Holiday Paint-out!

Last Saturday we painted at Barbara Field's home.  She organizes the plein air group and also writes a wonderful blog at  http://whatisee-baf.blogspot.com.  Barbara generously invited us to paint at her house.  It was definitely a special holiday get-together.  

Barbara's house is a charming craftsman style bungalow.  I love the pleasing details in craftsman homes, a really cozy and beautiful style.  The backyard at Barbara's was also special since it had a Monarch butterfly habitat.  Wow!  The butterflies like milkweed plants and Barbara has many.  It was fascinating to see many Monarch caterpillars, cocoons, and also milkweed bugs in all sizes. Barbara gave me some milkweed seeds to plant and hopefully attract some butterflies.

The front of the house was decorated with some Christmas wreaths and lights.  It looked so festive that I had to try painting it.  This is a 5" x 7" gouache since I didn't think I would have much time for painting after such a terrific morning visit at Barbara's. 

  

The First Day of Winter

December 21, the first day of winter, the winter solstice.  It's cold, even here in Southern California.  Since I posted some autumn watercolors for the first day of fall, I wanted to post a favorite winter piece for the winter solstice.

Last December, on the Paint My Photo website the challenge for the month was a relaxing end of the year "non-challenge".  The assignment was to just choose a photo from the thousands on the website and paint something seasonal that could possibly be used for a holiday card if the artist wanted to.  In Southern California we have our seasons but usually no snow in the Los Angeles area in December so I was inspired to try painting some snow.  I looked at many terrific photos on the website of wintery scenes and finally decided on a beautiful shot of two women in the snow feeding ducks and Canada Geese beside a lake.  I painted this before any of the plein air pieces I've been painting recently so to me it has a different look and mood.  The photo is by Roy Simmons and is gorgeous.

Ginkgo!

I have found a group of artists who go out plein air painting on Fridays!  Another wonderful group of new friends and another day to paint.  Maybe I'll improve with all this painting.  

We met at Descanso Gardens where I painted once before with the Thursday group and blogged about in my post titled "Descanso Gardens".  Someone said the Ginkgo trees' leaves were changing and were really beautiful.  So true!  The trees were near the entrance and their leaves were a shockingly bright yellow.  They were the main attraction that day and people were taking photos, and some women were gathering the fallen ginkgo nuts.  They are used in Chinese cooking.  The trees are the national tree of China and the official tree of Tokyo.  Of course they have those gorgeous and distinctive fan shaped leaves.       

I chose a view from a little distance away.  Trying to convey the brightness of the ginkgo leaves is a challenge in watercolor so I tried to have some other points of interest in my piece.  

Library Park

Wow, another park to paint in!  I'm seeing so many new parks since I joined the plein air groups.  There are usually a lot of choices of painting subjects within the parks and also in the surrounding areas.  

Last Thursday the group met at Library Park in Monrovia.  It's a lovely park at the public library.  The stand-out feature is the Moreton Bay Fig trees.  These are huge trees, and beautiful as well.  They are from the eastern coast of Australia and can get to be 200 feet high, 8 feet across.  If Monrovia's trees aren't quite that large yet, they are well on their way.  The special trees are in many parks and large gardens in California.  

The weather was cold and damp as I walked around deciding what to paint.  I felt I had to go with a view including one of the spectacular trees.  This is 8"x10".  Monrovia's downtown is very charming and even more so with the Christmas decorations.  I took some photos for a possible painting.  The sun finally came out at noon and we had a big group for the after-painting discussion.    

Hollenbeck Park

The Saturday plein air group recently met for painting at Hollenbeck Park in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of East Los Angeles.  Rain was predicted but luckily it didn't start to sprinkle until we had finished painting.  The park has been there since 1892.  It's hilly and has a beautiful long lake.  Some old park features like bridges and a boat house are gone now.  There is only a small part of the old boat house remaining.  Unfortunately, in the 1950's a freeway was built through the lake.  But the lake still survives, home to lots of ducks and geese.  

Since the park is hilly, there are some nice views of downtown Los Angeles.  I couldn't resist choosing a downtown view to paint with the distant buildings and changing sky.  The boat house remnant is picturesque as well.  Maybe next  time!  After we painted we went to at a nearby, very popular cafe, El Tepeyac.  They've been famous for their Hollenbeck Burritos since 1955.  What a fun day!

  

Homework~

But it was watercolor homework so it was challenging while being fun to try as well!  Vinita Pappas has started a new online watercolor class.  Besides watercolor instruction she is also including other topics in her posts so it will be exciting.  One of the monthly topics is art marketing which I haven't yet tried and need to find out about.  This blog is a start in that direction.  

Vinita posts a monthly challenge, and also a demo video which we can attempt to follow as well.  The November painting challenge was titled "Through the Window".  Our piece could be literal or interpretive, hopefully revealing a little of the artist's personality.  I wanted to do a painting that showed some inside elements as well as an outside view.  Below is my piece, looking out one of our windows and across the street.  

Vinita's demo video was of her painting of the famous Pike Place Market in Seattle, WA.  I really had fun with this challenging piece.  The photo reference was of some backlit figures, fish cases and counters, signs, and lighting.  A complicated scene so I was nervous to try it since I hadn't painted any interior views like this before.  It went well and I like the result below.  I hope I can visit this market someday.

Virtual Paintout - New Brunswick!

With a holiday and weather that's been a little rainy for plein air painting, it's nice to have the Virtual Paintout for doing a few watercolors.  For November 2012 the location was New Brunswick, Canada.  Bill Guffey created the Virtual Paintout and hosts it on his blog and Facebook.  Participating artists use Google Street View to "walk" around Bill's assigned city or country to find their view to paint.  A virtual version of a real paintout.  We submit the URL of our view along with our paintings which Bill posts on his blog.  It's always fun to see what the artists have chosen to paint or draw. 

http://virtualpaintout.blogspot.com   

I didn't spend as long as I usually do looking around New Brunswick on Google.  I wasn't finding much that was exciting to paint.  I'm sure I just hadn't found the right locations yet!  A watercolor I saw recently had some puddles of water which were really beautiful so when I happened upon a view with puddles I chose it to try.  Next weekend the plein air group is painting at a power plant.  When I found some sort of factory with smoke stacks I wanted to practice a little for the real life plein air paintout coming up, weather permitting.  I like to try using gouache for these pieces.  Still practicing with it and I'm enjoying its opaque qualities.  These paintings are 5"x7".

5" x 7" Gouache

5" x 7" Watercolor