OREGON COAST September 2017 – Part 4—Manzanita, Cannon Beach, Seaside

The watercolor artist retreat met at Manzanita, Oregon. Manzanita is a beach town located on The Pacific Coast Highway between Seaside and Tillamook.

It has a huge flat beach which has many moods depending on the weather and tides.

At the north end of the long beach is Neahkahnie Mountain. If you wander way up the beach from town you can even see where the ocean has worn a hole through the headland.

Here is my version of the arch. 

The town is a quiet place but with plenty going on in the way of food, arts and recreation.

If you sit on the hill just above the beach to sketch, you’ll find plenty of scenery plus a good measure of people watching.

 The sunsets are well worth waiting for.

Usually September on the Oregon coast is called “second summer” because of the mild sunny weather. But this time the wind was heavy and the seas rough on several days.

So we got opportunities for challenging seascapes.

I made a trip up the coast to visit Cannon Beach and Haystack Rock.

If you know where to look, you can see Tillamook Lighthouse built on a hunk of rock about a mile off shore. It has quite a history since the waves can be tumultuous and the fog heavy. Just building it cost several lives and many others followed trying to maintain the light to warn ships off the rocks. It was decommissioned in 1957.

It was a windy day when I visited Seaside South Beach to see if I could spot the gray whales reported in the water there.

These young Heermann’s gulls were hunkered down and waiting for better weather to go fishing. I didn’t see any whales.

So I went into town and had lunch at Norma’s. Great food.

If you’re in the mood for saltwater taffy, Seaside Candyman has 180 flavors. I picked out anything with chocolate plus some other kinds to share with the family at home.

For more of my watercolor paintings visit my Etsy Shop.  Or click on the Watercolors by Leenie button on the upper left of this blog page.