El Molino Viejo

I painted yesterday at Old Mill in San Marino. We call it by its Spanish name which helps distinguish it from the myriad other old mills across the land. This was the grist mill that ground the flour for the San Gabriel Mission a long time ago. For our purposes now it's just a lovely quiet place to sit and observe or read or converse. No charge. Plenty of shade. A little history. California Art Club gallery with lovely small pictures with big prices. Lizards galore. Short hours. Despite all the available shade, I ended up painting in the sun. I ran out of time and didn't finish the painting, but I actually liked it enough to finish it at home. I'm not displeased. I think my plein air paintings are looking more and more like I know what I'm doing. All illusion. The plaza where I stood was tiled, and the white grout between the tiles made a nice pattern. I had it in mind to scrape the paint to make the lines, but somehow my scraping resulted in darker lines. I'm trying to ignore them.