Familiar Roads

"The Road to Fallbrook" 4.5 x 6 in chalk pastel on paper $30
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Another plein aire view from home, this time the familiar view of Mission Road into Fallbrook...

This painting was initially done a couple weeks ago, but the hills didn't look quite right, so I went back to it later to reshape them a bit. Sometimes the most familiar scenes are the most difficult to paint, as we know them so well it's hard to let go of the differences between the actual view and the painting.

This road is a pretty quiet one, unless you're on it in the commuting hours on a weekday. Morning traffic piles up as cars form a line to cut through Fallbrook to get to the military base in Oceanside. The same crowd returns in the early evening to head back home. Rather than include the cars, I left the road empty to show how it looks on a weekend morning, when the "Friendly Village" gets a break from all of the base traffic. I've always liked that there isn't much off the exit itself, except for a nursery and avocado groves.

It probably won't be this way forever, so I thought I should paint it while the view remains.

Painting is done with chalk pastel on blue-toned Canson Mi-Teintes paper.