View of Harbor and Quang Ho’s Studio

“View of the Harbor from Signal Hill, Long Beach, California,” and “Quang and Adrian Studios in Pennsylvania.” I like to take my paint kit on the road everywhere I go. Pretty much the top one I was painted this view, it’s backlight, which I don’t usually do, but I ended up liking that. And it’s looking down at the loading docks, the harbor.

Long Beach is one of the most heavily used loading docks in the United States. Just the composition, it’s really what it’s about. It’s this bright white sky and a dark foreground with this gradation. The bottom painting is a little more joyful to me. I remember it shivering in the shadows. It was just a little too cold even though it doesn’t look like it in the picture, and it would’ve been fine if I was out in the sun.

I was just walking past it, I don’t always get to choose where I paint. It kind of chooses me sometimes. I was walking past it on my way to somewhere else, and I saw the reflex of the tree and the windows and there it was, had to do it, the tree shadows and this rhythmic motif that goes across the piece.

I stood there and painted it for most of the day, even though the light changed dramatically, and they ended up making up a big part of it and leaving parts out the house and the distance would have windows and doors and things like that. But that got too cluttered for me, so I just simplified it to the light and the shadows of the trees, and I actually made it brighter than it is. It’s kind of a grayish brownstone, and they made it bright white. You never know what old Dan’s gonna do next.