Heroic trees, looming skies

I've had a few images of this Laguna Beach pine beckoning from the reference picture files for a while now.
Yeah, it's one of those twisted tortured pines just begging to be painted standing up against towering clouds, bravely standing alone after the storm has passed.
So this is a first pass at the subject, and I think it calls for a bigger sky, less foreground.
Look up the work of Robert Marchessault. He's done a series of heroic trees against a huge sky with an appealing balance of detail and atmospheric mystery, contrast and soft blending of values. This one is a bit of a nod to his style. "Kumada" comes to mind.

Well, well, what have we here?

Socal tree scene for your consideration tonight:
I've had a run of palmettos in my sights for a few months now.
I successfully transitioned through one of those
quick-run-grab-the-freakin'-camera-BeforeThisGoesAway!!!! -moments. Went a little slack-jawed there, must have been the margarita.
Anyway, its another blazing sunset with those palms that are as common as fashion accessories in LA, this one dripping down the sky in gobs of blazing yellow, orange, pink, violet out of the deepest indigo to the east. So ends another day in paradise.
That's the setting for the source of this one. I decided to use the series of images for a Sierra Watercolor Society painting challenge. The society meets every other month, members can bring in work that answers a challenge: this one was a complete painting, dry paper to signature in under an hour.
This one is almost a formula. Very striking, but not really complex.

Coast Guard Art Program

The Coast Guard Art Program has accepted this painting!
"Fishing Vessel Mar-Gun Aground" 22 x 30,
watercolor, Dec. 2010
I was accepted into the program last summer, considered several compositions for a submission and finally settled on this one last fall.
Lots of delays, digressions, procrastinations and interruptions later, I started it in early December.

This has a limited pallette, obviously, but just the same there are a lot of subtle warm and cool grays all through it. Those rocks were tedious.

I have a dual personal connections with this subject. While on active duty, I was stationed at the
National Strike Force Coordination Center for a year. The Pacific Strike Team was one of the three Operational Units with which I worked. I was also stationed in Kodiak, Alaska for three years, and have been to St. George Island, where this vessel ran aground. While in Alaska I was the Coast Guard Public Information rep for the western part of Coast Guard District 17, and reported many of these kinds of incidents to the media. This one had a happy ending with no one hurt, and the eventual salvage of the vessel.

Follow the link above to the Coast Guard Art Program website.