Plein air Eaton Canyon
Watercolor on 140# paper … 9″ x 10″
Today our paint out group went to Eaton Canyon Nature Area in Altadena, CA … a new place where I had not painted before. In the early fall some of the trees were starting to show tinges of brown and gold, and the hills were brown from the long dried-up spring rye grass. This is typical California chapparal – hills scattered with oak trees and occasional accents of chemise, toyon and buckwheat.
This on location study is going to be the basis for an oil painting one of these days. I’m looking forward to going back there again soon. Check back tomorrow – I have two more (looser) watercolor sketches I did today, but I need to get them scanned up.
Lil white mushroom
This is my entry for the Botanical Art month long “fungus” challenge. I’m sorry to say that here in desert dry Southern California we have a hard time keeping mushrooms fresh in our fridges let alone finding any growing wild … so this painting is from a photo I took of one harvested in January or so, after a very long rainy season. I’m sorry I don’t know the name of it, but I drew it in this position hoping that maybe someone can identify it. It had a few little brown “flaps” along the white cap.
This is watercolor with a very small bit of colored pencil and gouache for the white mycelium “root” (I think it’s mycelium, not sure.) This was painted with just two colors – van dyke brown and ultramarine blue. It’s 7.5″ x 11″
