Kekaha Kai State Park

 Also known as Magoon's Beach, this park is one of our favorite places to paint. The "bad road" entry has been paved in parts and smoothed down so the 1.5 miles only takes about 10 minutes to drive now versus 15 before. That's Hawaii progress. Don't expect water or showers but many folks do come here to swim, and while we were there a large monk seal took a nap on the sand. I debated adding people to this 11x14 painting but for now I'll let it rest. I've continued my larger work and have a couple of more 11x14's stretched to use over the next few weeks. 

Hualalai Volcano

We were painting at Old Airport Park so I turned inland from the point of the beach to capture a clear but misty Hualalai volcano. This is 16x20 as am now working with my larger easel/paintbox to use some of the stretched canvas I have around. I have the canvas and matching sized frames for many so decided I need to better match these up with new work. What do they say, "go big or go home".     

Last few days at the beach

Top is an 18x18 from onsite at City of Refuge beach. I've done this scene several times so thought I'd try a larger one with the square format.  

Below that is a panoramic view of Magoon's Beach, where I had a frame 8x20 so cut a board to fit the frame.

Last is a small 6x8 of the Holei Sea Arch. I'd done a small acrylic of this last year and liked the scene so thought I'd tackle it in oil this time.  

Windy day at the beach

Painted at Energy Lab Beach Friday. The breeze turned into a strong wind and soon I was hanging on to my canvas as much as painting. Did a quick one hour block in on a square canvas, concentrating on a nice abstract shape, and then finished it up at home. Even in paradise the weather at times doesn't cooperate. This beach inspires me to very abstract work as I've done several prior ones with the big foreground. 

Keauhou Store and Hapoepoe Beach

We painted at the Keauhou store today. I had done several before and 2 or 3 sold there during their fundraiser. This one is 8x10 and a view of the store and road. With the right frame I'll take it to the store and see if they want to market it with the others still there from our group. Below also is a larger, 12x20, from Hapoepoe Beach this week. I'm thinking of going larger while outdoors, or else smaller and looser. Maybe both, a sketch and then the larger work. Stay tuned.  

New work from past few weeks

Been busy and lazy lately both. Training for a half marathon next week has left me tired so put off touchups and photoedits for a while.  Below is recent work from outdoor sessions.

This top one is Hookena Beach, and one of my favorites lately as I feel I captured the landscape and the activity on the beach both. 

Below is the path at Kaloko Ponds, 12x12. Still not quite the feel of the light coming through the trees and will have to try a similar scene again.

This scene is from Honl's Beach where I added the two figures at the end to try and show the scale of the rocks. Figures might need to be slightly larger but it works OK for me
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This is another path scene at Manini Beach where I tried the light through the trees again and one of these days I'll capture it the way I want.

This was the second Manini Beach done the same day. Once I pushed the far mountain back by fading it out a little the scene works.

This week's Honokohau Harbor mouth park scene. Needed quite a bit of work at home as I deleted some rocks showing through the palm tree to emphasize the tree itself and it works better now. I rarely do a single tree like this but good to do a "portrait" once in a while. I also reworked it to show overlap of the palm leaves to make it more three dimensional.  

Downtown and Kukio Beach

Last two Fridays in town, at Kona Inn, and at Kukio Beach. Maui was showing its colors so most of us included it in the Kukio Beach scenes. Both of these are my usual 8x10. Top one is somewhat abstract in design as I included a long concrete wall that runs along the water at the Kona Inn.