California Byway
California Byway – 7″ x 5″ – watercolor
A peaceful country road in the Ojai area, a little northwest of Los Angeles.
There are still agrarian areas, even in Southern California, where the landscape still looks much as it did a hundred years ago (as long as you don’t notice the late model SUVs zipping by.)
When we take road trips we seek out these out of the way places off the beaten path where the late afternoon sun reminds us that it really is a golden state.
Art advice from watercolorist Rex Brandt:
“I advocate the study of other artists’ ways and indeed, I am suspicious of the student or teacher who professes neither knowledge nor concern about the ways of the masters of his field.”
High Desert Ravine
“High Desert Ravine” – watercolor – 8″ x 10″ – available
A roadside stop on the way to Idyllwild provided the inspiration for this watercolor sketch. Sagebrush, crumbing granite and the scruffy native bushes gave me an interesting variety of textures and colors to work with.
Good advice from David Millard on painting:
“Be a doer … don’t just talk about it. Talent is what your mother talks about. Work is what gets you around the bases and score!”
Cactus Cottage –
Cactus Cottage – 5.5″ x 8″ watercolor
Here’s an impressionist sketch of a cottage garden with a picket fence- inspired by a street we walked down in Capistrano.
Very quick and loose, with a minimum of explicit detail. I like the rambunctious feeling of it. In the midst of all the cottage flowers mixed with California natives there was a large beavertail cactus and some other tall, ridged kinds. I like the feeling of new world meets old, duking it out for visual superiority.
Back Country Creek
“Back Country Creek” – 9 x 12 watercolor on paper
A spring day in a subdued mood!
Near Skye
Scottish castle – watercolor on paper 8″ x 8″
Back in the 90s we went to England on business and had the opportunity to drive up to Skye, the home of my distant ancestors. This castle was nearby. I’m sure it would be prettier on a bright sunny day , but somehow mist and brooding moors seemed to fit perfectly.
Back on the home front, we spent this afternoon doing some gardening. After two years my right knee seems to finally have healed enough for me to work outside without concern for pain or undoing the slow process of recovery. So we vigorously trimmed shrubs, pruned the bougainvillea that survived the frost and tethered up a blue hibiscus that was being pushed aside by the bougainvillea. There’s so much work to be done in the yard but I’m looking forward to the exercise in the fine weather.
In the coming weeks, or weekends, mostly, I’ll put in our spring vegetable garden and transplant a few new plants I got at the Descanso Gardens spring plant sale – a fantastic twice a year event not to be missed.
Two koi
Two Koi – 8″ x 8″ watercolor on Stonehenge paper
Two little Descanso koi, looking for some fish chow. Look out for the racoons!
At Mulberry Pond at Descanso Gardens, they have created some ledges and shelves out of rock for the koi to hide under. I heard from one of the volunteers that the racoons will actually wade in the water to fish. But apparently they won’t swim into deep areas. Racoons, herons and egrets are a problem for pond owners who treasure their living jewels. To the predators it’s just an easy meal.
California Home 1 – Daily Painting
California Home 1 – 15″ x 11″ watercolor on paper
SOLD
Can you tell I’m in the middle of a very experimental try-anything phase? Well, I am. I absolutely love the California school paintings of the 30s through 50s, as I’ve mentioned here before, so today I thought I’d try something in that style.
Last year, on a trip to Capistrano, I took this picture of a bougainvillea vine climbing over a wall onto what seemed to be a carport or something undefined. I liked the vine but I wanted it to be part of a larger scene – not just a big pink sprawling mass. I might still paint it again in oil or pastel, but that’s another story.
So, today, while letting the Alverno villa color study percolate in the back of my head, I took out my sketchbook and explored some other ways the vine could be part of an imaginary scene. I invented a cottage for the vine to crawl on, and made the fence lower so it could be seen.
This was one of several value sketches I did, mapping out different shapes that I thought might work.
I scanned that drawing and brought it into Photoshop CS, where I experimented with different colors in different layers. To make the fuchsia-red flowers pop I looked for a complement for the cottage roof – a blue-green. I picked analogous colors for the other trees and shrubs in the scene.
When I got it roughly sketched on the paper, I discovered that I had too much room to the right with nothing going on, so I drew in an old clothesline and tucked it behind a hedge because I didn’t want the fence to run full wide right off the page. And … I liked the allusion to an time before labor-saving devices, and the sun and breeze that it implies. I suspect that there are a couple of little kids playing with a floppy-eared dog in that back yard. Don’t you think? That shrubby background became a place to insert a couple of squabbling birds – geese or ducks, your guess.
So there’s the evolution of a California dream from a long-gone era and I hope you found the journey to its completion interesting. I’ll be putting this in my ebay store, tomorrow probably.
Flintridge Cottage
“Flintridge Cottage” – watercolor – 5.3″ x 7″
Every year our town has a spring garden tour of some of the nicest homes. I often take a camera along to get ideas for landscaping. And occasionally these gardens end up in my paintings, too. This ivy covered cottage is on the route of one of our daily walks. With manicured box hedges, rose bushes and perennial flowers, it looks like something out of a fairy tale.
Palos Verdes Ride –
Palos Verdes Ride – 13.75 x 9″ – watercolor on paper
$100 Purchase from the artist
A few weeks ago, when we went down to Wayfarer’s Chapel for our anniversary, we drove through the Palos Verdes peninsula and I took a few pictures from the car along the way. One of them featured some large eucalyptuses, which I can never pass up the chance to paint. Unfortunately, this area is “no parking” due to extreme landslide danger, so I was not able to get out and sketch. But that’s why I always carry a camera with me. When I got home and took a look at my picture, I saw that there were some riders emerging from the grove. I hadn’t noticed them at all during the drive-by.
If you live in the area , I think we just approaching Portugeuse Bend, coming up from San Pedro. (Googlemap link below.)
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:
