Many years ago, I was able to live in Santa Barbara, California. Now, it has become an exclusive place reserved mostly for the very rich and famous, but in the 70’s it was still a sleepy beach town and I loved living there. For these many years since that time, I have longed to return and mostly have managed to do that with annual visits. Many of these were taken with my friend Susan, but last year my daughter and granddaughter managed to come along.

There is a great beachside restaurant at Hendry’s Beach where you can sit and look out at the ocean while you sip a margarita and eat fish tacos. Hendry’s is a dog beach so there are lots of them playing on the beach. As you walk from the parking lot, the path travels along an estuary that runs in from the sea. I have painted here several times and have always avoided painting the green, weedy foliage in the foreground because I wasn’t sure I could pull it off without getting crazy fussy. Somehow, by some magic, it was the easiest thing to paint in this painting and I learned a lot about loosening up and letting the painting almost paint itself.