WATERBABY'S CIRCUS

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...

Acrylic, 4x10" This is a small piece I did over the summer. The Bay Trail runs along the east side of the San Francisco Bay, and this part of it lies between Berkeley and Richmond. The marshy area has been pretty much restored and is home to all kinds of birds and other things that like Bay wetlands. I miss the warm weather, I want to go outside and paint.

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.

Yes, I have been remiss in my postings lately. But for good reason. I've been painting my tailfeathers off! As well as matting, framing, hanging and everything else that goes with it. I'm finishing up 6 pieces (3 watercolor and 3 acrylic) that will go into the annual El Cerrito Art Show & Sale next weekend, and now have paintings hanging at Jack London Square, Oakland, the El Cerrito Dept. of Motor Vehicles (a captive audience for sure), and at the Oakland Chamber of Commerce. And trying to squeeze in some actual painting once in a while. So this was one I did over the summer: Acrylic, 11x14" This little church is the first thing you see as you come into the tiny town of Nicasio in Marin County,located about a halfhour drive north of San Francisco. It's a favorite of artists of all media, a scene that probably hasn't changed all that much in the past hundred years.

At China Camp Acrylic, 11x14" So I've been doing a bit of plein air painting over the summer, both in watercolor and acrylics. When I returned to China Camp on the San Francisco Bay, it was only with the intention to continue learning how to handle acrylics, but after many hours of struggle, the painting above began to take shape. So much so that I decided to frame the resulting small exercise, and then submitted it into a show. Imagine my shock when I learned it had won first place in the acrylics division at the Napa Town & Country Fair! It looks like there's no turning back now. Onward!

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 ...

Sunrise Beach Park, Gig Harbor, WA 8"x8", Acrylics When I went to Washington a few weeks ago, I looked for artists who also liked plein air painting, and after a few googles, discovered there was a group located very close to where I was staying on Fox Island: the Peninsula Art League. Anne Knapp let me know that members would probably be at Sunrise Beach Park, located a little to the northeast of Gig Harbor. Although the weather was unusually hot, I found a cool place to sit under a tree that gave me a great view across to Vashon Island. I really enjoyed my first visit to Washington and look forward to next time.

Acrylics, 8"x8" Sitting across the road from this ranch on a sunny California day, painting plein air. I wanted to add some of the great oreo cows they have at this ranch, except my cows look more like dogs, and vice-versa.

Acrylic, 11x14 inches So, I know you've been waiting with baited breath (ew). Bated breath? Whatever. Why there haven't been any new paintings here, and only a few sketches, is because I've been secretly experimenting with a different medium. For the past few weeks I've set the watercolors aside and tried to make acrylics behave. Well of course, they don't. But now that I've finally stopped treating them like watercolors, I see some limited success. I signed up for a series of plein-air classes with Deirdre Shibano and made a commitment to at least give it a try. The first few classes were awful, not the classes per se, but because I couldn't figure out how to approach the darn canvas. Plus, the acrylics en plein air dried quickly, and I was frustrated by having to unlearn how to do the flowing washes and transparent layers of watercolor. I likened my first day's experience to pushing wads of bubblegum around with a stick. While I won't go so far a...

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!

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.)

I have added Google's translation gadget to my blog. This should help my non-English speaking readers to understand my posts, I hope. I have checked the Portuguese translation for the last blog, and yes, something is lost in the translation. I expect this will be true of other languages also, since these translations are not done by humans. Computers, even very smart ones, don't have a very good sense of humor. Irony is lost on them, as well as sarcasm. But this will be an experiment. I would really like responses so I can judge how well, or not, this translator is working. Maybe I'll just mess with the computer, just for laughs.

I am doing a series of these small (3.5x2.5) paintings to put in our sale at the Giorgi Gallery this weekend. They are a lot of fun to do, I can see why they have turned into quite the fad! Now that the weather has turned too cold to go outside to paint 'plein air', I will sit in a cozy cafe instead and paint. Another advantage of small format: no easels, campstools, jugs of water to lug around! No insects buzzing in your ears, no dust and debris in your paint for unwanted texture. Feedback please?

What a week. I arrived at SFO from Cabo late Monday evening and have been playing catchup ever since. I had forgotten how all the trivia of daily living here can be such a giant time suck, at least as far as doing anything creative goes. Having had all the previous week with no errands to run, phone calls to make/return, demands of family and others, combined with a warm and sunny place did wonders for me. And made me remember that I need to be back in Brazil. So by this past Friday afternoon I was way over-ready to go to Dee's place to paint, visit and eat. I think the old salons must have been something like her house, a welcoming place where artists of various persuasions can come and relax, share what they've been doing and what they know. You never know where the conversation will go but it will always be interesting. I took out my sketch book and finished what had started as a plein air watercolor sketch of one of my favorite places to eat in Cabo, Mama's Royal Cafe ...

OK, I know, you still can't see the famous arch. But, it's really there, trust me. The sea was so much more sparkling than I could make it look. Think I'll go read for awhile, this painting business is really exhausting.

I know you can't see any arch. That's because the hills in the front hide it. But Lovers' Beach is that little sandy spot in the middle. I should probably catch a boat ride and go over there instead of just painting it. Nah, too much work. Maybe tomorrow.

I've actually tried to be a little more self-disciplined than usual, and made myself do some sketching. The weather is wonderful (for me). 70 - 90 degrees, I'm in heaven. Since I can't get back to Brazil for awhile, this will have to do. It's amaazing how much better I feel with some sun and sand and blue, blue water. There's usually a gentle breeze coming in off the water. This is a big week in Cabo - there's a little get-together called the Bisbeee Fishing Tournament. Lots of very cool sports fishing boats and their owners in town. It's reassuring to know that our sucking economy hasn't hurt the poor suffering folks in their boats. OK, so I'm being a sarcastic bitch, and yes I'm jealous, I want a boat too with everything that goes with it. Actually, I'd probably be just as happy, maybe happier, with a little canoe in Brazil. This is looking back at part of Pueblo Bonito. It's a pretty place and I love all the tile. Just a tad on ...

Now it is Sunday evening, and I haven't posted my plein air I did on Thursday afternoon of the hotel at Port Costa, and I haven't said a word about Mestre Accordeon's 50th Anniversary of Capoeira celebration, or about going back to Port Costa today with "the girls" and trying to do my sketchbook under challenging circumstances. . . . It will all have to wait since it's now nearly time for beddybye and I haven't got my stuff packed to catch a plane tomorrow morning. Going to Cabo for a week! Woo Hoo! Got my boarding pass printed out, found my passport, and made my Bayporter reservation. All I need to do now is stop futzing on the computer and go throw some clothes and paints and survival food into a suitcase. Well - maybe I have time to post just the plein air of the hotel. As they say down the way . . . Hasta!

A half dozen of us, some members of the El Cerrito Art Assn. and others not, spent the morning at China Camp State Park . I like to paint there. Give me a beach and some sun and I'm a happy little camper. I think I did a little better this time. My attitude has changed. Now I'm more, just get the paint down on the paper, quit screwing around. No more wimpy little bleats of watery color. You've got two hours, Just Do It! So I'm getting down a very rough pencil sketch, not dinking around like I have a tendency to do. Mix up a nice soup of colors and go for it. Well, the results. Once you get it back home, you can always find plenty to not like. I tried to think about saving some light areas, but they mostly disappeared. The overall mood is pretty subdued, except for the bright sky, which now seems incongruous. And those white ripply things in the water just don't work, if they're waves, they're heading the wrong way. The hills in back are too intense in relat...