Have you ever visited a lighthouse? Over the years we have visited several here in California. And when we were in Oregon two years ago we visited three more, but we had never visited the one that is probably closest to us; Pt. Sur. It's only 19 miles south of Carmel on Highway 1. It sits out on a rock that is connected to the mainland by a sandy spit of land and often looks like an island. I took the photo above early in the morning on our way to see the elephant seals.
You can tour Pt. Sur Lighthouse on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. All you have to do is pull off the highway at the gate and wait for the docents to let you in. Then you drive across the pasture, park, and start your walking tour with the docents leading the way.
As your group climbs up over 300' to the top of the rock, the docents stop and explain how the lighthouse came to be, and interesting facts about the history of the area. When you get to the lighthouse they take small groups up the spiral staircase to the top.
The views from the top of the lighthouse are beautiful; especially on the day we visited because the weather was so warm and clear.
Here is a drawing of the original equipment showing the Fresnel lens. The lens and machinery were taken out in 1978 and put on display at the Museum of Monterey.
Above you can see the modern electric light. It isn't nearly as pretty as the prismatic Fresnel lens, but its white flash every 15 seconds probably still looks BEAUTIFUL to a confused mariner far out at sea.
We recently visited Pt. Lobos State Reserve which is just south of Carmel, California. The weather on the Northern California coast is fabulous this time of year and this day was no exception.
Pt. Lobos is a beautiful park with over 6 miles of trails meandering around a rugged rocky point. We started at Whalers Cove and almost hiked around the entire point.
One trail leads down to a slot where the "The Old Veteran" perches on the rocks. It is an ancient picturesque cypress tree. 
After hiking the North Point, the South Point, and Sea Lion Point, we cut across at Mound Meadow where we found these mushrooms; fly agaric or amanita muscaria.
We also saw some beautiful brown mushrooms.
It's been a looooong time coming, but I finally have the cottage/studio all to myself!
Shortly after Teen1 moved out we began moving furniture out of the cottage and into her old room to make it into a proper guest room. Then I rearranged what was left to make more room for painting.
Now the table and chairs are over on the other side and my easel is by the large front window.
I got a frame for this painting, but I think the red needs to be muted so I'm going to sort of antique it a bit, but I like the way the frame repeats the balls on the door.
Now after all the moving of furniture, I think we need a cup of tea, don't you?
So Teen1 moved out last weekend and Teen2 has been away at college for 4 months and we are finally "empty nesters". The house is so quiet and neat and clean and stress free. We are making one of their bedrooms into a proper guest room and talking about buying some new furniture for the library. We have rearranged the furniture in the kitchen to accomodate our antique meat block that we haven't used in years. Actually....
I'm kind of liking this empty nest thing!
Although the sunset was breathtaking, the food, well...not so much. It was like stepping back in time to a menu and cooking style from the 80s. Not that it was bad, just dated, but I guess with this view it doesn't really matter, does it?
Just south of Piedras Blancas Lighthouse, and 4 miles north of Hearst Castle is a Northern Elephant Seal rookery. December and January are prime months to visit because that's when the babies are born. We drove down there this morning from Carmel and had a wonderful visit with these interesting animals.
Elephant Seals were almost hunted to extinction in the late 1800s, but in 1990 two dozen seals came to this beach and eventually a rookery was established and now several hundred babies are born here every year.
The bulls arrive as early as November just waiting for the females...
and practicing their fighting techniques. (These are younger males.)
The pregnant females start arriving in December and the first babies are generally born around the middle of December. The mothers nurse the babies for only 4 weeks, after which they mate and then they slip into the ocean to eat. They don't eat at all while waiting for and nursing their babies.
The babies will teach themselves how to swim and fish, but the rich milk the mothers provide has plumped them up to 300 pounds which sustains them while they are learning. The docent told us that the pup above is only a couple of days old.
While all this drama is happening, the old males just snooze and wait for Valentine's Day.
Just before Thanksgiving a friend of mine asked if I would paint some grapevines over the arches in his entry area. It sounded like a fun project, so I said yes and took some measurements and made some patterns. Then I enlisted the help of Teen2 and we did the work the day after Thanksgiving.
We started by spotting in the medium brown for the branches and popping in some highlights. Then we started on the medium green in the leaves and added lowlights and highlights. Lastly we did the grapes starting with the midtones, then the lowlights, then the highlights. Somewhere in there I painted the cast shadows which really helps to make it look realistic.
Teen2 was a lot of help, but the best part was just working with her and getting a chance to talk without all the usual interruptions. And I didn't have to worry about her messing it up since she's a great artist. Thanks Teen2!
What would you do if you had a beautiful fall day and a view like that? Well, if you belong to the Plein Air Painters of America, you'd paint it! And that's just what they did here in Stockton on October 15th.
Above you see just three of the more than twenty painters who participated. The building with the red gable and the water tower in the background were a popular view.
Above you see George Strickland's painting.
And this is West Fraser's painting. I like that big sky with the swirly clouds.
Here is Don Demers' painting. As you can see, across from our downtown waterfront there was a wealth of subject matter for the painters.
This painting was my favorite of the day. It's by Kathleen Dunphy.
Thursday while he was helping half the class with their frames, he handed out bottles to the rest of us and told us to paint them. I am pretty happy with my effort, but sorry that it ran off the top of the paper. Oh, did I mention we paint on white butcher paper? With house paint? And NO pencils? He wants us to get in there and paint - not draw. He also wants us to mix all our paint on the paper from our basic colors: white, yellow, red, blue, and black. But that's where I drew the line and I brought a plastic palette from home. For this painting I premixed the purest green I could make, a darker bluish green, and a lighter yellowish green. Then I squinted and blocked in the dark tones and shadows. Next I blocked in the medium green and blended it into the darks, and gradually worked my way up to the lighter colors. Next I painted the table top and the background, then went back to the details like the label, the stopper and the wires. He's definitely pushing us, but golly I'm having fun and I can hardly wait to see the next challenge.
