Huntington Gardens

I am so lucky to live near the Huntington Gardens...officially The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.  The library's collection of rare books and manuscripts is extraordinary, Gainsborough's Blue Boy is on display in the art collection.  It's the 120 acres of specialized gardens we visit most often.  I am also lucky to have a best friend who is invited to an annual, exclusive Saturday morning tour there.  And she has been able to include my husband and me.  It's a very special event for us.  Yesterday we had a beyond-fabulous docent-led tour of the amazing Chinese Garden, and the recently reopened Japanese Garden.  Our docent entertained us with wonderful stories of the early days of the gardens and the Henry Huntington family.

One thing I wanted to do was take another photo of the long and spectacular rose garden arbor.  I painted a view of it last year.  This is 9" x 11" and was confusing with all that lath, but fun to paint.  My first larger piece after being in the greeting card world for so long.  A photo is below~

    
When we went to this area yesterday for a photo I was shocked to see it has extensive damage from a devastating windstorm here last fall.  So this is my photo from our visit last year.  It's such a lovely walk and inspiring to paint.