Two artists studying at California State University Long Beach have been working on the largest canvas painting in the Five Cities Area throughout the month of June.
Oscar Pearson and Dana Blume began their residency at the Place on PCH in Oceano last month, and began creating the 11-foot-tall canvas on June 1.
It took them three days to make the stretcher bars and attach the canvas before taking on the task of painting the masterpiece. Pearson and Blume were inspired by the Central Coast’s landscape and wanted to highlight the beauty all across the area.
They used a large palette of colors from greens to purples to yellows to bring out the brightness in the farm fields and hills throughout the coast.
“We were inspired by the local landscapes and we wanted to bring a lot of those elements together and make something that was an abstract [or] landscape,” said Pearson.
This is the first time the two worked together on a project and they both say it helped them learn a lot about each other as artists and as colleagues.
“When you’re painting with somebody else, you find yourself kind of like…you’re trying to find this middle ground and what kind of happens is something really new and fresh for you. It’s really amazing,” said Blume.
Both Blume and Pearson said the artwork exceeded their expectations in size and in what it stands for.
The canvas will remain at the Place on PCH until the artists say, “it finds a home.”
