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Painter Kevin Milligan has a big muse: the 275-mile-long stretch of coast
between Big Sur and Mendocino. He has done 110 paintings of the region
over the past 25 years. The works include his renderings of coves, headlands,
and fields, along with buildings that populate those areas, from farmhouses to
historic adobes of Monterey.

Milligan does all his paintings on-site. "I don't want to work from a photograhph,"
he says. "All of my paintings, I am going from the third dimension to the
second dimension."

The artist's process of working on-site means that some of his paintings take
weeks, months, and, in some cases, years to complete. If Milligan is painting a
landscape during a certain season and doesn't finish it, he'll return to the same
place during the same season the next year to create continuity in the work
and finish the piece.

The artist grew up in Missouri and attended the Kansas City Art Institute. He
moved to California in 1981 and since then has owned galleries in Mendocino
and Danville. In 2013, Milligan opened his Carmel-by-the-Sea gallery.

One way that Milligan shares his work is through books that include his paint-
ings. His 140-page Mendocino: A Painted Pictorial came out in 2002, and he
hasa second hardcover book titled Big Sur to Mendocino (Coastal Paintings,
and Stories with Legends Revealed). Both also include stories about the regions
that the artist has dug up through extensive research. "I share the joy of living,"
Milligan says of the books, "with the paintings and history."

http://kevinmilligangallery.com

Editor's Note:
Please consider purchasing one of Kevin's books or painitngs or note cards.
Our artists allow us to feature their work free of charge.

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