Mission Point Park in San Diego is about 15 minutes from my home. It has a beautiful set of trees framed by an arching bridge that I have tried to paint several times. This week I was more successful, perhaps because I eliminated the bridge and several of the trees. I also raised the height of the land and think it makes for a more dramatic scene.
Painting on Zoom with friends is a great way to start the new year. There is something invigorating about opening Zoom and seeing the still life for the evening, making a few quick decisions, and then painting as fast as you can for the next two hours.
The setup tonight was a glass of water, several slices of an orange, a spoon, and a folded black and white dish towel. My three major decisions were what size of paper to use, how to place the objects on the paper, and whether to add color to the mostly black and white scene.
When I visited my sister last spring in Kansas City, we got to talking about our childhood home in Phoenix. Our home was a very comforting and welcoming place, and our two parents took good care of it and us. I did not know it at the time, but we were blessed.
The house was large because we were a big family, and our dad was a building contractor- a serendipitous occupation given our ever-growing numbers. He also was a sculptor, and when his large, angel-shaped weather vanes spun in the wind, it felt magical.
My sister, an architect, remembered more of the details. With her help, I was able to do a gouache sketch of the front of our childhood home. Eventually, the drawing had the elements in the right places. The windows were on the correct walls, the angels were in the driveway, and the hedges and trees were along the front and side. But even with the detail, it never felt like I got it right, so I put the sketch aside.
The Christmas story is partially about a family finding a place of love and safety in uncertain times. After all the upheaval of the past two years, I wondered if I could adapt the sketch of our childhood home to convey this message in my 2021 Christmas card. Using Procreate, an app for the iPad, I considered multiple versions of the scene. Windows and foliage were removed. At times, people were on the porch and in windows, and the sun and the moon sometimes shone overhead. This went on and on, and I was at the point of going with a different theme and sketch. Then, I moved the angels off the driveway into the sky, and it finally felt right.
May the angels of Love, Safety, and Zest bless your homes!
Merry Christmas to all!
Back in Balboa Park’s Old Cactus Garden for a third week, I turned my easel and looked south. I liked how the morning light lit the plants, the left falling slope, and the contrast of the organic shapes to the distant buildings. I worked quickly from front to back but stopped when I got to the upper left, hesitating to include the angular modern buildings. Was that the kind of contrast I wanted? Would it be distracting? Jarring? In the end, I turned to the north and sketched in the towers from the Museum of Us, which like the Old Cactus Garden, date from just over a hundred years ago, for a more harmonious contrast.
I went out to Coronado Island with the Thursday painters, expecting to paint the famous holiday decorations at the Hotel Del Coronado. Instead, I was charmed by a sturdy sandman at the edge of the beach. I guess this is a close as we can get to snowmen in San Diego. The sandman was so cheerful with his big eyes and raised arms. I worked to capture that feeling of good cheer in the rest of this scene.
California oranges spent the last ten months growing and are now appearing on our holiday tables. When my fellow Zoom artist set up a pleasing arrangement of oranges, I could practically smell them all the way from Fresno. I enjoyed painting the subtle variations in yellows and reds.
This week I drove out to Ramona Grasslands Preserve. It was a cool day, quiet and overcast, and we saw coyotes, hawks, and cows. The native grass will not be visible until we get some rain, so for now, the giant boulders and oak trees dominate the views. I liked how the boulders and trees mounded together in a sociable sort of pile and wanted to capture this feeling in this sketch.
.
Deliberate Sketching 