Quick Sketches


Just practice. Still trying to get that darn cat!

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Iemanja'

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I painted this watercolor a few years ago. If I remember right, the original size is 18"x24". The painting was copied professionally, even so, the camera does not pick up the iridescent paints I used on her crown and mirror and tail. Iemanja' the goddess (or orixa') of salt water, was brought to the so-called New World via the slave trade, and is often addressed in the Yoruba language of west Africa. The next time you go to the beach and put your feet in the water, you can greet her with her customary greeting if you like: Odoia'!
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Lily Pond at Blake Garden, Kensington, CA

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Blake Garden in Kensington is a popular spot for plein-air freaks like me, with over ten acres of ever-changing gardens to paint. The water lilies are really beautiful right now, and I'm afraid I didn't do them justice. Above is a piece of a watercolor that began ambitiously enough, only to suffer a severe cropping when things didn't go as planned, what with some paths leading nowhere, a planted terracotta pot smack in the middle of the piece, and a vague tree-like presence looming above it all. I often fall into the trap of including everything I see in front of me while I'm painting plein-air. Need to develop the discipline of more preliminary sketches.
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Happy End to 2009!

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Aaaaaaaaaaaah . . . . That's just me heaving a great big sigh of relief. Even though I know that that year-end blitz of too-much-to-do, too-little-time is coming, and try to downsize and minimize the stress factors, I still get caught up in it. Cards never got sent, packages didn't get mailed til after Christmas (it's in the mail, no really, you know how the Post Office is), and now I want to finish decorating, while everyone around me has all their assorted holiday crappage thrown out/packed away/put out on the curb. I guess I just move to a different (slower) beat. On a lighter note, after two months of eating like a sumo wrestler caught in a burning marijuana-field downdraft, I've lost three pounds since Sunday, after starting to eat more sensibly. No ice cream, no cookies. No white flour stuff, pasta, pizza. Just wanna lose another seven pounds. Time to get in shape for the annual migration to Brazil. Gotta dust off the old bikini. Figuratively speaking, of course...
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