Hermon Park

Hermon is very small neighborhood in Northeast Los Angeles. One of its features is a park located on Via Marisol - once known as Hermon Avenue - but renamed after the daughter of a city councilman. Hermon Park has many tennis courts and an off-leash dog park. I chose to paint at Hermon Park because it contains two bridges and a view of one more. Yet, as you can see, I didn't paint a bridge at all. There was one bridge view I fancied, but it required that I stand in the sun and look upward, which wasn't nearly comfortable enough.

I found a shady spot close to my car, and painted sycamore trees. This view could be virtually any park in the greater Los Angeles area. All the parks have grass and sycamore trees. Sycamores are native to, and thrive in this area, although their leaves are green for a much shorter time than in cooler wetter parts of the country. Their trunks are their greatest charm though - the light colors with hints of pink and lavender, and jigsaw puzzle patterns in the bark; the graceful lyrical way the trunks turn and bend, as if the trees are dancing. I'm somewhat pleased with the painting.

A father with a tiny girl stopped to look. The dad in his British accent pointed out various things in and about the painting including the "bin". I'd call it a trash can. Got me thinking about how the English don't seem to call anything a can. Not a tin, not a bin, not a loo, and not that either. Seems to be nothing but an auxiliary verb across the pond.