Golden Mountain – Daily Painting
Golden Mountain 6.5″ x 3.75″
eBay Auction begins 8 AM, Los Angeles time
In the spring, California’s mountains glow with warm light as waves of wild mustard blanket them. This watercolor sketch, from memory and imagination, recalls the days between seasons when winters’ snow gives way to the hazy yellow of spring.
The watermark is not in the original artwork.
How it might look framed:
“As the Parade Passed By” – new painting
“As the Parade Passed By” – 12′ x 15″ watercolor on paper.
VIVA Gallery – NWS all member show
Last week, I got some very good news that I’d like to share with you. If you’ve been following this blog for the last year or so you can imagine how much this “first time” means to me.
I found out that this new painting, “As the Parade Passed By” has been juried into the Natl. Watercolor Society’s all member show, which will be hung in about a month at the VIVA gallery in Sherman Oaks, California (in the San Fernando Valley.) I am delighted to be included in this show of other NWS members and look forward to becoming more involved through activities and future competitions as well.
The painting was developed from an original photograph I took at a parade not too long ago. The man had a faraway look that I wanted to work with and enhance in watercolor. It was painted about two weeks ago. The watermark, of course, is not on the original.
When I got my MJ at UCLA, one of my favorite J-school classes was photojournalism. To be able to fade invisibly into a crowd and capture a face, a look, a moment, still fills me with excitement. Translating that into another medium has made the experience all the more enjoyable and precious.
Detail:
P.S. Here’s a good article on the use of street photography as an art form
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_photography#Photographing_without_permission
Descanso White Azalea – Daily Painting
Descanso White Azalea – 7.25 x 5.3 inches – watercolor on 140# paper – available
The azaleas have started blooming at Descanso again – some bushes show great masses of them and others just show one or two here and there. These were the topmost blossoms on one bush in the Japanese teahouse area. No doubt the rest of the shrub will burst forth very soon. I was painting there around noontime and the light striking the flowers made them seem to glow from within.
If you are going to be in the LA area in the spring, you really must visit Descanso Gardens in La Canada – one of LA’s loveliest botanical gardens.
Abstract Cliffs
Cliffside 7.25 x 3.25 – watercolor on paper
This small watercolor was an experiment in abstracting a scene – an exercise that I found very liberating and refreshing. When I look at the work of the California regional painters of the 30s and 40s, I see how often they broke away from realism to paint simplified forms and improvised color schemes. You can see the evidence of this movement in the highly designed travel posters of the era.
Quote of the day from Robert Henri:
“The object isn’t to make art, it’s to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable.”
May you all be in that state all this week!
