Tag Archives: price $375
Descanso Waterfall
Down the Primrose Path
Benches by the Rosebushes
Last week I went to a plein air workshop for 3 days at Descanso Gardens. The place is actually almost too pretty to paint. I liked the way the benches in the shade took on a purplish cast against the yellow of the rosebushes, and of course the sunny day (after I found a shady area to paint from).
Daisies in the Studio
So today is the last day of the 30 paintings in 30 days challenge. I love where this has ended up–this zoomed out portrait of morning light on yellow daisies. My issue now is that I was so much waiting for this to be over so I could attend to everything else…but now I realize that has been part of my problem all along. I need to continue, but it does seem unrealistic to think I can keep this up. So I’m not sure what I’m going to do. I see how pushing myself to do “one more” has gotten me clearer on what I’m “trying to say” and “looser” in a way that I like. I don’t know if there’s really any other way to achieve “making it look easy” than doing the hard work of showing up as often as possible….rehearsing over and over until it looks effortless. But there are so many things I’ve had to push to the side…things I typically do to “take care of myself.” I don’t think it has to be all or nothing…but part of me does…I hate to break the daily habit, but I think I may need to do so, and then see if I can find a way to bring it back in a way that makes sense.
Related Images:
Red Roses in Tea Kettle on a Gray Winter Day
Linville Falls II
This is a second version of the piece I did “en plein air” in NC (see below). The differences are the sizes AND that this is done with brushes only while the first was done with palette knife (and of course, one is from life the other from a photo). So which do you prefer and why?
Bouquet in Blue Ball Jar
The Must, Winston St View
The Must is a restaurant with a distinctive logo of a blue head with a hole and a wired bottle in it. There was a purchase prize for painting this…but I don’t think they’ve decided on it yet. Anyway, at first I didn’t think I would do it, but the lighting late afternoon was good, so I set up. I was chatting with another participant when a panhandler came over and asked for money. I declined, and s/he? said “huumph, you can afford an assistant but you can’t pay me?!” I tried to explain that he was not my assistant but s/he wasn’t having any of it…and kept muttering, cursing, kind of circling the area and glancing at me without love….so I asked the other participant if he would hang around until things dissipated, which they eventually did. Meanwhile, I hadn’t set the easel up properly so it almost collapsed and that would have meant turps and paint flying everywhere, but because we were on the alert, we were able to catch it in time. I’ll say it again: plein air, not for the faint of heart!
Pan American Building
This painting experience was a scene out of a movie. I had so many funny stories to tell B about what occurred as I was painting it…Mainly, a lot of folks, from Israeli student tourists, to drunken bums, to folks on jury duty break, to friends from the past coming over and telling me that they liked what I was doing. It was a hit on my Instagram feed too. The gods smiled on this one…(or at least a lot of strange folks down on the corner of 3rd and Broadway, lol).