Help with old oil on canvas landscape?

A very nice landscape - looks like it could be from a California artist, but I can't quite work around photoshop to isolate the sig - can someone help out with that?

It kind of does look like Ellis, and the style could be a match for Fremont Ellis, but not the signature, for sure. He signs both names with a horizontal line across starting with the top of the F. I included a few variations on the sig, but may be dupes, sorry (fever)

Anyhoo... sadly, it's got scratches.

 

This might help. Looks like E. Mash. to me ......

 

Here's another. Don't really see anything different. Maybe E. Mask. instead.

 

Wow! That's helpful. Yeah, "E. Mask" for me... what's that period-looking mark at the end? Surely it's not an abbreviation, like "E. Wash." means E Washington? The sky is really well-done.
Hey Scout... did your duck forget to duck, hence the black eye?

 

I like to think she's just resting... lol It's a little oil painting I've had for many years, signed "Paddy," and I've always wondered if it was one of a set.

It's just a totally weird sig - Thanks, Verybrad! Did you use Photoshop selective color? (or how?)

I never was very comfortable with PS and starting to use Lightroom now, but I'm sickly and my room is freezing. I'm stuck in bed with my laptop and PS. waah

 

I see E. Marsh ? It almost looks like a southern landscape,florida or Louisiana .

 

I use a free editing tool called Serif Photo Plus. I manipulated the contrast, saturation, and hue values quite a bit.

I considered that this might be E. Washington abbreviated but that really does not look like a W. Could not find any matching artists just the same. The period at the end is a bit puzzling.

Seeing this as E. Marsh does explain the wonky A but I am not so sure. All of the other letters are pretty well separated.

This looks like a pretty nice painting and I imagine these photos don't quite do it justice. There is an overall hazy look to it that I think is unintended. Is this a function of the photos or does it really look this way? If it really looks this way, I would think the paint surface has oxidized a bit. In this case, a cleaning and coat of varnish would do wonders for it. The scratches on it would probably be a pretty easy fix in the process. Some of them might actually just disappear, while some might need some touch up.