Anyone in the Los Angeles area in the '80s probably visited the Lawry's California Center. It was a large and beautiful facility featuring restaurants, gardens, and a tour of Lawry's Spice packing plant. Unfortunately it closed in 1991. It's reopened now and renamed the Los Angeles River Center and Gardens. It's a center for the LA River restoration, community events, now operated by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, a state agency.
The facility has had part of its original property cut off but it's still a very lovely setting to visit with historic buildings and gorgeous, well kept gardens. A perfect location for painting! The Saturday group met at Lawry's in June and it was a shock to be there again after so many years. The flowers and fountains seemed to be more striking than they ever were. Maybe that's because of my new experiences with plein air painting in mind. The morning we were there the light seemed so beautiful in the walled gardens. We were the only ones there besides some maintenance people preparing for an event in the afternoon. It was a hard decision on what to paint. The grouping of purple Agapanthus plants was stunning. I chose a gateway with an array of flags that I kept coming back to and tried a watercolor and a smaller gouache. I'll be painting there again soon.
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| 8 x 10" |
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| 5 x 7" |
Sherry, your mojo is back! These are both great interpretations. Love your colors.
ReplyDeleteThanks Terry, painting on this day was such a nice experience.
DeleteThere's something a little other-worldly about the watercolor; it's a good other world.
ReplyDeleteThanks Barbara...a beautiful painting day there.
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