Colorado Street Bridge – Summer Landscape California Oil Painting

Pasadena Bridge – Summer Days
(Colorado Street Bridge)
8 x 10 oil on canvas

SOLD but I have other bridge paintings

This California landscape is one that is familiar to residents of Pasadena and the communities surrounding the Arroyo Seco. The Colorado Street Bridge , seen here looking northward, rises over the grassy fields that are now turning golden. Only the evergreen eucalyptus, oaks, willows and other natives keep their colors. The 134 freeway bridge can be seen in the distance. On these late spring days it’s not uncommon to see thunderheads building over the San Gabriel Mountains – you can feel the humidity build up at those times.

I am counting down the days until my reception at Gale’s Restaurant in Pasadena. Sunday, May 31, 4-6 pm. If you’re local, I hope you can come!

Book tip of the day: Kevin McPherson’s Landscape Painting Inside and Out: Capture the Vitality of Outdoor Painting in Your Studio With Oils. I do plein air painting as often as I can … but I have learned a lot from this book and others about keeping the fresh plein air feeling while painting in studio. Check it out!

Tracy Sugarman, WW2 veteran artist

Book Review, Editorial/opinion | January 18, 2006 | By


World War II artist: Tracy Sugarman

If you’re like me, there’s nothing more interesting than peeking inside someone else’s journal or travel diary to see life through their eyes at a particular time and place. That’s why I’ve been getting so much enjoyment from Tracy Sugarman’s drawings and watercolors from the Library of Congress “Experiencing War” Veteran’s History Project, documented by the US Library of Congress.

You’ll find 85 drawings and paintings at that address which portray life in the Navy before, during and after D-Day. You’re going to want to spend some time there, and the pictures can be enlarged quite a bit to see detail. Sugarman served for three years and I believe he is still living as the website shows no date of death.

This one is particularly interesting because you can see how he did his underdrawing before applying paint.