Descanso Gardens

While noticing I had a few paintings for my last post, "Chinese Themes", I also noticed a few with Japanese themes.  Two of these are subjects from Descanso Gardens in La Canada Flintridge, CA.  It's a gorgeous public garden, or rather a collection of gardens.  There is a Camellia Collection, Japanese Garden and tea house, Rose Garden, as well as woodlands, fountains and ponds.  Lots of squirrels, ducks, turtles, frogs, and I saw a family of Canada Geese on my last visit...photo below.

The first small painting of a Japanese stone lantern was done for the online watercolor class instructed by Vinita Pappas in 2011.  The lesson was about mixing neutral colors and I thought the gray stone would be good to try.  I always take a photo of this lantern sitting in the dappled shade in a big patch of mondo grass.

This piece was also painted  for Vinita's online class.  She put together a video for Earth Day of paintings that we submitted.  I painted my piece from a photo I took while walking through the shaded woodland area.  I always like greens and purples together it seems.
The video is available to see on YouTube  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=357jY5vt1z0

The next painting was done when the plein air group went to Descanso in May.  This is the tea house.  There is a relaxing koi pond surrounded by Japanese maples and huge oaks.  It was very peaceful painting on a Thursday morning until bus-loads of pre-schoolers arrived.  I had fun answering their questions which were pretty cute.

I always like to take a photo of our big friendly plein air group.  This view shows most of the painters that day.  Brenda Swenson is talking about the watercolors.

It's the Canada Goose family crossing a bridge over one of the steams!  I heard about them from people all morning and was so happy to see them coming my way.  Painters, tourists, birders, and pre-schoolers didn't seem to bother them at all.