Oil Paintings in the Studio | Laura Cunningham

• San Fernando Valley Grizzly

  Oil, Panel, 12 inches x 24 inches. A scene of the past in southern California, 300 years ago when giant grizzlies roads the state. The publisher chose this artwork for the cover of my book, A State of Change: Forgotten…

• Nob Hill in San Francisco 500 Years Ago

  Oil, Panel, 11 inches x 21.5 inches. I painted this scene for my book, A State of Change: Forgotten Landscapes of California (Heyday: 2010), where I have a paired photograph of the same scene today looking down towards…

• Yellow Warbler in Bigleaf Maple

  Oil, Panel, 13 inches x 16.6 inches. This painting is framed with a custom-made frame of wood, with varnish, gesso, and gilt, and is included in the price.

• Parrots

  Oil, Canvas, 6.75 inches x 9 inches. The naturalist-medic John Xantus stationed at Ft. Teton in the Tehachapi Mountains of southern California found the head of a parrot in a hawk nest in the 1850s, raising the possibil…

• Kiskadee

  Oil, Canvas, 8 inches x 4 inches. A Kiskadee flycatcher in sycamore trees.

• Jaguar in Oak Woodland

  Oil, Paper, 8 inches x 6 inches. Long ago jaguars roamed the Coast live oak woodlands of central California from Mexico to San Francisco. Oil on cotton rag paper, with punish tempera ground. Unframed.

• Santa Ana River Sunflowers

  Oil, Panel, 7.5 inches x 21 inches. Giant sunflowers grow along the meadows and river flood pools of the Santa Ana River through what is today the city of San Bernardino in southern California, a thousand years ago. Kin…

• Diablo Range Oaks

  Oil, Panel, 11 inches x 13 inches. This painting has a purplish red ground. I had a big pile of gray mixed from ultramarine blue, light red, and hansa yellow, that I mixed into all parts of the landscape: the greens and…

• Mule Pass Bucks

  Oil, Panel, 13 inches x 17 inches. Mule deer bucks foraging in their summer range in the High Sierra meadows and crest of the Yosemite National Park area around Mule Pass. Oil on cotton rag paper mounted on panel. Frame…

• Mid December Sunset at the Golden Gate

  Oil, Paper, 7 inches x 10 inches. Sunset before the Golden Gate Bridge, long ago.

• Coho Salmon

  Oil, Paper, 13 inches x 30 inches. I painted this "Portrait" of a coho salmon in red breeding colors from wild salmon I observed along the Columbia River near Portland, Oregon. Oil paints capture the glassy translucent…

• North Rim of the Grand Canyon

  Oil, Paper, 8 inches x 22 inches. Sunset on the North Rim. Tempera underpainting on Rising Stonehenge cotton rag paper 245 gm/m2, oil over painting.

• Acorns

  Oil, Paper, 11 inches x 12 inches. I collected these acorns and piled them up to paint from, clockwise from top left: coast live oak, valley oak, interior live oak, blue oak, and California black oak. Also a single Cali…

• El Cerrito Grizzlies

  Oil, Paper, 7.5 inches x 8 inches. Back in time centuries ago, the Bay Area was a grassy place with coast live oaks. Here, two California grizzlies feast on fallen acorns. Albany Hill is in the background.

• Oakland Oaks

  Oil, Paper, 8 inches x 14.5 inches. Lake Merritt in Oakland formerly was a saltwater arm of the Bay. A black-tailed deer forages in ancient coast live oak woodlands in the past.

• Mountain Lion Brothers

  Oil, Panel, 17 inches x 39 inches. A portrait of two mountain lion brothers. Framed.

• Mortar Rock

  Oil, Panel, 24 inches x 24 inches. A past scene of Ohlone women pounding acorns into meal in a mortar rock which is still visible in Berkeley, currently surrounded by houses. Old buckeye trees can still be seen here. A…

• Wildflowers Hills

  Oil, Panel, 14 inches x 20 inches. Patchwork of poppies, lupines, owl's clover and other wildflowers in the Coast Range hills of California. See the painting on the interpretive sign ay Inspiration pint in Tilden Region…

• Kaweah oaks

  Oil, Canvas, 18 inches x 24 inches. Valley oaks and grass in a native scene of the past on the eastern edge of the historic San Joaquin Valley, California, as it might have appeared a thousand years ago. Unframed.

• Arizona Desert with Tortoise

  Oil, Panel, 22 inches x 15.5 inches. Sunset at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, with saguaro cactus and a desert tortoise. Framed.

• Chaparral Plants

  Oil, Paper, 14 inches x 11 inches. Portraits of various southern California chaparral plant species, oil on sized cotton rag paper.

• McCloud River Trout

  Oil, Panel. Unfinished brown sauce underpainting, but I liked the effect and decided to leave it unfinished. It makes a great teaching aid too.

• Imperial woodpeckers

  Oil, Paper, 16 inches x 12 inches. The Imperial woodpecker is the largest woodpecker species in the world, once found in California in the 1800s. Here a group climbs a ponderosa overlooking the Anza-Borrego Desert, a sc…

• Blue Oaks and Larkspur

  Oil, 14 inches x 12 inches. Blue oaks, bunchgrass, and larkspur flowering in the Sierra Foothills.

• South Bay Marsh 500 Years Ago

  Oil, Panel, 9 inches x 15 inches. A scene of the past in the south Bay Area near present-day Hayward, California. Marshes with waterfowl, sandpipers, a herd of elk and a coyote. This was an illustration for Bay Nature m…

• Giant Forest

  Oil, Panel, 21 inches x 48 inches. Giant sequoia forest in the Sierra Nevada with California condors.