| Santa Monica Sunset © Marian Fortunati 12"x9" Oil on canvas | |
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Last summer my husband and I were visiting down in Venice Beach.... Santa Monica, CA. In the years before and after I first met my husband, Gastone, in Venice Italy, I was living in Venice, California. We laughed because I traveled from one Venice to meet him in another. We met in the summer in Venice and then the winter after we met he flew out to California. He met my parents and proposed. We were married the next summer in Venice.... The Italian Venice. Many a time that winter we walked the beach at sunset.
On this day last summer, we did it again. It was dream-like.
I decided I would use one of the photos I had taken to try to capture that "California feeling". I sort of painted it in layers. I put in the background sky and mountains, sea and sand and used a red as a "background ground" for where I was planning to put the palms. After the background was mostly dry, I used a palette knife for the palms and a credit card edge to put in the volley ball net.
Right now our California weather, while certainly not nearly as harsh as in many states, isn't all that idyllic. It's cold and VERY windy. It doesn't lend much to painting outdoors... I could maybe deal with the cold... but the winds have been brutal. The nearby San Gabriel Valley was practically blown and torn apart by the recent winds. Hopefully all the repairs will be made soon... trees chopped up and removed, power restored and buildings repaired.
In the meantime I'll paint sunsets and palms from my warm upstairs studio. Hmmmm... Maybe I should have titled this one, "California Dreamin'". What do you think?
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