The Quiet Landscape

The early California Impressionist Francis John McComas (1875-1938) deemed Point Lobos "the most beautiful meeting of land and sea" in the world. Taking its name from the rocks at Punta de los Lobos Marinos, or "point of the sea wolves," where the clamor of offshore sea lions drifts inland, the Point Lobos State Reserve is located on the central coast of California, just south of tiny Carmel-by-the-Sea in Monterey County. Ranking among the jewels of the California State Park system, Point Lobos is "a magical area," in the words of local watercolorist Miguel Dominguez. "Many of my paintings have had their beginning at Point Lobos, either from across the bay in Carmel or in Point Lobos itself. It really is just a magical place." Dominguez, it would seem, has a gift for discovering and painting such magical places. Working from nature and his imagination, the California artist captures scenes from his own backyard—both those that exist and those that could.

Dominguez was born in El Paso, Texas, in 1941. Until he was 7 years old, his family lived in an all-Mexican barrio along the Rio Grande where they spoke only Spanish. From El Paso, the family relocated to the farming community of Gonzales, in the Salinas Valley of central California. And it was there that Dominguez discovered his passion for undisturbed countryside and for rendering that countryside in tranquil landscape watercolors that suggest to the viewer that he or she is the only one there. "I came to appreciate the rural setting of the Salinas Valley—I think many of my paintings reflect my early observations that I had growing up," Dominguez says. "All of my paintings seem to be devoid of people. I don't know whether that's subconscious or not, but if I show life in a painting, it's through animals—such as egrets or horses or cattle, buffalo or grizzlies."

Dominguez's artistic career had what he calls a "humble and slow beginning." "My earliest recollections of my involvement with art are from the second grade," he recalls. "Mrs. Lyons, my second-grade teacher, made a little fuss over a painting I had done during class. And that seemed to have followed me throughout school, because I came to be considered the class artist." Despite his early inclination to fine art, however, young Miguel had little or no exposure to art outside of his school's limited arts curriculum. It was not until he was 18, and on a class trip to San Francisco, that he first set foot in an art museum, and he would be 19 before he visited his first gallery. "Art was something that didn't really exist in my community," Dominguez explains. "There was no art, per se, and no exposure to art at that time in my life."

What Dominguez did have, however, was what he calls an urge to draw. "Any artistic inclinations were motivated by myself," he says. "I didn't have to be prodded to draw. It was just something I took great pleasure in doing. The only way I kept in touch with art was to do it on my own."

Later, at Hartnell Community College, in Salinas, California, Dominguez would take all of the fine-art classes that were offered; but his degree in general education did not reflect his actual studies in fine art. "My artistic background is rather limited, because I have no specific art education whatsoever," he emphasizes. "I have never set foot inside an art academy of any sort." Upon leaving the college, Dominguez enrolled at California Polytechnic State University, in San Luis Obispo, California, to study landscape architecture. That move may have permanently altered his career path, had he not been drafted into the U.S. military four months into the program. To his disappointment, Dominguez would serve out his army duties training recruits stateside at Fort Ord, near Monterey Bay, rather than abroad where he had hoped to discover some forgotten part of the world. The unintended consequence, and blessing perhaps, of that setback is that the valleys of his youth—his very backyard—would later prove to be his greatest artistic inspiration.

After leaving the military, Dominguez married his high-school sweetheart, Alexandra Garcia; and they moved to Berkeley, California, where he found work as a cartographer. Motivated by the realization that he had not painted in years, Dominguez began doing creative work on the side. It would be another five years, however, before he took a stab at making his art his life's work. In 1971, with his wife's blessing, Dominguez left his job to pursue painting full time, and the family relocated to Carmel, California, an idyllic town widely considered to be an artist and art-lover's mecca. Known for its almost innumerable galleries, gourmet restaurants, and picture-postcard "fairytale Tudor" architecture, Carmel (or Carmel-by-the-Sea) enjoys a temperate climate of fair, sunny days—moderated by fog in the summer months—in a lush valley of vineyards and golf courses. It would suit Dominguez perfectly.

Although Dominguez and his family experienced their share of early hardships, the artist secured an invitation to join the Carmel Art Association in 1973—an impressive opportunity that would change their fortune. Today, almost 32 years later, his relationship with the illustrious organization continues.

What is immediately remarkable about Dominguez's watercolors is that, akin to Robert Frost's poetry of New England, they are both intensely provincial—in the "regional" sense of the word—and entirely applicable to rural life throughout the United States. In one painting, a blue jay alights upon a twig in springtime, in another a farmhouse is cast in a glowing fog, a third portrays the brilliance of autumnal foliage, another evokes the stillness of snow. "Some of my work lends itself to other areas of the country," the artist says, commenting on how many collectors have remarked that his paintings remind them of their own home states of Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, or rural New York. Nevertheless, Dominguez's work is almost entirely local in origin, and those familiar with the Salinas Valley and the Monterey Peninsula are often convinced that they have seen that view, that tree, that cliff, that farmhouse, that copse in the painting before—even when those pictures have been born entirely from the artist's mind.

"Approximately half of my paintings are composed from my imagination," the artist says. And yet it is, perhaps, Dominguez's melding of the real with the might-be that allows him to achieve such convincing compositions in his studio. In Spring by the Bay, the artist depicts a specific site in Pacific Grove, although his enhancements would make it unrecognizable from the actual scene. Aiming to relay what he calls the "succulence" of springtime, rather than the specificity of the site itself, Dominguez focused his attention on the colors of the work, creating a coral hue from cadmium yellow, yellow ochre, and burnt sienna that rings the midsection of the painting. The cypress, although common to the locale, is also the artist's creation. Its appearance on the coastline is so perfect, however, that it would be impossible to question the tree's veracity without the artist admitting to having imagined it.

In another work, Poppies in the Fog, a farmhouse in Mendocino, California—a place so notable for its annual pumpkin-picking that October brings a deluge of Bay Area families to the region—is rendered with exceptional architectural precision, while the background foliage and poppies were added for artistic effect. "It was a very gloomy day," the artist recalls of his visit to the site. He noted how the buildings were silhouetted against intensely dark foliage, and later made a point of enhancing that effect on his paper. As it was important to him that the owners of the house be able to recognize their home in the painting, he took photographs of the building and the shed to use in his studio. "I'm what I would call a studio painter," the artist says. "I need to have everything handy. I have tried on numerous occasions to work outside, but nothing will spoil the day more for me than forgetting a certain implement that is essential to my work. So, I prefer the hominess of my studio, where I have everything at my disposal."

The artist's painting technique is one that, it might be said, he pioneered himself. "My method of painting in watercolor is self-taught," Dominguez says. "I've been told it has somewhat of a unique look to it. It even puzzles some viewers because they are so accustomed to seeing the more traditional form of watercolor, which is wet-in-wet, that my method kind of throws them off."

Dominguez's compositions begin as carefully detailed, often composite, drawings that bring together the artist's sketches, photographs, thoughts, and impressions. A drawing may take up to half the time of the entire painting process, but Dominguez stresses that this step is crucial to the success of a work. "All of my paintings begin with a rather accurate drawing on the paper itself," he says. "When I'm doing the pencil work on a future watercolor, I'm mentally painting; I'm actually doing the painting in my mind. I try to make the pencil work as accurate as possible, so that when I'm putting pigment to surface, I don't come upon an area and have to ask myself, 'Now what do I do here?' By then I just want to concentrate on value, tone, and the juxtaposition of colors."

Once the drawing is complete, Dominguez applies a series of five or six light wet-in-wet washes to the areas of the painting that will be the most faded, including the sky, any water present in the composition, and the most distant areas of foliage. "I use wet-in-wet almost exclusively when I'm doing the skies, because I want a soft look to the clouds where they merge with the blue of the sky, and I think that's best accomplished with this technique," Dominguez explains. To achieve a realistic color for his sky, the artist uses a combination of Davy's gray with ultramarine blue or French ultramarine, sometimes adding a tiny bit of white gouache to soften the mixture. He finds Oriental bamboo brushes to be particularly useful for his washes, and admits that he has the least control over this part of the painting process. After the washes have dried, Dominguez works from light to dark in dry brush, taking care to leave the white of the paper untainted.

"I always use the white of the paper," the artist says. "For example, let's say I'm doing a winter scene with a house somewhere in a wooded area. I will actually paint around the penciled area of the structure—whether it be a house or a silo or whatever—and then I will come back and shade certain parts of this object to give it form. The white areas I leave out as negative spaces. The only time that I will use white paint is when I mix white gouache onto certain areas to lighten them a little bit." Dominguez will also, on occasion, use a small bit of white acrylic. "If I add just a tiny bit of white acrylic, it seems to give the paint a permanent brilliance," he explains. "But I do not use that white to paint white areas."

Dominguez is very fond of doing paintings with chiaroscuro—that is, the use of gradations of light and dark—and finds that snow scenes in particular provide him with the opportunity to make use of that technique. Winter Hay, a scene from beyond Cachagua, 12 miles outside Carmel Valley Village, celebrates the contrast of the dark, leafless trees against a wash of pure snow. "I give form by shading certain areas, like the blue of the snow, but the rest is just the white of the paper," the artist says.

The surface of the paper is completely dry when he paints in dry brush, Dominguez emphasizes; whatever moisture there is lies only in the brush itself. He often uses pigment full strength, or straight out of the tube, although the strength of the color will depend upon what he is painting and the effect he wishes to create. "When I'm mixing the pigment with water, I know instinctively, by looking at the way the brush is mixing with a color, the effect that I will get once I apply it to the surface of the paper.

"The brush is not sopping wet or dripping with water," Dominguez emphasizes. "Instead, I leave just enough pigment on the brush to have the pigment take to the paper." He uses fan brushes extensively at this stage, as well as round oil brushes and small watercolor brushes. "We all have favorite brushes—brushes that don't surprise us anymore," the artist says. "I have a certain motto when it comes to brushes: Use whatever will accomplish the job.

"Many of my brushes are so worn out, they're almost worn down to a mere stub," the artist continues. "But each of the brushes that I have in my collection has a particular use. A brand-new brush is almost useless to me. When I get a brand-new brush, I will bring it into my studio, wet it, and beat it onto a hard surface to create or make broken edges. It's these broken edges in the brush that leave some really interesting little effects in the painting—so much so, that people ask, 'How do you do that?' And I have to say, 'Well, it's the brush, really.'"

Dominguez is too humble. The careful precision of his mark-making exposes the hand of a gifted and inspired painter with an eye for perceiving striking beauty in even the most ordinary landscape details. In one such painting, Pine Needles, Dominguez quietly captures the organic curve of a tree trunk in Point Lobos, and the pine needles that have accumulated in its folds. "When I came across this tree, I was convinced that little creatures of some sort would actually use this vacant area for shelter," the artist says, "so I chose to put a little rabbit in there. The pine tree and the pine needles are almost exactly the way I saw them; I didn't want to change anything about the scene."

For the bolder composite, or rather imaginary, landscape Forest Sunset, Dominguez achieves a distinctive luminescence by working highlights into or against the darker background. Blending white acrylic with light red and burnt sienna, the artist forced the reds and crimsons to show up, which allowed the painting to gain depth. A pine tree silhouetted against a yellow area, built up against greens, creates another focal point, and the illusion of water is achieved through a series of careful washes and reflective highlights, the latter made by removing bands of pigment with an Oriental brush.

"The luminous effect you might see is created by leaving some areas lighter and coming back to the same area with slightly darker washes," Dominguez explains. "Once those are dry, I come back and do the marshy areas. And then, very carefully with a wet brush, I remove some of the pigment of the brushed areas to create a waterline. I will even extend this brushwork by lifting some of the pigment from the water itself. I feel that gives it the look of reflections."

True to the form his works will take, Dominguez depends heavily on earth colors, such as terre verte, which he mixes with Davy's gray and occasionally burnt sienna. Some areas of his paintings, such as the foliage in Poppies in the Fog, appear so dark that viewers will often ask Dominguez if he uses black. He does not. Instead, he achieves the darkness in those areas with a combination of permanent sap green and burnt sienna, or even brown sepia.

Dominguez prefers to work on Arches hot-pressed watercolor paper, which provides a 100 percent cotton-fiber surface, although he resorts to a Strathmore 6-ply acid-free board for larger works. A painting may take five to six days to complete, and the artist prefers to work on one painting at a time. "It's best that I stay on one painting—and continue with the flow of that painting," Dominguez explains. This careful, methodical approach has enabled the artist to finish upwards of 4,500 works.

"The profession of being an artist is, in itself, my biggest challenge," Dominguez says. "It's an incredibly difficult profession to get into, and I count myself among those extremely lucky individuals who somehow manage to stay in it. It's a profession that I don't tell others to pursue too casually. But, on the other hand, it is extremely rewarding. One of the most rewarding aspects of what I do is that I was able to stay at home and enjoy my two sons as they were growing up."

In a market that shifts with each new surge of incoming talent, even the most established artists can find it challenging to maintain a productive and economically viable career. "In this profession, one cannot sit still and not try to improve oneself or make some changes in one's work, because there are just too many young, talented artists that are always coming onto the scene and creating a strong source of competition," Dominguez admits. "It's quite a challenge to be in this business, but one that I would not do without."