Thursday, November 3, 2011

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.