My Favorite Place to Paint Is ...

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Thursday, November 16th, 2023

My Favorite Place to Paint: Mission San Juan Capistrano

By Rick J. Delanty

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Rick J. Delanty painting on location

Rick J. Delanty was an August 2022 winner in the PleinAir Salon for the "Best Plein Air Landscape" category with his painting, "String of Pearls."

Painting at the Mission San Juan Capistrano, "The Jewel of the California Missions," is always both an historical and artistic experience.

The mission was built in 1776 under the direction of Padre Junipero Serra, with construction by native Americans of the Acjachemen nation, the 7th of 21 missions statewide.

Its small chapel is beautifully moody in the light of the windows and prayer candles surrounding the hand-carved golden altar. The grounds are nearly always abundant with a variety of flowers, plants, and succulents. Birds flit in and out of the adobe-brick arches, and the tile roofs provide warm accents in any composition.

I've painted the fountains on the grounds several times because I love the sound of the falling water, and the sight of the koi fish gliding in and out of the lily pads. The shadows of long brick hallways make for interesting darks in architecturally-centered paintings, and the light reflecting off white plastered walls adds attention-getting bright accents.

The Mission entertains 300,000 visitors a year, many of them schoolchildren on field trips, studying their California history. I've talked to many pint-sized aspiring artists during my painting sessions there.

Rick J. Delanty, "Light of the Mission," 24 x 30 in., acrylic on board, 2022

My most recent painting of the Mission is a tribute to a larger painting by Arthur Grover Rider that he did on site here in 1930. It was part of a solo exhibition entitled "Inspired by History" presented by the Casa Romantica Cultural Center in San Clemente. Twenty-two of my paintings were paired with historical masters of California Impressionism, including Rider.

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Like Rider must have done, I find that painting at the Mission brings a peace to painting that one does not normally experience when painting in the center of town. I have an annual membership for repeat visits, as it's only ten minutes from my studio. All-in-all, in my view, this historical site is one of California's perfect places to paint.

Enter your best work in the next round at PleinAirSalon.com

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Art Snippet: Know Your Shadow Types

By Brenda Swenson

Types of Shadows

Cast shadows suggest the shapes of the objects that cast them and have distinct edges. The further a cast shadow is from the source, the more it is infiltrated by light; as a result, it becomes warmer, softer, and paler. Cast shadows are darker in value than the objects on which they're cast.

Form shadows are delicate in appearance and play an important role in making a subject appear three-dimensional. Form shadows are lighter in value than cast shadows. Because form shadows aren't created by a blocked light source, but by turning from the light source, they also have softer or less-defined edges.

The illuminated area near an object reflects, or bounces, light into the shadows and carries color with it — this is called "reflected light." The orange pumpkin on the left has form and cast shadows. In case you missed it, see Brenda's free lesson on negative painting, in which she uses this reference photo.

In this art video workshop with Brenda Swenson, you'll learn that paintings benefit from a variety of positive and negative painting. Brenda outlines the tools and materials needed for this approach before entering into a step-by-step demonstration of this process. [Learn more about negative painting with watercolor here!]

Related: Join us for Watercolor Live, a virtual art conference taking place January 24-26, 2024.

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