Descanso Hillside

Most months the San Diego Watercolor Society invites a plein air artist to give a demonstration somewhere in the county. Today Keiko Tanabe demonstrated and as I watched her paint with bold, confident strokes I remembered how much I love paintings with strong brushstrokes. Following the demonstration, we all worked on our own paintings, and I had fun with my own bold brushwork.

Descanso is in the mountains east of San Diego, it is full of oak trees, boulders, and at the moment, very dry brush. Since much of our state does not get rain between late spring and mid-fall, and fall can bring us huge winds from the desert, gems like Descanso are vulnerable to fire. I felt especially lucky to be painting in California today.

This is a gouache painting on a sheet of  12 X 17 -inch black Derwent paper.