Pepper Trees – Daily Painting
“Pepper Trees near Lake Piru” 7.5″ x 11″ Watercolor on 140# paper
For sale
Almost as common as eucalyptus are California’s pepper trees, which, in the summer, are heavily laden with pink peppercorns. These tall fluffy trees are especially common along highways, and scent the air with a spicy fragrance when the fallen peppers are crushed.
After I painted this I thought it almost verged on the abstract with large bands of color, shape and texture but no real center of interest.
Mango and Mates – Daily Painting
Watercolor on paper 10″ x 7.5″. Available
What I learned on my weekend vacation that I decided to apply today …
Colorful shadows with reflected light. Playing around with complementary schemes.
Being bold with wet in wet painting.
Getting more daring with saturated color.
Painting watercolor standing up (even when not plein air) to give more arm/shoulder range.
Mixing colors from a limited palette.
Oh, and this is not the same mango that my husband was pining for before. That one went into the margaritas.
Painting a Day – San Gabriel Sunset
7″ x 10″ on 140# watercolor paper – from my sketchbook
The beautiful San Gabriel Mountains. They’re sleeping right now, but rumor has it that the Sierra Madre fault, which runs along the foothills, could wake at any time, giving us all a wild and rocky ride. Those of us who are foothill-dwellers hope that it will be eons before that event occurs.
Painting a Day – Antique Lamp
“Lamp to My Feet”
5 1/2″ x 11 5/8″ Oil on gessoed hardboard
SOLD
This painting started as an experiment in trying to paint two surfaces which I find challenging – metal and glass.
Santa Barbara Bird Sanctuary Railroad Trestle Pastel Painting
9 x 12″ – pastel on Mi-Teintes paper
I plan on opening an ebay store in the next week or so, and this will likely go in it.
The Amtrak Surfliner goes up and down the Pacific coast through Santa Barbara and passes by the bird sanctuary near Montecito, the inspiration for this artwork.
I just don’t think I’ll ever get tired of drawing and painting eucalyptus trees … their forms have so much variety in color, size, shape of foliage.
Painting a Day – Sunflower fall
SOLD
Ah, the treasures of fall. First persimmons and now these. Fruit and flowers are in abundance everywhere I look and I want to paint them all. This little pastel is 4″ x 4″ and was so much fun to do – especially the velvety dark centers.
Painting a Day – Japanese persimmon
4″ x 4″ pastel on paper
SOLD
Last Sunday we went to our local farmers’ market and I picked up quite a few unusual fruits from specialized growers. This little fellow is called a Japanese persimmon – a Fuyu, to be more precise. Unlike many other persimmons, it is short and round and looks a little bit like a tomato. I don’t know when it will get sweet but in the meantime I’m going to have a good time painting and drawing it. The oranges, golds and greens in the skin were a powerful lure.
Occasionally I’ll add a bit of pastel to a watercolor to enhance certain colors, but I haven’t done too many lately.
The Tujunga sunset (below) was my first attempt to get back into it (in June) after far too many years.
The good thing about letting your pastels sit around for a awhile is that they don’t dry up, fade or show any signs or deterioration. The bad thing is that your fingers get rusty. But that’s what learning’s all about, and I’m enjoying the process.
Have you revisited a medium that you put aside long ago? What did it feel like when you started up again? Vaguely familiar like riding a bike? Or strange and foreign?
Painting a Day – Country Roads
Original watercolor – 10.5″ x 7″ – available
Although much of Santa Barbara is cosmopolitan and sophisticated, there are some rural areas where abandoned roads still sprawl over undeveloped land in the foothills of the Santa Ynez Mountains.
I wanted to climb over that little wire fence and see where the forgotten path would lead, but I didn’t really want to get stopped or questioned for trespassing. Now that the heat of summer has passed, it’s the very best time of year for getting out and overindulging in the beauty of nature. Within six weeks, the first of the trees will start changing in Southern California and the skies will be a little bluer as the heat haze becomes a memory, blown away by cooler autumn gusts.
It’s a dangerous time for fire, as well, and I hope that this season we don’t see the firestorms that have ravaged parts of our local mountains in previous years.
Do you have a favorite season for getting out and drawing, painting, or photographing nature? Is it this one?
Geranium way (sketch)
Another fast and rough sketch in the 9 x 12″ Raffine… in preparation for doing another painting in watercolor or oils. This one was painted with a half inch flat and a #12 round. Late afternoon on a tropical California side street.
In fact, it’s right next door to this house Capistrano Fence which I painted about a month ago.
The 20th anniversary issue of Watercolor magazine came in the mail the other day … oh, my the inspiration. If you haven’t seen it, go get it at the newsstand. The work is just outstanding … it makes you want to vow not to let a day go by without painting.
Sycamore Grove
Yesterday I got my first Raffine sketchbook by Lana, recommended by Lin Frye, so I decided to give it a test drive. The 9 x 12″ paper is very thick and slightly absorbent, and I’d say it takes a wet wash pretty well without bleeding through the back side of the paper. There was only slight buckling. I used a 1″ flat brush for this sketch and a thin flexible “rigger” brush. For quick studies (this took about 15-20 minutes) and an economical price tag (12.99 for a 48 page book) this might just be my favorite so far. I even like the slightly rough texture which makes it possible to get some interesting textures.
I haven’t tried a watercolor Moleskine yet, but the large size of this sketchbook appeals in that it allows me to use a bigger brush and to concentrate on large areas of color and value. Watercolor colors used: light red, quin magenta, burnt sienna, cobalt blue, sap green, yellow green.
In the coming days I’ll also try it out with ink, colored pencil, charcoal, pencil and acrylic, if you’d like to check back to see the results of my experiments …
P.S. My first eBay watercolor painting auction concludes Sunday night …
Click to see auction
