Carmel

So since my last entry we have been around winecountry in Napa and Healdsburg visiting a few galleries and my friend, Alexander Harris again.
Then we directed our wheels south and visited another old friend from Florence Academy, Nate Taylor, in Santa Cruz.
We stayed one night with Nate, his girlfriend Grace and 2 year old train-iac Quinn, catching up, inspecting Nates studio space, his little garden, drank wine, ate pizza and played chess.



Nate Taylor at his house in Santa Cruz


Then another few hours south we finally had a little breakthrough in the weather!
We spent a few days in Carmel, a small town just south of Monterey, where we stayed for Christmas.
It reminds me a lot of Båstad in Sweden. A small town with a big sport event, golf instead of tennis this time.
Carmel had a strong artist colony going in the early 1900s. And there are still a few local artists around and now there are tons of galleries too.
I was running around the galleries for a day and a half and still missed a few good ones. (some of them were closed for the holidays).
I found two local artists I liked a lot, one plein air landscape painter,Jesse Powell and a sculptor Richard Macdonald.(google them to find their websites)
Today we drove down to Santa Barbara, driving in the wettest weather ever through the Big Sur...
At times it felt like we just drove through clouds, of all the amazing scenery along that part of highway 1 we saw only a fraction...(still beautiful though)


Rainy day in Big Sur




Here's a sketch from Stewarts Cove, Carmel approx 20x25 cm


So we spent Christmas in Carmel and Hilda gave me these books, great reading material for an artist :)