Returning to the Same Shore: Reflections from a Week of Painting in Cabo

I’m home after six days of painting in Cabo with dear artist friends, and my heart is full — while my camera roll is overflowing with reference material for future seascapes.

Our Cabo artist group: Jen Starling, Raj Chaudhuri, Daniel Sprick, Anna Rose Bain, Emily Olson, and Tania Davis (not pictured, although I did paint her one day and her portrait is shown here!).

Over the course of the week, I completed ten paintings (plus two "scrapers," as we call them 😂) that I’ll be sharing gradually as I refine and photograph them. Two of my favorites were small studies: a 6×8 painted just before sunset and an 8×8 done shortly after sunrise. They feel like quiet markers of the rhythm of the trip — early light, late light, and everything learned in between.

"Morning Light, Cabo," 8x8", oil on linen panel (painted just after sunrise)

"Rocky Cove, Cabo," 6x8", oil on linen panel (painted before sunset)

Before arriving, I suspected I might grow bored painting the same rocks and beaches day after day. Instead, the opposite happened. Returning to the same location became the lesson itself. Subtle shifts in light, atmosphere, tide, and composition revealed new problems to solve every time I set up my easel. The ocean refuses to hold still, and learning to respond to that constant movement was both humbling and deeply motivating.

This trip felt different from the first time I painted here. I was more present — more engaged in the work, in the conversations, and in the shared experience of artists learning alongside one another. The days were simple: paint, rest, eat, talk, repeat. Sun, wind, and intense focus meant I needed a nap almost every afternoon, which felt less like indulgence and more like part of the creative process. Painting outdoors demands a surprising amount of physical and mental endurance.

One of the greatest gifts of the week was observing how differently artists work. Raj Chaudhuri arranged to have a 24x36 canvas shipped to our temporary residence in Mexico so that he could do a larger, more ambitious painting, right there on the beach. He brought a special easel for it, which was strapped down with heavy sandbags (in spite of choosing the windiest day to work on it!), and he produced a beautiful, dramatic seascape over the course of 2 days. 

Raj working on his 24x36 masterpiece

Daniel Sprick, now in his seventies, painted longer and with more stamina than anyone. He too, produced a large 24x36, though his was done from one of his field studies painted on location the day before. While many of us rotated through studies, he stayed committed to a painting for hours, even as conditions changed. Watching him reminded me that patience itself is a skill — one developed through years of sustained looking.

Daniel Sprick painting in oil, and Emily Olson painting in watercolor from the terrace just before sunset.

Daniel Sprick and Jen Starling, in front of Dan's field study and larger painting in progress.

I tend to work differently. I’m faster, more responsive, often moving on after ninety minutes or two hours. Where Dan is the tortoise, I am very much the hare. Neither approach is right or wrong, but the contrast helped me better understand my own rhythm as a painter — and also where I might still grow.

Dinners were spent around the candlelit table in long conversations about art, identity, ambition, and the strange inner lives artists carry with them. Those conversations—which were very personal (and I will cherish them in my heart and memory)—have a way of deepening the work itself. Painting may look solitary from the outside, but growth often happens in community, through shared honesty, encouragement, and the willingness to learn from one another.

What the Ocean Taught Me

A few practical lessons from the week continue to stay with me:

• Observation and invention must work together. Painting convincing waves isn’t just copying what you see. The ocean changes too quickly. Skilled observation has to merge with imagination — or, as painters sometimes say, learning when to “make things up” in service of truth.

• Returning to the same subject builds understanding. Repetition didn’t create boredom; it created clarity. Each new attempt revealed something I had missed before.

When my brain was fried from so many wave painting attempts, I switched back to something more consistent: rocks! 4x8, painted before sunset.

• Light direction changes everything.
Painting into the sun produced softer, warmer color relationships and stronger atmospheric effects, though visibility could be challenging. Painting with the sun at my back revealed brighter, clearer color but flatter shadow patterns and intense glare on my canvas until it was covered with paint. Neither is better — only different problems to solve.

• Time spent matters. Watching a master stay with a painting long after conditions changed reinforced that persistence and imagination can extend a moment beyond direct observation.

Above all, the week reminded me why painting from life continues to feel utterly necessary. Nature never repeats itself. The challenge resets every day. And sometimes the greatest creative growth comes not from chasing novelty, but from returning — again and again — to the same place with deeper attention.

I came home tired, inspired, and deeply grateful for the chance to spend a week doing what artists have always done: standing in front of something beautiful, trying — imperfectly — to understand it through paint.

The whole gang (Jen, Dan, Anna, Emily, Raj, Tania)

So glad I got to spend some extra time with my twin sister on this trip!

One afternoon was spent painting our beautiful Tania's portrait.