The SDWS Plein Air painters met up today at Kanaka Landing in the Liberty Station area of San Diego. We are in the midst of an intensely hot week and I feel that I captured a sense of the desert with this focus on the bird of paradise.
At the end of July I posted a painting https://deliberatesketch.com/2019/07/31/mesas-edge/ that shows a mid morning view of a canyon close to Balboa Park in San Diego.
Here is a second view of it showing a late day view of the same canyon on an extremely hot and windy October day.
The July sketch is all gouache, this new one is gouache and casein. Both are on black Bristol board, 20 x 13 inches, (51 x 32 centimeters).
One of us graded and one of us sketched this Sunday afternoon. Our plumbego has made its way down the hill and over the patio, creating a place that calls out to be enjoyed.
Yesterday when I posted sketches from speed painting at the San Diego Opera’s Aida, I overlooked this one. Today when I got to looking at it I decided I liked it for its whimsical feel.
The San Diego Opera invites artists to paint and draw during a practice prior to the opera’s opening. Aida opens tomorrow and I was one of the lucky artists who got to spend three hours painting in the darkened orchestra section.
The orchestra was seated on the stage and the performers sang both in front and behind the musicians. The costumes and set design were gorgeous and body language of the singers was wonderfully exaggerated. The whole performance was perfect for speed painting.
I love speed painting with a gesture style and did some 12 sketches last night. Here are a few:
I sketched the Plaza de Panama at San Diego’s Balboa Park this morning. It was a quiet morning, and I wanted to capture that feeling in this sketch. I may go back Friday and do it again.
These seed pods from the golden rain trees proved too hard to resist, so here they are again. I think yesterday’s seed pods had a better rhythm and color scheme, but todays’s pods have a more accurate shape. And both sketches were fun to make.
