Unusual day on the coast

I went out to paint in the early morning this week.  I was up in the dark and drove for over an hour through the mountains to catch the rising sun and early light at the coast.

It was beautiful painting, but what made the day most memorable was all the wacky things I came across through the day:

• First off, I was startled by a huge deer with a massive rack standing just 3 feet from the road as I drove by in the dark through the mountains.  He just watched me drive on by and didn't flinch a bit even with me so close.  I guess if he's lived this long he knows what he's doing when around mountain roads
• another deer ran across the road just 25 feet in front of me as I turned a switchback going up the mountain
• family of sea otters
• dolphins
• pod of killer whales
• seals
• pair of airplanes practicing aerial writing (they were just making pattens, not sure what else this could have been).
• a different biplane doing stunts, dives and stalls
• and to wrap it up, a skinny dipper out enjoying the surf and prancing around the pescadero beach.

Here are a pair of paintings from the day:

 Pescadero Shallows, 8x14, oil

Coastal Formations, 9x12, oil