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.  

Travels in Italy

From June to the 9th of August, we traveled in Italy.  Our first 2 weeks were in Sicily where we were joined by our friends.  They traveled with us for about 2 weeks.  It was a really fun time.  After Sicily, we flew to Rome for 4 days and started our journey to northern Italy.  Our friends left us in Rome, we spent the night at the airport with them and then proceeded to travel north again.  This part of my sketchbook was done in the car while driving and we went from Emilia-Romagna which is a flat plain that crosses the middle of the northern part to Tuscany.  This was one day of our travels.  

We would go somewhere for 2-4 days and then decided where we wanted to go next and find a room and then go to the town.  The whole trip it was between 90-100 degrees from the moment we landed until we left 7 weeks later.  So, there were times that the air conditioned car was a welcome respite.  After I sketched the first picture, I colored in the picture with pencils that I traveled with.  The second one is also a sketch from Tuscany done in ink and acrylic.

 

The Mother Goddess

The Mother Goddess is the Divine Connection of the Earth and the Moon to the Universe.  She is the keeper of our planet and the natural satellite of our Solar System.  Before the invention of the telescope, man just knew of the Moon - a round mysterious object that people would gaze up to in the night sky and the Day Moon, as well.


The Celestial body, the Goddess holds both the Earth and the Moon both of which are connected in to each other.  The moon has a noticeable effect on the earth in the form of tides, but also affects the motion and orbit of the earth.  


This painting is the second in the series I am currently creating in the Mother Earth series.  I felt that mention of the moon important in this work.  The Goddess looks at the viewer.  Her expression is knowing.  There are stars in the picture, the constellation Orion, Leo, and the jewel of the sky Venus.  Known in ancient times as the morning star and evening star.  


The goddess is a watercolor painting.  The backround is hand rubbed acrylic metallic paints giving the painting a patina as.  The work was created after the first of the year completed today, January 5th.  I imagine the sky to be many colors so in creating the painting I've used the various colors to create this piece.