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As I was painting plein air this week (It's December and should be cold, but it's California!) , I was thinking of the founding of our fair city, San Clemente.

I had the opportunity to paint on the grounds of the Casa Romantica Cultural Center and Gardens during hours that it was closed to the public. Climate was perfect, perched there on the bluffs above the ocean, whose waves reverberated off the cliffs and kept me company with its natural symphonic sounds. As the sun was going down, some elegant shadows were being cast on the warm stucco of the building.

That building in the painting is the former office of the founder of San Clemente, Ole Hanson. He was a former mayor of Seattle, and a real estate developer who had a vision in the early '20's that he could build a resort area here at the coast for Hollywood-types who he thought would drive down the narrow highway to get away from the film business for days or weeks at a time--perhaps even purchase property here.

Well, I am not exactly sure how many Hollywood actors , directors, etc. are living here at the time, but the town is thriving with about 65,000 residents. Ole Hanson's octagonally-shaped office is still here, on the grounds of what is now a cultural center maintained as a non-profit in partnership with the City of San Clemente.

Mr. Hanson knew where to locate a city. And painting his office was my plein air blessing on Monday, in having the good fortune to live in a place that began with a visionary's dream.

That's the title of my newest painting, one that I've been carrying with me for about three years. It seemed unfinished, unfulfilled, so I brought out the acrylics and went at it again.

I deleted the twelve palm tree trunks that were dividing the composition (like bars on a jail cell!), added motion and energy to the sky, repainted the cliff formation jutting into the sea, and deepened the shadowy textures on the bluffs on the right edge. Then footprints in the sand seemed to be called for, as well as seaweed that would reveal the ocean's interaction with the shore. The clouds above the horizon were re-designed to sync with the pelican's direction of flight, and I entirely re-worked the geographical center of the painting.

With that, it seemed that the painting itself took flight!

After years of experimentation, and trial-and-error, I have learned not to give up on designs that I believe in. Sometimes time is all it takes, to truly liberate an idea that then becomes presentable.