Crest Pines
“Crest Pines” 15″ x 11″ watercolor on paper
Pines and summer wildflowers on the Angeles Crest – the newest in my trails of the San Gabriel series.
This weekend, at two different watercolor demos held at Watercolor West and the National Watercolor Society, both demonstrating artists mentioned how they like to work in themes and series. I hadn’t been consciously thinking that way, but I now realize that I keep doing similar paintings of trails or byways and our local mountains. So I guess you could call that a series. Although I don’t know that I’ll make every upcoming painting a part of that, I’m sure that tomorrow’s plein air is likely to be a continuation, and I’ll be doing more in the future. I do find that by working consistently on similar subject matter that it reinforces what I’m learning and experimenting with.
As with others in this series, the only pencil drawing was about a half a dozen lines to indicate horizon, mountain range, the shapes of the two prominent pines and the shape of the trail. Everything else was ‘drawn’ with the brush as I painted.
I used about four brushes for this: a one inch flat, a 12 round, a 4 round and a #6 liner. The colors were primarily chrome yellow, thalo blue, payne’s gray and a bit of leftover burnt sienna from yesterday’s painting
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.
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.
Birthday lilies
I painted this interpretation of stargazers as a birthday card for a dear friend who I’ve known for more years than either one of us want to confess!
Watercolor and colored pencil on 140 #paper
Capistrano Fence
I have been posting less than usual the past few days because I’ve been trying to get out of my sketchbook and into bigger paintings. I’m hoping to to enter some in our Verdugo Hills society show and sale in the fall. Maybe I’ll be lucky and they’ll accept some for display. At any rate, this is a studio painting based on my own photo taken in Capistrano during our sketchcrawl earlier this year. I did a value study first and then just started painting it without preliminary drawing. It might have turned out differently (or better) if I had done an under-drawing first, but I tend to like to make things up as I go, solving color and value problems as I confront them. My goal here was to try to capture the quality of late afternoon light in a coastal beach community with a tropical feeling. The big tree is most likely a yucca, not a palm.
Because all monitors are different and a compressed picture isn’t as subtle as the real thing, the shadows are blue-violet but not as intense and dark as they may seem here. If the side of the house looks like a muted turquoise, then you’re probably seeing the hue right. The colors look so much better in person, though.
It’s painted on 140 # watercolor paper, and the image size is x 9.75″ x 13.5″ Matted, it would frame to 16 x 20, which is what I’ll do with it when I take it in to the show in the fall. Comments and feedback are very welcome!
Rosarium Two
This watercolor sketch of the Descanso Gardens Rosarium was actually painted about a month ago, at the same time that I was primarily posting daily sketches of Cat Mandu. I knew that we were on borrowed time with her, and I wanted to share her drawings while she was still alive. The flowers will always be there, and so I am posting them now.
This was painted on location at Descanso Gardens at about 10 in the morning. The light is similar to that in Vista del Arroyo a few days ago and Rosarium Haze, only the sky was a bit clearer, so it’s not quite so hazy.
The page is 9 x 12, painted with tube watercolors, a dixie cup and a sable brush. If things go according to plan, I’ll also be making an oil painting from this sketch.
Rockrose
It’s stiflingly hot here – today is supposed to be the hottest day of the season so far – and according to today’s radio report it could be 112F. This rockrose, being a native, doesn’t seem to care about the climate. I’m a native, too, but I like air conditioning and copious amounts of cool drinks or I wilt.
Rockroses have crinkly tissue paper thin petals, similar to matilija poppies in the way they look. Those matilijas are also a drought-tolerant native, so I’m guessing that the very thin petals have something to do with water conservation.
Epidendrum
I painted this epidendrum orchid in my back yard recently. The frilled, fringed flowers are commonly orange, yellow, red or cream colored and are borne on long spikes like this (I’ve only shown a part of it – the spike is probably 2 feet tall.) This painting was done in my 9 x 12 sketchbook as a study. I will likely do one on ‘real’ watercolor paper next. I added a little colored pencil for the accent parts.
This morning I’m off to paint at Descanso with my friend Robin and I’ve been looking forward to it all week.
Mandu is now living in the kitchen, on the floor, where she has a towel and all of her “things” close by. I see her moving from one to another, delicately touching them with her muzzle, to orient herself. We’re thinking that she may have some sense of light and darkness, but it is too soon to tell. At any rate, she does not appear distressed and is eating, drinking and washing her face as usual, although she’s not eating as much as usual and needs to be ‘reminded’ to eat, since she no longer gets the visual stimulus.
My window view – a not so faraway place
This is my return to the “Draw the view from your window” challenge. My intention is to do it for every season and to notice the differences in foliage and flowers. The tree is a Chinese elm, a hardy and vigorous grower that puts up suckers all over the yard, and promiscuously drops seeds with wild abandon. This elm, in fact, is a child of the four large elms that line the front of our property. Unlike American elms they are not vulnerable to Dutch elm disease. Come to think of it, they’re not vulnerable to anything – even severe trimming and drought. You couldn’t kill them if you tried, which makes them a good plant for drought prone areas like ours.
I painted this in my sketchbook this afternoon, looking out my window onto the end of a sunny day – a welcome change from all the rain and cloudy weather. The colors snapped, the light was good and I just had to stop what I was doing. But here’s my question: If you paint a nature scene from life but you’re not outside, can you call it plein-air? Should I call it faux-air? Or office-air? I am so confused; I will have to ruminate on this for awhile.
Edited to add:
Here’s a fall window view …of the oak just to the left of the Chinese elm (elm not seen here.)
Yellow flag
A recent entry in my ‘purely botanical’ sketchbook. This yellow flag iris is quite commonly planted around bogs or ponds. This one grows at Descanso gardens near a pond with a weeping willow. This iris, native to Asia and Europe, became known as the French fleur-de-lis, and the word “flag” may refer to a non-English word meaning rush or reed.
In some US states, pseudarcorus is considered a noxious weed because it grows by both underground tubers and reeds and can be invasive. We have a small patch of them in our yard and they have been very well contained in dry years. In very wet seasons they do spread a little bit.
Watercolor in a coptic bound Paperblanks journal with creamy paper
