Rosicrucian Museum, San Jose, January 19th

What a contrast weatherwise from our last outing. I was glad I dressed for winter because it was very cold when you were sat still painting. We had the Rosicrucian to ourselves for a little while, but pretty soon it was swamped by groups of school children. To make the most of it I had some fun painting figures.

We only painted until Noon, then had a quick lunch and went off to the Triton Museum to see the 2011 Statewide Painting Exhibition http://tritonmuseum.org/  There are some wonderful paintings on show there, well worth visiting.

Palo Alto Baylands, January 5th, 2012

This was a gorgeous day, and no better place to be than by the saltmarshes surrounded by birds and views of the mountains. A Great Egret and Snowy Egret were fishing very close to us. Fun for us - not so fun for the fish!

Mexico Sketches

Beach View

Prior to Christmas we had a wonderful week in Cabo, Mexico. Warm weather, good food and lots of Margaritas. What could be better! Here are some sketches I did over the week.

 

 

Beach Vendors - you can buy anything on the beach

View from our balcony

 The place we stayed had wonderful architecture, very organic with a private, yet friendly, feeling.

Quick 2 minute sketch done at the Flea Market (I added the paint later) The shops are a profusion of color.

Our room had little alcove shelves adorned with shells and ornaments

One evening here was a parade for the Virgin of Guadalupe's birthday

Palms were everywhere - this one's a little abstracted

Lovers beach - next to what looked like Alcatraz!

A Blustery Day at Santa Cruz Mission

Santa Cruz Mission in the afternoon (postcard)

Ah, the many challenges of plein air painting! Mission Plaza park in Santa Cruz is a small pretty square in front of the Santa Cruz Mission and the Holy Cross Catholic Church. It was very busy this particular morning, with crowds of school children wandering about and a large funeral taking place at the church. The capricious weather gave us an extra frisson of excitement as great gusts of wind periodically had us hanging on to all our equipment while we were buffeted by falling leaves. At one point I became aware of a large spider crawling under the brim of my hat. It must have blown onto my head in the wind. I transported it to safety on a nearby rock. As the morning progressed a crazy homeless woman wandered about the square shouting, and in the afternoon another homeless person was sleeping under the trees. All this and we had to think about painting too!

Santa Cruz Mission in the morning

It took me a while to get into painting (surprise!) and my first sketch was a bit sad. Next I sketched the beautiful Holy Cross Church.

Holy Cross Church

Then I decided to try out some watercolor canvas. This is a very strange surface to use. The paint just sits there and looks at you as if to say "I was expecting paper, what's this stuff?" Then you have to mush the paint around a bit and suddenly it looks a bit like watercolor. Its hard to do details, so I guess you just have to be broad and colorful with it. The great thing about it is you can remove the paint easily and really push your painting around. If fact if you were cheap you could probably use the same bit of canvas for years - just photograph your painting, then wash it off! I'm going to experiment some more with it.

Victorian House (Watercolor Canvas)

Our group got together for a pot luck lunch. Soo many yummie treats to enjoy! Lovely.
My final painting was a little postcard (top of page)- and again it was the best thing I did all day. There's something about painting on such a tiny piece of paper that works for me...!

Oak Hill Memorial Park

View from Sunrise Hill

I really like this beautiful cemetery. With its sweeping hills and wide views it is a wonderful place to contemplate life and death. Oak Hill is California's oldest secular cemetery with burials from 1847.
I started painting with a little postcard sketch of distant sight of the hills and a tall redwood casting its shadow over the graves.

Also from Sunrise Hill

From Mausoleum

San Jose Skyline with storm brewing

The mausoleum has wonderful views of the San Jose skyline and I had several attempts at painting that. During my first painting the clouds started to build up and by the time I had my second go the colors had changed a lot. I had intended to do more sketches, but it got blustery and cooler - obviously working up to the promised rain.

Ardenwood Historical Farm

Ardenwood Pumpkins

I got a late start to the day due to a blinding headache, but I was glad I went up to Ardenwood Farm today. The pumpkins looked suitably plump and orangey, the animals were all in fine voice and a fair few children were having fun learning about farming. I had to paint the field of pumpkins - the lines of orange looked great disappearing off into the distance and right on the horizon were some lovely trees turning color. It was baking hot sat out in the sun though, so I made two quick sketches. This one is my second and has the better color.

1920's Washing Machine

Sue was drawing an old 1920's washing machine behind the house and we started discussing abstraction. Abstraction is hard to do when you are looking at reality - the temptation is to include everything you see. The machine itself was a marvelous study of aged wood and corrugated metal with lovely twirly keys to adjust the spring tension on the mangle rollers. I started a paint sketch of some of the elements. Unfortunately my sketching was interrupted by lunch and I never got back to it.

Catch up!

Wow, I can't believe its 2 months since I last posted on here! Getting lazy in my old age. Well here's come catchup pieces to bring us back up to date.

Eagle Rock, Alum Rock Park

Hangar at Moffatt Field

Moffatt Field

Lovers Point, Pacific Grove

Coyote Point Hike and Sketch