Vasona Hike and Sketch

A little walk in the park turned out to be more fun than I thought.  The weather was changeable, but that made for great skies and changing light. We saw a ton of birds - including goslings and quite a few small herons. We lunched at the foot of the dam - very atmospheric with the dam looming above us, water cascading in front of us and a wonderful metallic clanking sound coming from the roadworks nearby. You could imagine yourself in the War of the Worlds! Lots of people would have thought it terrible - but I enjoyed it enormously! Sadly had to leave early for an appointment so my dam sketch is unfinished and doesn't do it justice.

The dam at Vasona is 1000 feet long and 30 feet high. At the foot of this behemoth a small heron was fishing, two ducks sunbathed and a small group of artists had lunch

Dick Zunkel Demo at Los Gatos Plaza Park

The last sketch I did, using brush pens not the dip pen. My fountain looks more like a collection of ghosts!

Thursday's demo by Dick Zunkel was excellent. It reintroduced me to the joy of drawing with dip pens and ink - I had forgotten what wonderfully expressive lines you can get with them. The only problem was that the ink seemed to get everywhere! Dick's style is very loose and dynamic and looks deceptively easy. I had a hard time getting to grips with it - I think I should have been working on larger paper.

I caught the Western Wheelers having lunch right in front of us. Drawn directly with the pen.

Mucking about with acrylics

I was inspired by an SCVWS workshop I took with Jaya King recently. I've been trying to have more fun with my art and think outside the box a little.
My friend Sue, and I, decided we would try out some of the ideas for surface textures described in "Surface Treatment Workshop" a book by Darlene Olivia McElroy and Sandra Duran Wilson. So here are a couple of crazy experiments with acrylics and foil. I've no idea what I'll do with them, but we had a lot of fun just trying a few different things!

This piece is acrylic paint and rubbing alcohol, bleach pen spots, a few collaged bits, and some mark making.

This foil piece was interesting to create - trying to find different textures to rub the foil over. I was most impressed by the "moonscape" rubbings which are actually from the suckers on the back of a bathmat! The gel takes a long time to dry, so I won't get to paint it for some time. It needs a lot more work.

Emma Prusch Farm, Thursday April 5th

This is a great little spot to paint right off 101 and King St. It has chickens roaming around, rusty machinery and some birds and animals to sketch.