Painting in Coyotee Hills

When I moved to California in 79 I came with an appreciation for unspoiled open spaces.  I had lived in Michigan, Ohio, and Virginia.  In all of these places I was able to quickly lose myself in nature because it was close at hand.  When I came to California with my parents our home butted up against this land which was oil land.  It was fenced off with barb wire.  I was never able to get into this space.  There has been a fight over what to do with this land.

The fight as always revolves around making money off of the land.  The issue is trade off- space for development and you will get some token space for a park or parks or fight the City of Fullerton and their bed partner Chevron and take the land back.  Politics generally make me sick.  Rarely is it about making sure the right thing gets done.  I am not a resident of Fullerton but this is just another piece of land about to vanish.  http://www.votenow.com/blog

So with all of this about to happen I decided to go paint in Coyotee Hills.  I decided to paint a little smaller.  The bottom painting is the smallest plein air painting I have done to date.  I liked the subject and the shape of the painting on the bottom and will probably use it for a larger studio painting.