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Baseball can drag on. So this guy did a painting of Dodger Stadium at the game
Osaka resident Larry Quach, on a trip to Los Angeles, attended a Dodgers game — and painted the stadium.
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Larry Quach
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Courtesy Larry Quach
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When former Angeleno Larry Quach returned to the City of Angels for a vacation with his wife and mother-in-law, he knew he had to take the latter to her very first Dodgers game.
"It's mainly my mother-in-law who's a big Shohei [Ohtani] fan," said Quach, who moved to Osaka about two years ago to live with his wife and her family. "They are really big on Shohei in Japan all over."
The Dodgers bested the Toronto Blue Jays that night — 5-1 — with Ohtani notching three hits and scoring twice. But don't ask Quach about any of it.
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A "plein air" painting Larry Quach did at the Orix Buffaloes versus the Nippon Ham Fighters in Japan in 2025.
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Larry Quach
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Courtesy Larry Quach
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" I'm pretty sure he hit something because the crowd went wild a couple times," Quach said. " I think I was painting most of the time."
Favorite pastime at America's favorite pastime
Quach has been to his fair share of Dodger games, having lived in L.A. for more than three decades. And the tradition has continued in Osaka because of his wife and his mother-in-law.
But instead of watching the game — Quach prefers to spend his time doing little 4-by-6-inch paintings of the stadium.
"It's more fun for me, and I get to sit there and kind of zone out a little bit for like an hour or two and do a painting," he said.
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Baseball can drag on. So this guy did a painting of Dodger Stadium at the game
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The style is called "plein air," an impressionist technique focused on capturing the fleeting elements in the surroundings.
"Basically, you paint what you see on site within a certain amount of time," he said. "It's a good training tool to become a better painter. Because the light changes so quickly, it forces you to paint within a certain time — usually under two hours."
A "plein air" painting of Dodger Stadium Larry Quach did in 2017.
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Larry Quach
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Courtesy Larry Quach
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The first one he did was at Dodger Stadium a bit less than a decade ago. It turned out so well people offered to buy the painting — which he tends just to give away. After that, he kept going.
"It would give me an excuse to attend something that somebody around me wants to go to," Quach said.
He doesn't just paint stadiums — public landmarks and cool buildings all have been his subjects. Stadiums, though, are the trickiest, logistically.
" I try to be respectful of the stadium," he said. "Obviously don't want to make a mess."
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He uses a watercolor block — basically a thick pad of watercolor paper — to paint on, eliminating the need for an easel.
"The hard part is having a palette," he said. For that, he uses a business card holder rigged up with little trays of paint inside.
Then, "I usually buy a beer early on and try to drink it and fill up with the water," to use for his paint brushes, Quach added.
A painting Larry Quash did at the Orix Buffaloes vs. Nipppon Ham Fighters game in Japan.
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Larry Quach
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Courtesy Larry Quach
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To Quach, the act of painting is more intimate and personal than snapping a photo.
" When you sit there at the same spot for an extended amount of time, you really, really absorb everything around you," said Quach, who works as a digital artist for a living.
It also requires him to slow down.
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As to their recent trip, Quach said his mother-in-law had a great time in L.A. She had In-N-Out, twice. And she was dancing and screaming along with the crowd at Dodger Stadium.
"I have never seen her so animated," he said.
For a keepsake, Quach gifted her the plein air painting.
" She was really, really excited," he said. "This was the main purpose of her trip, to see a Dodgers game and see Shohei Ohtani play."
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