It’s so intense and dramatic. That’s what I see as its appeal. And, the “unnatural” color shocks the viewer into seeing the scene more intently, I think, than if it were in normal colors. I don’t know, I just love the look of it.
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