Villa Maria, Stevens Creek Park

I was all excited over the Hawk last week so I forgot to post my Villa Maria paintings. Anyway here they are. I did another little postcard - not quite as nice as the one I did of the Five Wounds.
Then I tried a little jumble of fallen limbs against a backdrop of Eucalyptus and foliage. I often get impatient and go back into my washes before they are dry and this was a typical case where I ended up with backruns. I had a stab at correcting it at home, which I something I never normally do.

The Successful Hunt

Our resident Juvenile Red Tailed Hawk proved his hunting prowess today. He perched on a post with a bird he had caught. Tearing it to bits between talons and beak, the victim was consumed in less than 15 minutes. The hawk accidentally dropped a portion of the entrails onto a lower part of the post and took a minute to figure out how to hop down there to scavenge it without falling. He also spent some time scraping all the crevices of the post to ensure that every scrap was eaten. The only parts discarded were some of the feathers that were plucked off and tossed into the wind. He stayed on the post for over an hour preening and, no doubt, digesting.
This sketch was done from my photos. I started with the watercolor pencils, then added some paint.

New neighbor on the block

Juvenile Red Tail, Colored Pencil

My neighbors are fun to watch, I have my binoculars out all the time. No, don't go rushing off to call the police - I'm talking about wildlife! My immediate neighborhood is blessed with all kinds of animal residents. We have a doe and fawn that live under our deck. There are also four young bucks which we see roaming around. Birds are here in abundance. We have four or five hummingbirds, with one male who has claimed our feeder and defends it against all comers with typical fiestiness. The Orioles also like the feeder. We have a scrub jay to likes to bathe in our fountain.

Hawk sketch with water added

Over the last few days we've been hearing a hawk squawking up and down the valley. I spotted it on a telegraph pole outside our dining room window, so I snapped some photos of it before a mockingbird drove it away. Hawks are never welcome guests and mockingbirds especially go to great lengths to harass them until they leave. This was a juvenile Red Tail and I'm guessing it's squawking was to attract the attention of its parents and get some food. My photos came out well so I might compose a painting from them. For starters I did a sketch. I found some soluble colored pencils when cleaning up my studio, so I tried them out on this drawing. The first image is the pencil sketch, the second is after I put some clean water on it to see what would happen. Interesting. The colors are very limited, but they might be nice to sketch landscapes with.

My other sketches are of the doe relaxing in our mulch.

Five Wounds Church, Alum Rock

Today's challenge was the beautiful Portugese Catholic church on East Santa Clara St. It is a replica of the Braga Church in Portugal, completed in 1919 and built in the style of Baroque Revival architecture. My knowledge of architecture is minimal so I'm not sure what that means. Suffice to say it is a gorgeous white church with tall arched towers capped by red domes, lots of wild perspective, and enough twiddly bits to drive you crazy! We had a good turnout again (13 people) which is amazing considering we had to sit on the street and contend with the traffic whizzing by and regular buses belching their exhausts next to us!
My first sketch was done on the edge of the sidewalk so that I could direct artists to the parking when they arrived. I selected a spot where most of the church was hidden behind a tree (a cunning plan!). I wasn't paying 100% attention to what I was doing but I think it worked out well enough for all that!
Next I went across the road to get a better view of the whole building and decided to paint on a postcard. I bought this little pad of postcards at the weekend when I visited the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento (love this art museum). Anyway, the postcard worked out pretty well. It must be the smallest thing I have ever painted - although strictly speaking it is more of a drawing with a little paint daubed on it!
Feeling pleased with my drawing I then moved on to draw the L & F Fish Market at the junction with 101. Then after lunch I moved to the other side of the intersection and sketched the 101 on ramp.

Uvas Canyon Hike and Sketch

Today's event was a Hike and Sketch at Uvas Canyon. This is a gorgeous park and the waterfalls were flowing pretty well, so there were a lot of challenges to our watercolor skills. We got a good workout up the hills and practiced balancing ourselves and our painting equipment on various large rocks as we painted. At one point I almost lost my backpack in the river - such are the perils of outdoor painting!
I'm using a very small 7 x 5 inch "Cachet" sketchbook by Daler Rowney and while the paper is supposed to be for watercolor, the paint sometimes behaves strangely and it is difficult to glaze without lifting the original layer. Of course this should make for a more spontaneous look as you have to put the paint down and leave it, but I found myself lifting and mushing the paint around a bit, after the fact, so some mud ensued. The lifting ability was useful when I got around to scanning these sketches in as I scanned them in black and white first and that showed me that although I had a lot of different colors - they were all the same value! Oops, so I made a couple of adjustments here and there.

On our return to the carpool site at Calero Stables, Jenny and I did a sketch of the surrounding hills.

Half Moon Bay

The sun shone for us at Half Moon Bay last week. It was one of those rare days when everything you love all comes together to make the perfect day! We had 18 painters turn up at Pillar Point so there were lots of people to talk to and paint with. Of course the scenery was amazing with a wonderful jumble of boats, harbor buildings, piers and coastline. Most of us partook of a delicious fish and chip lunch from Barbara's Fish Trap and then painted some more. One of our best days out of all time I think!

Nola's Iris Garden

Who knew there were so many colors of Iris? At Prevost Ranch and Gardens there were beautiful Irises, sunshine and tremendous sweeping views, all up in the hills of East San Jose. We had a wonderful day out.
It was the hottest day of the year so far I think and boy did my allergies kick in. I sneezed, and sneezed, and sneezed, and when I wasn't sneezing I was sniffing - not much fun to be around! I remembered why I don't garden! Nuff said on that. I started my painting session with a little view of the hills - it looked so pretty, but the "pretty" somehow got stuck in my head and didn't make it on to my paper. That's one for the bin ('cept its on the back of something else in my sketchbook!) I think I do better with a closeup image - the grand view is just too overwhelming.
I wandered around some and found a gorgeous Iris that spoke to me, so I painted that. I started with a fairly detailed pen drawing then splashed some color on the wet paper for a wet in wet background. By lunchtime I had painted the budding flower at the top and an initial wash on the lower flower. Of course after lunch I went back and the light had changed completely. I sensibly thought about leaving it there and finishing it from a photo - but sense went out the window and I carried on where I left off. Stupid. I quickly realized it wasn't working the way I wanted. Ah well, live and learn. I don't hate it, but it was going to be so much better.
I did a couple of brush pen sketches later - all I could summon up energy for after all the sneezing. I do like using those brush pens - they're quick and fun.