18"x48" Oil on Canvas

For the past 2 months, I’ve been painting from models and somehow the images turn out as tortured, expressionistic portraits.  Ghosts?

Cal State Channel Islands is a truly beautiful campus with old 2-story tile-roofed Spanish buildings sprawling between the hills and  fertile farms of Camarillo. The sunsets are glorious .. and in the morning I love when the fog gently floats over the hills out to the ocean. Driving down the hill to the campus through a narrow rustic canyon is a trip to Heaven.

There is just a bit of weirdness knowing that the buildings were formerly the home of a great many mentally disturbed adults and children when it was Camarillo State Hospital.  I can’t help it: sometimes  I  imagine Munch’s “Scream” figure in the middle of the quad.

What a pleasure to come home and play with this portrait. Make no mistake, my granddaughter Taytem has the world at her command.

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