California Hillside -- A Landscape Of Our Beautiful State by Marian Fortunati

California Hillside © Marian Fortunati 20"x20"x2" Oil on canvas Click on the link above for more details and Pay Pal information

My brother-in-law and niece have been visiting from Italy for a few weeks.  My niece will be starting college near her home in Venice, Italy, in September and her Dad brought her out as a sort of celebration of her hard work and success.  Mostly they wanted to shop.  I hate shopping.  They shopped at the malls all around.  I took them to the outlet stores.  They didn't get enough so the next day they went back.  Happily most of the time they were perfectly happy shopping on their own.   I think they may have single-handedly given our American economy a needed boost.

After my brother-in-law flew home, my husband decided we'd take our niece on a road trip.  We drove up the coast on highway 1.  It was absolutely gorgeous, but really quite different from the way I've seen it before.  The fog was playing hide-and-seek with us.  One moment we were shrouded in fog and the next the sky was startlingly clear overhead.   I snapped pictures like mad..... Lots of future coastal paintings will be painted in the next few months I'm sure.  Hopefully I'll be able to incorporate some of that stunning atmosphere into some of them.

Today we headed home.   When we left Monterey this morning it was overcast, drizzling and around 60 degrees.  We drove home on the faster inland route.    By the time we arrived home this evening at 5:00, it was clear and 110 degrees.   Ouch!!

The whole way home we drove through beautiful California hillsides... those iconic oaks and grasses that give our state the title of the "green and golden" state.  The hillsides looked a lot like the painting I posted above.  (but they stretched out far and away.)

I started on this painting over a year ago, when I was first toying with using the square format.  The thing is, I LIKE other people's square format paintings....  I just haven't seemed to be able to get my head around them for ME.   Anyhow, I started this painting, but after I got the canvas covered,  it just seemed so static and cut out.   The beautiful scene I was trying to depict was missing... it was simply unattractive and stiff.   So I put it aside and it has leaned against my wall all of this time, patiently waiting for me to look over and bring it back up to my easel to revisit it.

Before the relatives arrived, I decided to work on it again.  I did a few things which I think helped...  I added some playful color.  I added a lot of thick layers of paint and some varied brushwork.   I tried to keep the grasses interesting enough so that the eye would travel around and up through the oaks and shadow areas to the top tree on the hillside.....  Then maybe the viewer's eyes would meander back down and around again.  

I like it a lot better now.   And after my drive today... I decided it's just right for our beautiful state!