Wine tasting

I started this painting while we were with friends wine tasting.  It is penciled in and the rest of the painting is laid in later.  In fact, this one was finished much later.  But the day was beautiful, sunny and very warm.  Sitting in the bed of the truck with my watercolor sketchbook, pencil, paints and water makes for a wonderful day.  Any day that I can paint is a wonderful day.  This sketchbook has 3 pages left for working.  The one thing I really like about the Moleskine sketch books is that they are so portable.  You can carry them and your supplies in a small bag and paint and sketch to your heart's content.   

 

 

This next sketch was done several days after the watercolor one.  This was done in the car while my husband was driving.  I laid out the picture starting at the bottom with an ink pen.  Later that evening, I colored in the picture.  We drove by a farm that had a camel in the corral and I would have loved to stop and put him in the picture but that was not to be.  The memory is a fun thought.  I love to do the car sketches because they are quite primitive and loose drawings while in the car.  You are at the mercy of the road and there can be slips of the pen.  But later as with the watercolor, you can relive the experience again when you add the color or finish the work.  The car sketch is done in ink and color pencil.  This is the Poulouse in Eastern Washington, a delightful region that has farms with wheat, garbanzo beans and cattle.  It was a gorgeous day!  This was both pages from a Moleskine Sketchbook.  These sketchbooks have wonderful thick pages that can take different media.





Virgin River Sketch

This is a watercolor from my sketchbook of the Virgin River. This is one of the most beautiful gorges with orange and pink rocks. There are barrel cactus on the hillsides leading to the river which is the same color as the rocks. It is simply a lovely place.  These quick sketches capture the wonderful colors of the region. 

Tehachapi in July

 

Our travels from San Luis Obispo take us to Tehapchai, California where we stop for lunch.  It is really lovely there.  You climb up to a beautiful pass from the San Joaquin valley to a lovely town that claims to have 4 seasons.  After lunch while waiting for Bruce to fill the car, I sketch out this picture across the road.  Next, we come down to the Mojave Desert.  The temperature is HOT, the air clear and the beauty of the desert is wonderful.

The Joshua trees become abundant and there isn't very much wildlife here because of the heat.  Really wonderful to be on road trips. 

2 days in West Los Angeles

Late June before our trip to Montana and the Northwest, we were in West Los Angeles for several days.  These are a couple of sketches from my sketchbook.  There is so much activity and wonderful people getting their morning coffee.  And, there are the ones that can afford the luxury sitting in Peet's even if they are working on computers.  I enjoy the variety of people. I love the sketches that I am able to do while sitting there.  Usually I sketch the picture out and color it in later.  There are times I pencil in notes about color for the landscape ones and come right back later to quickly paint in the colors. When doing the people, I always remember. The times I love best are when I can sit down and do the whole picture.  It is a very vibrant and dynamic place, Los Angeles.  I love it!

 

Today was a day of inspiration.  I decided to work in my journal and do an acrylic painting.  The wonderful thing about acrylic paints are their versatility.  You can continue to paint over them until you get the right look you want.  She was fun and the first thing I painted.  I will use this for a completed work on canvas as I like the idea of the lady behind the flowers with the mixed media.  She is done in my Moleskine journal and their website has pictures from artists all over the world.  It is pretty amazing.  Some of my journal work is there.  I hope you enjoy the work.

Journal Pictures

This picture I painted today in my Moleskine Watercolor Journal.  There are bits of watercolor paper in the picture.  These journals are the only ones I have used for the last couple of years.  The watercolor journal has really nice paper.  It is a little lightweight but handles the paint quite well.  The pigments dry quite fast but there is a bit of room for adjustment. 



 

 

Then I decided to do a wash and add darker color to paint this picture in the watercolor journal.  On our morning walks here on California's Central Coast, the birds are singing every morning.  It is truly spring.  Yesterday, we saw 3 small hawks calling to each other and flying near Laguna Lake.  It is the first time I have been able to see them up close.  They are also quite lovely as is the calls to each other.  Lately we have noticed that many of the birds don't fly off including the larger hawks when we walk by.  Perhaps they see us as not a threat to them.  



Meadow Dance

Music is so special to our lives.  It brings happiness when we are sad, a memory of a time past and can allow us to escape into another world.  How does a visual artist express a song?  I found that thinking of an image of the sheet music flowing on the canvas with colors and flowers.  I love dance and movement to music.  So this vision was inspired by listening to music in my studio and she who materializes out of the music and she who dances to the music.  Outside I hear the sounds of birdsong and the wind rustling through the trees.  This must inspire musicians as I am also inspired. 

This painting is an acrylic mixed media painting.  The strings in the guitar are thread.