| Grey Day, Golden Hills - Santa Rosa Island © Marian Fortunati 8"x8" Oil on Canvas Panel | |
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David Gallup and Jennifer Moses: workshop leaders
Our first morning in the Channel Islands started out as a grey, overcast day. This year, we started out on Santa Rosa Island, which is the second most northern island of the chain of eight islands. The five northernmost islands, San Miguel, Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, Anacapa and Santa Barbara make up The Channel Islands National Park.
The passage during the wee hours of the morning was rough due to a thunderstorm that hit the Santa Barbara / Ventura area in the late night. It was, however, not stormy in the morning.... only grey. A few of the 27 painters and adventurers on this year's Channel Islands trip, led by David Gallup, started out sick, just as I had last year. This year, happily, I was better prepared (Bonine and a acupressure bracelet) so I didn't get sick. My day started out great, so I broke out my pochade box and painted the view along the Santa Rosa Coast from the boat.
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| Landing at Santa Rosa Island |
Toward the end of the trip David had time to critique most of our work. One of the things he said needed to be improved about the original version of this painting was that the bands of sky and land and sea were fairly equally layed out. He is constantly reminding us about the importance of design. Anyway, I tweaked this plein air piece a bit in the studio and now hopefully, the symmetry is gone and it's a stronger piece.
I remember last year we had approached Santa Rosa at dawn after staying on San Miguel for several days. The crew had hoped to be able to disembark all of us but prevailing winds and a high wave surge made that unsafe. This year, however, we were looking forward to a great hike up into the hills and the Torrey pine forest.
In the photo on the right, you can see the inflatable approaching the small shore where we landed to climb up the cliff. Our 85 foot dive boat (The Conception out of Santa Barbara) is in the background. All of us had full packs of painting gear and were ready and eager for the hike to come. (We were also happy, that although we got wet up to our knees, we didn't have to wait there in the cold California water for each group of 5-6 painters to be ferried ashore.) Happily, none of us fell all the way in or lost any gear.
More about the hike and the fabulous views from atop the cliffs and hills in future posts.
I have to say that I will be eternally grateful for being able to experience this beautiful National Park once again!
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