A San Diego Native's & Artist’s Top 3 Inspiring Beach Spots
Pacific Beach Drive looking North at sunset
I am from San Diego, and these are three of my favorite beach spots...
Before I get too deep into telling you which places I love and why, know that pretty much ANY beach in San Diego is a good one, a GREAT one! San Diego truly is America’s Finest City. The following spots are not necessarily the most picturesque or critically acclaimed, but they are beaches I find myself going to repeatedly as they speak to my soul.
Law Street
This beach is named after the street it runs perpendicular with and is located in my childhood hometown of Pacific Beach. Protected by sea cliffs and a solid lifeguard staff, it is a great place for families and young children. This was the beach my friends and I would regularly visit as it’s not flooded with party-goers and has an even coastline that tapers slowly into the deeper parts of the seafloor. Some of my fondest memories growing up are here.
When revisiting this beach for the first time with the intention of painting, I found a new appreciation for the subtle greens that flickered between each curve of a wave. The way the washed-up kelp was evenly dispersed as far as the eye could see, and how each beachgoer and surfer seemed to blend and move together in a way as harmonious as the pelicans flying in unison overhead.
Looking North from Law Street
“Good Morning Tourmaline” 16 x 20” oil on wood panel. Available here.
Children’s Pool
I have to be honest, I don’t often travel past Bird Rock for beach days as La Jolla is rightfully a tourist hotspot, and any further north, I would inevitability have to battle traffic. BUT this beach is truly a gem, a jewel one might say, and also holds some of my fondest memories as a child.
I recall snorkeling alongside garibaldi and sea lions, peeking in caves but being too afraid to venture in, climbing rocks, and walking along the sea wall hoping a wave would crash over. There is no other beach like this one, where the wild meets the tame, nature meets the city, and teal waters meet peach-flecked sand.
“Children’s Pool” 9 x 12” on oil wood panel. Available here.
The day I stood to paint this cove, I immediately noticed how the notorious marine layer did nothing to take away from the vibrant colors found in the shallow waters. Light is needed to display color, and even in its muddled form, a rainbow could still be perceived from the Children’s Pool.
Pacific Beach Drive
Look, my list does go beyond these three spots, and there’s one I like to consider a secret, which maybe one day I will share. With that said, I could not mention my top spots without recalling the FIRST beach I ever went to in my life! PB Drive, as locals call it, is my home. It was my father’s home and is the home of many of the kids who grew up on the southern end of Pacific Beach. Objectively, there’s nothing particularly unique about this spot compared to, say, Mission Beach or North County or elsewhere. But it’s my safe place and is very close to the bay as well as some of the prime bar and restaurant spots along the infamous boardwalk. Yet you are also far enough away from the pier and from Belmont Park that this beach tends to be a little less crowded than its neighboring spots.
“Sunset on the Pacific” 8 x 10” oil on wood panel. Available here.
Also, it is a fantastic place to view a sunset.
So, there you have it, three of my favorite beach spots in San Diego. I hope you can see the magic in them that I feel through these paintings. If you’d like to stay in the loop on new plein-air painting releases or future blog posts, be sure to sign up for my newsletter by clicking here.
Thank you for reading, and here’s to the rest of summer!
Michaela