Thursday, August 28, 2008

2 Weeks for the price of one

I'm more of a slacker than a blogger lately! Here's 2 weeks worth of plein air sites.
Last week we had a gorgeous day - perfect temperatures. We were at Lake Cunningham, lots of birds, water and hills to paint. The birds cooperated pretty well, setting themselves up for a doze on the shore of the lake, or sitting on the pontoon. It was weird, though, sketching the idyllic scene to the accompaniment of loud disco music and screams coming from the water park next door! In the end I only put paint on one of my sketchbook drawings, which didn't turn out so well.

Today we were in downtown Los Gatos, sitting in a shady park with a view of Main Street. We were grateful for the shade 'cause it was a real hot one today - was up to about 96F by the time I left! Anyway, I started with a drawing in my sketchbook, then thought I would paint the scene.

The trouble with painting a street scene is that cars and buses are always pulling up in front of you and blocking the view. I tried to include some of the cars, but the scale is a little off - I don't think I wanted to block out the buildings so I subconsciously made them very small! It also made me realize that America is populated with the ugliest, most boring colored vehicles in the world. Almost every car I looked at was an SUV in either silver, grey or white. Yawn!
The painting is very unbalanced (& unfinished owing to the heat) and looks a little "melty", which describes perfectly how I was feeling.

No comments: