We went up into the Laguna Mountains east of San Diego for an afternoon of hiking and painting. The campgrounds are all closed because of coronavirus, but the hiking trails are open. We walked a mile or so along a gorgeous path, feeling the forest around us. At the top of a hill we suddenly had a view of the water and cell towers above the path and our fellow hikers. The incongruity of it all reminded me of Simon Stalenhag’s art, and I had to give his style a try.
I admire my neighbor’s palm tree very much. It reaches far above the other trees and changes color as the sun and clouds move across the sky. Birds in the area fly in and out of its foliage and skirt all day long, providing great entertainment while we shelter in place.
I am fortunate to be able to sketch with my cousin’s group in Fresno, via Zoom. As you all probably know, California has had to tighten up again with coronavirus restrictions, so we are back to sheltering in place. Thank goodness for sketching on Zoom.
The model sat up straight and and held his head at an angle as he fixed his gaze off to something on the side. It made me wonder what he was thinking. I used a white chalk pencil to draw before painting. I often erase or paint over these lines but I left them in tonight because it emphasized his expression.
When I look at the collection above of the plein air paintings that I did on our recent trip to Colorado, I notice that I am reluctant to include people in the landscapes and to use vivid accent colors. Since it seems likely that we will continue to shelter in place in San Diego for some time, this month seems like a perfect opportunity to practice these two skills.
I took many photos when I was in Colorado, especially of family members at sunset. The one I based this sketch on showed my niece and her dog crossing a meadow with long shadows cast by juniper trees. Now that I look at my finished work, I see why I am afraid to put figures into my paintings! The dog looks like an oversized cat and my niece has odd arms. And I wish I had placed the dog a few inches closer to the bottom edge. But this is a start and I feel good to be figuring this out.
I had a few unfinished sketches from our recent Colorado trip, including this one of Horsefly Mesa. A storm came in while I was painting and I walked back to camp when the rain began to fall in earnest. I didn’t finish this while I was in Colorado because I was uncertain about how to show falling rain. Looking through other blogs today, I got my courage up and gave it a try.
Yesterday, several brief storms swept across us, making for spectacular skies. The movement of the clouds seemed to match the uneven shapes of the trees and ground.
We head back to San Diego today, especially grateful in this pandemic year, to my brother and sister-in-law for their incredible generosity in hosting us on their patch of paradise. The opportunity to gather outdoors with family over a long week, and across nearly forty years, is a matchless gift.
It seems a bit strange to abstract a landscape while out painting plein air, but somehow that is what happened to this painting yesterday. As I worked to show the shapes of the foliage against the many layers of the canyons in the background, I ended up simplifying the shapes, values and colors.
Deliberate Sketching 