WATERBABY'S CIRCUS

 

Lake Anza, watercolor on rice paper              

Just a quick sketch from the Blake Estate garden last week. A foggy day, muted colors, sketched with a non-waterproof pen. Kind of gave it a rained on look.

Teasels in Fall Watercolor, 24x30" The El Cerrito Art Association's Annual Show went off without a hitch last weekend, with a record number of entries and healthy sales. The above watercolor was recognized by the El Cerrito Chamber of Commerce with a very nice award. I'm so happy, because this one was a struggle and almost went into the recycling bin. But as other artists have noted, the process of creating your work is similar to raising kids, in that there's a really ugly phase they put you through before you can see the fruits of your labors. So glad I stuck with it! Then, another surprise - a Second Place in the Acrylics division for one of my plein aire paintings! This one: Kellers Beach Acrylic, 11x14" Too much good stuff! And it only got better - this one sold. Sorry to see it go, but there's more where that came from! The past two weekends have found me out painting in the Napa Valley wine country and I'll be there again this Saturday. The fall co...

Here we are, enjoying the end of summer vacation before school starts for all of us. Koko and Jasmine and Lily are in the water on their floaties. Poor Auntie M will have to go back to work for another year - feh! She's the one that looks washed up on the shore. Camping takes a lot out of you!

The annual camping trip happened last week. Every year, my sister and I go camping, accompanied by various children, grandchildren, friends and occasionally a husband/boyfriend. But mostly it's just us girls. And always it involves some kind of water to play in. This year we went to Scotts Flat Lake Campground in California. Hot, lots of trees and wildlife. Besides the usual birds and grey squirrels and ground squirrels, we saw deer and ducks and geese. The best part was the night that a baby bear ransacked our coolers and got away with some of our food. The worst part was he got into the Hershey's chocolate bars! Luckily, he either got scared off by my sister waking up, or he just had his fill and left, leaving a trail of food into the woods. We found most of the box of chocolate the next morning, but some bars were so full of disgusting bear slobber they were beyond being salvaged. The stump sketch above is posted especially for an artist whose blog today also includes ...

I've been visiting my friend Abby this past week. She moved to Fox Island, Washington a couple years back and this was my first time seeing not only her beeyootiful home, but also a bit of the state of Washington. She took me for a whirlwind tour that included not only Fox Island, but also Gig Harbor, the Hood Canal, Sequim, Port Townsend, Bremerton, Tacoma, Seattle, and much more! I squeezed in some time for a few sketches. The view above is of an old pier near where we stopped for a snack on the deck of the Nifty Fifty's Soda Fountain . The weather was mostly in the 90's during the week, so I enjoyed being out of the foggy Bay Area for awhile.

Plein-air sketch of Keller Beach last week. This little pocket beach is on the eastern shore of the San Francisco Bay, the contra costa . With a sheltered western exposure, the shallow water and sand stay warm when areas ten minutes away are foggy and cold. In case you didn't already know, I consider anything much less than 75 degrees to be miserable weather. I first discovered Keller Beach some twenty-something years ago when I worked a few minutes away in downtown Richmond. The Friday potluck lunch hours became an office tradition during the summer, with the doggies on the grill, tater salad, and a tall cool one to wash it all down. Good eats! Then back to work. Or at least, to try to stay awake til it was quittin' time! Googling around for more info on this spot, I discovered a Pt. Richmond newsletter that provided a little local history and old photos, as well as an image of an old Gary Carter watercolor showing Keller Beach's old fishing pier.

You know how it is, tourists and other out-of-towners often visit places that are right in your own virtual backyard, places you take for granted. But somehow you never quite get around to seeing them. Such was the case with Indian Rock in Berkeley. I must have driven by within a block of it a thousand times, vaguely knowing it was there somewhere, never curious enough to check it out. Kind of like your fourth toenail on your left foot. You know it's there, but unless it's called to your attention in some way, you're content to just let it be. Thanks to my plein air group, Indian Rock was called to my attention. The sketch above represents just a small bit of the much larger chunks of granite found on over an acre of park in the Berkeley hills. For years, rock climbers have practiced their skills there, along with courting couples, underage drinkers, and the occasional sketcher.

Yes! Today the local Sketchcrawl took place in San Francisco at the Presidio. This is an event that takes place every three months all over the world, well, not everywhere, only in about 90 countries. The last time, I was in Brazil, so this was my first in San Francisco. From the Presidio, the views are fantastic, everywhere you turn. A good time! To see more results, click here .

Our plein-air group returned to a favorite spot in Marin County, China Camp . We were joined by kayakers, sunbathers, and a fair amount of guys on bikes taking a break from the surrounding trails. A windy day, so just a quick sketch in the Moleskine.

Another foggy summer day in the Bay Area, but I went to the lake anyway. With school out for summer, the lake is now crowded with kids and moms and occasional dads whether it's sunny or not. The view above is looking across the lake to the non-swimming side. I'm still exploring the possibilities of my new Moleskine watercolor sketchbook, but I find it works great for making smooth washes.

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.

Photo Courtesy of Dunsmuir Historic Estate Gazebo at Dunsmuir House Watercolor, 11"x14" Last week's plein-air setting was the Dunsmuir House and gardens in Oakland. Even though I'd grown up in East Oakland, this was the first time I had been to see this beautiful estate since it hasn't been open to the public until fairly recently. The house, I should say mansion, is spectacular, and the grounds are just beautiful. You can almost imagine how it may have been 100 years ago if you can manage to block out the sound of the 580 freeway just over the hill. While we were there, friendly ducks came looking for handouts, and a flock of wild turkeys strolled leisurely through. I even spotted three deer. I chose to paint the gazebo, thinking it would be easier than tackling the mansion. Well, it might have been easier, but it wasn't easy.

Lake Anza, June 14, 2009 Sunday at the lake seemed a perfect opportunity to try out my new Moleskine Watercolour Notebook. The weather was sunny, if a bit windy, and I found someone sitting still for a while. Compared to the rough, unsized paper in my last sketchbook, the Moleskine is a dream and I look forward to using it.

Lake Anza Watercolor, 5"x8" I have been coming to Lake Anza for as long as I can remember. It is part of Tilden Regional Park, just east of Berkeley. Though this small beach looks deserted now, once school is out for the summer it will be jampacked with kids and parents. Probably even more than usual, since California will be closing most State Parks due to slashed budgets. Tilden, as part of the East Bay Regional Park District will not be affected. But for right now, the ducks and minnows, dogs and their walkers, and the occasional painter can all enjoy the calm of a foggy morning.

Last week my plein-air group went to this funky old yacht harbor, located to the northeast of San Francisco Bay. Although the skies were overcast and the breeze was nippy, it was a good day. I liked this old barge stuck in the mud, so I thought I'd give it a try. Here's what the Center for Land Use Interpretation has to say about San Pablo Yacht Harbor: "A remote, scrappy residential marina on Point San Pablo. Off the coast of the yacht harbor is the hulk of an old steamer, sunk for the filming of the John Wayne film Blood Alley in 1955 (the film also shot at China Camp, across the bay). The breakwater protecting the marina was made by sinking six schooners and a ferry boat." I'll have to check out that movie!

I visited my younger (and only) sister over the weekend in Grass Valley. She has a green thumb, although she tries to deny it; but she actually waters and feeds her plants. The weather was balmy, which I fully appreciated, coming from the gray, overcast Bay Area. Holiday traffic meant I arrived late, then had to leave early the following day, so I didn't get any painting time in. I wanted to do a watercolor plein air sketch of her house, but had to settle for taking a few snapshots to work from once I got back home. I think I figured out how to deal with the problem I've been having with the sketchbook paper. Unsized paper soaks up water and watercolor pigment like a sponge, so no blending on the paper, or lifting color out is possible. So I painted on a thin layer of acrylic medium first, then let it dry. This slightly sealed the paper's surface, and let the paint slide on. Now that I have just one page left in this sketchbook, I've solved the problem!

Sometimes I go out and paint outside (plein air). Most Thursdays when the weather is good enough, a loosely organized bunch of us meet to draw or paint or take photos. Usually in or around the El Cerrito/Berkeley area. Last week the Rose Garden in the Berkeley hills was our site. The roses are in bloom and San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge and Mt. Tamalpais in the background gave us a lot to choose from. This is a rose arbor with Mt. Tam in the upper right. I'm not real happy with it, but it's way better than last year's attempt. (The original is not so blue-ish.)

Thanks to Jana Bouc's and Terry Banderas' flower paintings for the virtual kick-in-the-pants to get me painting again. Coming back after spending three months in Brazil has been a shock to my delicate system. But having painting friends here cheers me up and inspires me. Gotta go paint something!