Castle Green Revisited

Last fall I painted in Central Park in Pasadena which has a great view of the old Castle Green Hotel (1887).  I posted my two paintings from those two paint-outs in Castle Green.  The hotel is very distinctive and has features which are hard to paint so that they look right.  I don't usually try to paint things in an exacting way but this hotel needs to have its character looking correct.  

The plein air group that is newest to me met a few weeks ago in Central Park.  The park covers a whole city block and has some nice features.  It's got horse shoe pits and two lawn bowling courts.  I thought instead of trying to paint the difficult hotel, maybe some lawn bowling would be fun to paint.  People are usually there playing games.  But, our small group all stayed near the north end of the park near the hotel and I wanted to stay with the group.  There's a nice rose garden with some old brick buildings across the street.  That view might have been fun to try but that whole side of the park was fenced off for some construction.  I got a late start so I painted a small gouache.  In some ways gouache is more forgiving than transparent watercolor, perfect for the hotel.     

This paint-out group, The Plein Aires, is the one having the gallery show this month.  At the reception I was very very surprised to see my second painting of the Castle Green Hotel with a red "sold" dot!  My first! 

5" x 7" Gouache