2025 Morgan Hill Plein Air Recap

First off, let me just go ahead and say that I won the first place award for my painting, "The Ghost Barn!" I figured that I should tell you, because it will probably influence the tone of my recap here.

This is my second year participating in this relative new-comer of an event. It is an invitational show, meaning that the painters get to bypass the usual application process of a plein air event. The competition level is usually higher because the event organizers get to hand-pick the painters participating.

The event is really well-organized, as is usually the case when a commercial art space is in charge of coordinating things. I love all the events that I participate in, but the resources available to them make for varying levels of professionalism and organization. This one is on the high end, as far as that goes. I'm thankful for a very-well-run event when I find one.

The event kicked off on Thursday. The drive from Santa Rosa to Morgan Hill during the morning rush is not an easy one, but I made it there ok. Even though it was later than when we were supposed to get there, it turned out to be fine. During check-in, I asked about some areas that might pique my interest. It being the middle of spring, I thought that there could be some areas full of wildflowers, which I thought would make for some great colorful scenes to inspire me.

The report was that there weren't big fields of flowers anywhere, but the folks at the gallery pointed me towards the eastern hills. After grabbing some lunch to take along with me out there, I set out east to Anderson Lake and the surrounding hills. Anderson Lake is actually a wash now that they drained the reservoir. I wasn't expecting a lot, but I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of color with all the different wildflowers I found!

There were actually tons of wildflowers, but they are so pale that they are actually hard to see from far away.

Going up the hill, I found this scene of a now-abandoned ranch with this old tin barn against the hills and meadows.

I was painting this one surrounded by tons of lupines and clovers, and I even think I was visited by some rare blue Mission butterflies! If that was what they were, they are endangered species, so it was incredibly special to see them.

After painting that one, I kept driving up the hills to see what I could find beyond. At a certain point, it was a bit of diminishing returns, and I didn't really care for the steep winding roads with no guardrails, so I made my way back down.

I went back down the hill and went over to the other side of Anderson Lake. I had my sandwich at the Live Oak Picnic Area.

The scene that spoke to me the most was this sycamore on the shore of the creek.

After painting there, I wanted to explore the rest of the park. There's a whole big part of the park, and I didn't know that I was on a bit of an island at first. I was going to drive away, but I'm really glad I didn't, because instead I found this great open space with tons of trails.

I hope to come back next year and paint in this beautiful area!

The next morning I went to check out the Morgan Hill Historical Society because it looked like it had potential. It was pretty cute, but not quite what I was looking for.

For the event, we got special permission to paint at Johnson Garden Center near downtown Morgan Hill. I'm glad we did, because it's a great place! If you've never gotten to paint inside of a nursery or anything like it, you owe it to yourself to try to make art there.

All the colors! There are some great scenes that I chose not to go for, because I felt that I would be too in-the-way, but I still think I found a great scene to paint from. The iron arch made for a great compositional tool. Here are some photos I took of it coming together.

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After having lunch(Jonty's Vietnamese Eatery) and a relaxing afternoon recharge, I set out again towards the hills east of Gilroy in search of the Canada De Los Osos Ecological Reserve. It looked pretty in the pictures, but I followed Google Maps out there, and the road ended at a locked gate! I'm not sure why it was a recommended place to go, because there didn't seem to be any public access. The drive was beautiful too, but there were almost no places to pull over and paint roadside from.

On my way there, I passed a sign pointing to Harvey Bear Ranch County Park, so I thought I might as well see what it was all about. I'm really glad I did, because I think I had found my favorite place in the area to paint! It was gorgeous, and it had everything that I would want in a park. Green rolling hills, oaks, views of the valley and the distant mountains, a pond, and plenty of flowers.

It got surprisingly cold and windy as the western clouds came in. I lost the light, so it was time to head back to the car and pack it in for the day.

Vanessa joined me at my AirBnB that evening, along with some supplies I forgot at home, and a pass to go to our next painting location. Folks, get yourself a partner who also does plein air; it's a lifesaver(thank you, love!)

We went to grab lunch downtown and check out the farmer's market. It was a suggested to try and paint the market as subject matter, but they can be hit or miss. Honestly, most farmer's markets are white tents against gray concrete, at least that I've seen. So I'm not usually drawn to paint them.

Instead, we went to Uvas Canyon County Park. It's a beautiful park at the end of a long box canyon carved out by Uvas Creek. There is even a Swedish community called Sveadal that sits right before the entrance of the park.

Even though it was a mostly cloudy day on Saturday, I'm glad we went on a day that wasn't as hot. According to the intel from Heather Ihn Martin, Friday was sunny and pretty, but the skeeters were out in full force! I'm glad we didn't have to deal with it too much, but we also had some Grandpa Gus bug repellent. I recommend it! It's natural and makes you smell like cedar which is kinda nice.

We decided to explore the Waterfall Loop Trail, which is the park's main attraction. It's a 1.5 mile out-and-back that has tons of waterfalls of various sizes. Here's a selection of some of my favorite sights here. There were also tons of different flowers there for all you leaf-peepers out there. The trail was a bit more strenuous and slippery than I expected it to be, which influenced my decision on where to paint.

We decided on painting a little bit downstream from the start of the trail. I was drawn to all the beautiful color shifts happening on the wet rocks in this scene.

The painting itself makes it look like I'm painting these huge boulders you might find in Yosemite, but they are relatively small rocks.

To finish our day, we went to Granuja Falls, which is one of the main falls near the beginning of the trail. The dark black rock is pretty interesting and makes for a great contrast against the falling water.

It started off super abstract, which makes sense because the scene itself is relatively so. The final piece actually looks surprisingly close to the scene itself.

It was now Sunday, which meant it was time to turn in our pieces. I'm glad that they provided an area for us to frame our pieces. You don't want to risk dirtying up your host's things with wet paint or spraying stinky varnish in their vicinity either.

After turning in my paintings, Vanessa and I went out to Monterey, which is surprisingly close to Morgan Hill. We weren't sure of when we would be able to go down to Monterey again this year, so we had to take advantage! We had lunch at one of our favorite places (Hula Grill) then took tooooons of photos at Pacific Grove near Lover's Point. The waves were doing amazing things, and I can't wait to paint from them!

I'm glad we made it back to the gallery in time, because they were getting close to announcing the award winners!

1st Place: Sergio Lopez

2nd Place: Kristian Matthews

3rd Place: Samantha Buller

Honorable Mention: Joe Altwer

People's Choice: Cleo Villet (Last year's winner)

If you enjoyed this recap, I recommend you go check out Heather Ihn Martin's Substack where she also did an excellent job of chronicling her adventure.

I really enjoy this event. The gallery is lovely, they do a great job of making the artists feel welcome and cared for, and the surrounding areas have plenty to explore. I hope to be able to participate again next year!