Upper Ojai
Yesterday I drove through Upper Ojai to go see some friends exhibits in Santa Paula. On my way back, I had to stop and take a photo of this scene: the building looked so peaceful and frankly – green. The Thomas fire started up here so many areas were black — this scene was a welcome respite.
While I was painting this scene I realized I was starting to approach my painting in a different way – I’m trying to say as much as possible without using a lot of strokes. I have a tendency when I write to use a lot of exclamation points (!) and I try to tone that tendency down. In a sense, I also do exclamation points with my paint and I’m also trying to keep them to a minumum. After all: if your whole painting is an exclamation point, it loses its’ meaning.