Santa Lucia Nocturne (my Paintings of the Sea)

A song I wrote two years ago for the bands 19th Cd album, "California Story". The band never got around to record it, but however i did on my piano and studio at home. The melody came from a long days hike up to Big Sur's, Cone Peak. The peak sits only 2 miles from the ocean, and yet it is over 5000 feet tall. Around the top of the peak there are Sugar Pine Trees like we have here near my home in the Sierras. There is also a tree that only grows in that area called the Lucia Fir.

At sunset I looked out over the ocean and then back to the Santa Lucia Mountains. This songs melody just came to me in a moment. It is a very slow movement, but it brings about the last rays of light from a Big Sur sunset.

The paintings are in oil. Most of them have been painted by me over the last ten years. I love going out on location to paint the ocean. My second home in Yachats, Oregon is also a favorite of mine these days to oil paint. To sit for hours looking, and painting the sea is heaven on earth. Every moment the light is changing. I stay after it is dark sometimes and enjoy a glass of wine or a song. No money on earth could take that feeling away from me. The Beach boys said it best- "The Warmth of the Sun, it won't ever die"-
Patrick michael