Pfeiffer Beach, 8 x 6 in. oil on linen panel by Justin Clayton

In keeping with this random theme for this week. Meet one of my favorite "realistic" style artists, Justin Clayton (also introduced in one of my very first podcasts). A fellow daily painter, in fact the very one that inspired me to daily paint (many thanks Justin!!), Justin is recording his 20 day trip with daily paintings as he travels down the coast of California. He is now officially 10 days in and also has a beach paintings blog where you can follow along.

I discovered Justin and the idea of daily painting while thumbing through Domino Magazine last summer. They featured a number of artists in an article about painting a day art bloggers, and Justin’s work just caught my eye. Since he lived in Los Angeles at the time, Sean and I had the pleasure of meeting he and his wife for lunch one day. Such nice, nice people and such a wonderful artist. I’ve been on Justin’s daily painting email list for a year now and am still hoping to own one of his originals. (They all sell out, so you’ve got to move on one when you want it, if you manage to keep up with the other bidders on Ebay!)

Justin is yet another shining example of an artist making a living doing what they love. After being laid off from his job, he too was inspired by the "daily painting" movement, and in January of 2006 made a New Year’s resolution to create a painting a day. Nearly two years later, he’s still at it and each piece he creates is a special one.