Alum Rock Park

I'm totally behind on posting my plein air sketches - which must mean I have a life, of sorts!
Anyway, here we were in Alum Rock Park on a beautiful autumn day. The mineral springs are the primary reason for the park. Back at the turn of the last century they were used as baths for curing all kinds of ailments. Now we just have the various little bridges and grottos left. The accumulation of minerals on the rocks give rise to interesting textures and colors (and smells!). Here's my color/texture sketch of one of the springs.As I sat there painting every now and again there would be a little rockslide and a heap of small pebbles would rain down the rockface onto the ground. There are always lots of little earthquakes here and I wondered if that was what was dislodging the rocks. I didn't see any squirrels or birds causing it. It seemed like the whole park was in constant motion, rocks chittering down the hills, trees swaying in the breeze, undergrowth crackling as deer and squirrels wriggle through it. We followed a couple of deer down the main path. A young buck and a doe. Neither seemed concerned about our presence as they stopped frequently to munch on the fallen acorns.
I tried to sketch the buck, but he never stayed in the same pose for more than a couple of seconds.

Skye and Bart

Here's a pet portrait commission I had recently. Cute dog and cat.

Life is a fountain

Today's painting site was at DeAnza College campus. They have a beautiful white building called La Petit Trianon and a sunken garden with a fountain. I wasn't drawn to the building with the greek style columns, but to the fountain, which has beautiful contrasting rectangular and oval stone shapes. The water wasn't flowing, but even so it looked very paintable. I settled down on a strategically placed bench which just had a gorgous view of the fountain silhouetted against the dark trees.
I think when you sit still for a long period of time you become invisible. Certainly the young, tattooed woman, chain-smoking on the terrace above didn't notice me. She was yelling animatedly into her cell phone and everyone on campus must have learned of her pregnancy and that one of her friends was jealous because the friend couldn't get pregnant even without birth control (life's ironic like that!). Fifteen minutes into the call we almost got to learn her boyfriend's social security #, but I think someone shushed her up at that point. Shortly after the cell phone left a young father suddenly appeared and plopped his toddler son on the wet grass directly in front of me and proceeded to change his diaper. Fortunately he obscured my view of his son, so I was spared the worst, but his excited cry of "oh what a big poo!" gave me more information than I really needed.
Such are the pleasures of painting outdoors. Not only do you experience the changing light and atmosphere from the beginning to the end of your painting, but you learn something about the world around you. It's never dull!Over lunch our little trio of plein air enthusiasts discussed the difficulties of using color, painting shadows and the myriad other problems that have to be solved every time you put paintbrush to paper. We came to the conclusion that sometimes the complexities of creating art can do your head in - thankfully we can just go out again the next week and have another go.
The fountain sculpture, called La Vita E Una Fontana (Life is a Fountain), is by Salvatore Pecoraro. (check him out at www.salvatorepecoraro.com/) My sketches really don't do it justice.

Deer Twins

Breakfast this morning was disturbed by a loud clattering outside on the deck which caused the Scrub Jays and squirrels to go beserk. I looked out and was surprised to see one of last years' deer fawns paying a visit. He paused to see what response his ruckus had made and when nothing bad happened he trod warily across the deck, in that "step, pause, step" way that they do, and disappeared down the steps to munch on the rose bushes. I noticed he had a single tiny spike antler growing, with had an even smaller spike right next to it (nothing on the other side). I've nicknamed him "Spike" of course! His sister eventually appeared too, but while Spike was filling his stomach she just stood and watched. Eventually Spike rejoined his sister and she greeted him by pawing his shoulder and licking his neck and shoulders. Periodically he would rub his head against her and she would enthusiastically clean his ears. After a few minutes they retreated under the deck to rest and digest.

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.

Memorial Park

Ok, I'm a little behind on posting here. This is last week's painting from Memorial Park, Cupertino. Its a lovely little spot with lots of ponds, trees, play areas for kids, and, of course, a lovely war memorial (left side of my sketch, very tiny). While I was painting a supervised group of children were playing "What time is it Mr Fox?" on an open grassy area. It made me smile every time they shouted "dinnertime" and all the kids ran around screaming! Too bad I'm not a people painter or I'd have put them in my sketch.

Update on the thieving squirrel - a quarter of the seat cushion on my deck has disappeared into the little beggars nest and its now started stealing stuffing from the back of the seat! I have sprinkled pepper all over the chair in an attempt to keep the pesky critter away.

On a completely different note, my microwave has now started criticizing my eating habits. I put a casserole dish of leftovers in the microwave and pressed "reheat". After a couple of minutes the thing went crazy, flashing lights and alarms. The little screen told me "this setting is for one portion only". So now my microwave thinks I'm eating too much! Pah!

Squirrel Trouble

This week I didn't go painting - had plumbing problems to deal with instead! So my offering this week is a squirrel sketch I did a while back. We have a couple of squirrels visiting our deck and I caught one sharpening his/her teeth on the metal bracket for the bird feeder. This week I found out that the squirrel was using its sharp teeth to rip our chair cushions up and steal the stuffing for its nest! Cheeky devil! So far it's had a go at 4 of the chairs and the umbrella, and we've had to resort to keeping the cushions in the house. We left one cushion out in the hope that the squirrel wouldn't be tempted by the more expensive chair we have on the deck. So far that's working - the chewed cushion is disappearing at a frightening rate, but the good chair remains untouched! I can't imagine how large the squirrel's nest is by now though.
On July 31st we were painting at Gamble Gardens. The gardens were full of gorgeous blooms - all so beautiful it was hard to know where to start. In fact everything looked so good that when you looked down at your painting it was a big disappointment in comparison. Nature can be intimidating stuff!