Plein air lanscape paintings from Santa Barbara and beyond…
Such a beautiful sight to see the Seven Falls fully flowing and spilling down the mountains again… what a gorgeous green Spring it will be! We are so fortunate to be getting all of these rains this year and to see them quenching the thirsty drought. It’s good to think aboveground about our full reservoirs but also to consider ways we can design watersheds to slow and sink the run-off and fill our aquifers.
I rode my bike out to Campus Point one morning last week to be rewarded with glowing orange sandstone reflecting off a glassy ocean at high tide. Since this was a studio painting, rather than racing the sun trying to catch the color before it changed I was able to really think about composition and the abstract qualities of the painting, trying to make sure all the shapes and lines lead the viewer in.
I’m excited for the coming storm… enjoy the rain everybody!
15×30″ oil on canvas– Available now! Spacious ocean-side home with unrivaled ocean views in Goleta, the good land. Open floor plan is airy and welcoming with plenty of natural light. Sustainable architectural design uses reclaimed timbers throughout. Exquisite natural landscaping by world-renowned designer Mother Nature. Fantastic curb appeal! (What’s more appealing than no curb at all?) Also notice the quaint heating and lighting system based on age-old technologies that are making a comeback. Experience to the ultimate in simple living…
16×20″ oil on canvas– I am so grateful to have water flowing in our local creeks again. This painting started with the small casein sketch below that I made hiking with my family last weekend. 
A plein air sketch is much more useful for me when making a painting than a photograph which can be a lot harder to interpret. Photos aren’t as true to our experience as we think they are. Here is a photo of the scene.
And here is a sketch of the abstract concept… the bones under the image that help me simplify the concept and focus on the essential shapes that make it easy to read.
Casein on Birch Panel 13×18″ I wanted to do a still life for show opportunity, but didn’t feel like being still and indoors painting under a lamp. I enjoyed the compromise… arranging rocks and a sycamore leaf and yucca fibers into an arrangement lit by sunlight on the Buena Vista trail. 
Casein on Panel 12×12 in
Click to Bid
Enjoy the equinox this weekend everybody! The days are lengthening and warming and the seasons are definitely changing, which as a painter in southern California means I better use my green paint while I can before the grass dries. As they say (or should, at least)… make hay while the sun shines, paint green while the rain flies. 
How can one describe the beautiful intricacy
of smoke taking flight
from the glowing orange-red ember
at the end of the young girls’
magic-wand campfire sticks
as they trace their names in the sky?
Words
could speak of the transparent twining vines
of hot ghostly calligraphy swirling
into accidental Celtic knots which
lift and twist on warm updrafts
and glide on the subtlest of chance breezes.
Paint
could say something like this :
But I think Noam Chomsky,
and most likely Picasso and Shakespeare,
and perhaps even Smokey the Bear
would agree
the best medium for the job is matches.
Gardeners of the world unite!
Let’s slip out in the full moonlight
with seeds in hands
and watering cans
And garden spades stashed out of sight!
For our first organic plot,
lets sneak into a parking lot
and plant fruit seeds
so folks won’t need
To go indoors for apricots.
Street medians we will reclaim,
This public land won’t look the same,
We’ll line each route
with herbs and fruit
Overflowing into the lanes.
Three sisters: corn and squash and beans,
Are now sprouting outside Dairy Queen,
They have no clue,
that it was you,
And nice touch with those collard greens.
And if we have any luck,
Children will soon learn to pluck
free string beens,
climbing the swings,
And extend recess and save a buck.
Once we’ve pulled out all the stops,
Who’ll want those corporate monocrops?
No genetics here,
And we’ve got beer-
Once we harvest that creekside hops.
We’ll pry concrete with fig tree roots,
We’ll enlist scrubjays as recruits
to plant an oak
at every stroke,
And give new meaning to “grassroots.”
Let’s plant city parks and vacant land,
With a living, humming garden stand,
Let’s teach the youth
with food and truth,
That what sustains them is in their hands.
Let “Compost! Compost!” be our cry,
It’s a freedom none can be denied,
To love the ground,
and help it rebound,
Gardeners of the world, unite!
You can tell by the gathering thunderheads
that enough modern day shamans must have performed
today’s most effective rain dance rituals—
either by washing their cars
or planning outdoor weddings in the spring.
Not to be superstitious, but let us not jinx this
by looking at the weather channel
rather than stepping outdoors to feel the air.
And quick, before the sky opens,
let us reroute these aluminum gutters,
street side gullies,
concrete culverts,
dikes, ducts and drains designed
to protect us from flood by dehydrating the landscape.
With some reverse engineering,
backwards pioneering,
and a handy undo-it-yourself mentality
we can turn convention on its head
like an upside-down umbrella
and slow, spread, and sink this sweet rainfall.
Let’s dig us some swales
swollen with saturated sponges
of punky wood and mushroom mycelium
and strengthened with the rebar-like roots of resilient plants.
Watch as these drops filter through the earth
to fill our emptied aquifers,
those underground rivers thirsty too long now
under impervious parasols of parching pavement.
Shakened and awakened by the thunder on the horizon now,
why not go out barefoot in these cold showers,
quench our skin,
celebrate
and sing our appreciation with the frogs?
Cul de Sac Here you see a fifth acre of desert scrub. A black plastic weed barrier buried under decomposed granite with soggy cactus, overwatered mesquite, and Mojave natives poking their heads through circular holes. A tall century bloom swarms with hummingbirds. Next door, you find a formal lot imported from colonial England, with gingerbread epoxied to the stucco. A trimmed lawn with an ornamental plum sprouts bushes and hedges trimmed like lollipops. A red-brick walkway sways pleasantly to the red front door. Apparently, a fifth acre chunk of Hawaii has been excavated shipped overseas, and dropped into the plot next door... Plop! Bermuda grass, palm trees, ginger flowers and trailing bamboo... (the curse of colonial England next door) all flank a pink mailbox in a pad of black lava rock. Down the street, an awkward crispy orange pine tree and some ceramic squirrels create the high mountain ambiance of a Swiss glen. The Dutch annuals explode along the sidewalk like red, yellow, blue and green fireworks (miracle-y growing so far from their Nordic relatives) with their plastic name and care tags sprouting from the salt-and-pepper soil like fuses. The Hawaiians, Mexicans, English and Swiss gossip in their driveways, rolling eyes and cursing the house at the end of the block, so flagrantly violating the HOA... Just look at its weedy, unwatered yard going to seed: an unpruned wild oak planted by jays, dandelions, chickweed, lambs quarters, Red Maids and coastal sage overflowing the mowing strip... No gardeners here but the wild birds. Look at them munching wild seeds, checking their migration maps, and wondering “where on earth are we, anyway?”
Kevin Gleason Art 