House Painting

It has been a few weeks since I went out and painted. I went to paint last week, but I ended up just walking around and taking photographs of things I might paint. Momentum is important; it is the key to many things.

This was painted at Heritage Square Museum in Northeast Los Angeles. In the 1960s, when construction was booming in Los Angeles, a city commission and a foundation got some land and saved some houses. I think of Heritage Square as a retirement home for houses. Nobody lives in the houses. They are arrayed in a landscape where nobody drives and everything is old. It's peaceful, except a lot of chickens have established a home there and there is some crowing. There are also children chasing the chickens because their parents brought them for a little culture, and they are bored silly. I wasn't bored. I was happy as could be quietly painting as chickens and children ran around me.

Hills of Home

My home state of California has many wonderful natural sights. There are hundreds of miles of coastline, the rugged and majestic Sierra Nevada, the Mojave Desert, and the Yosemite Valley. As I drive from the south of California to the north, it is often through these rolling patchwork hills dotted with oak trees. The hills are green during a brief rainy season, then turn to golden through the summer, drying out first on their sunny faces. It's always these hills beyond the urban sprawl (for now) that cause me to think how beautiful California is.

Other People's Flowers

It isn't that I could ever possibly grow bored with the flowers in my garden. But after a while the photographs start to look terribly familiar. The reasonable solution is simply to plant more new and different flowers (while continuing to water and treasure the old.) Instead, or perhaps as a prelude, I walked around my neighborhood and photographed other people's flowers.

Forget-me-nots - completely charming little blue flowers

A fantastically strange cactus plant.

Oxalis, also known as wood sorrel, not buttercups

Spring snowflake, I just learned, and now you know too

Bearded iris. It's definitely in my plans to plant some of these.
Have a look at Macro Monday, courtesy of Lisa's Chaos at lisaschaos.com/macro-monday-dewey-web

Another Landmark

First of all, happy New Year. There's no particularly good explanation for my protracted absence from blogging, and I'm not feeling quite clever enough to invent one. I also took a short hiatus from weekly plein air painting and from work, and the fragile structure that defines my life crumbled. Not in a bad way. I slept in and ate sweets and the time got away from me.

I painted at St. Luke's hospital. I could have been born there. Most of my elementary school classmates were. Instead I was born at Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital because my parents lived in the Hollywood Hills until I was three. My children weren't born there either, and now St. Luke's is shuttered and nobody is being born there. I'm not sure what the present plans are for this wonderful property. There was a bit of landscape maintenance going on in the parking lot, and the City was storing some Rose Parade litter.



This morning was extremely foggy when I started painting and less so when I finished. As a result the painting is somewhat schizophrenic - hazy and muted in some parts and bright and contrasty in others. You may not have noticed that. You may have only realized that there was something wrong with the painting. Well, no matter. I spent a nice morning outdoors and I'm back at it.

Sky About To Rain

Even if you've just driven through Pasadena, you've probably seen this - St. Andrew Church. St. Andrew's is celebrating its 125th anniversary this year, although the current beautiful building with the tower wasn't built until 1927. The interior of St. Andrew's is wonderful. You should visit, maybe take a tour, or at very least visit their website and look at the pictures.

I was painting from a vantage point at Memorial Park. Memorial Park suffered devastating losses of trees in the recent winds. It's possible that a couple of weeks ago I could have stood in the same spot and giant oaks and camphor trees would have been in my sights. The sky was pretty today, but kind of emo. Then it started to rain and I hightailed it to my car, not because I mind the rain, but it plays hell with watercolors. I painted for another ten minutes at home.

Persimmons

Here's a recent indoor painting. Generous friends shared their haul of delicious fuyu persimmons. I think because I'd painted persimmons in class last year, they called to me, not only to eat them, but to paint them too. I got the color much more saturated than my typical slightly faded looking watercolors. I recalled other lessons of oil painting as well: attention to values, contrasts, sparing but bold brushstrokes. They look a little like they're teetering on an abyss. I think the eating was a greater success than the painting. I ate at least one persimmon almost daily for more than a month I think. I shared a few. But the truth is few people like persimmons as much as I. I'm glad I didn't waste any, but I'm sad that they're all gone. I considered purchasing some at the market, but they're priced at bit beyond my fruit budget. Please think of me if you ever have more persimmons than you can use.

Can This Be Winter?

When I said it was a beautiful day at Arlington Garden, this is what I'm talking about. It's nowhere near spring, and yet a hundred different things are blooming. Fruit of the prickly pear cactus.


These seed pods are on one of Yoko Ono's wishing trees. I don't have any idea what became of the wishes, but the trees live on at Arlington Garden. I remember a time when I thought Yoko Ono was not a real artist, but was an opportunistic selfish woman who broke up the Beatles and took John for herself. With more mature eyes, I can see how perfect Yoko was for John; how they exemplified the very best of love, nurturing what was truest and most beautiful in one another. That's a good wish.

Arlington Garden

Beautiful day today. I'm glad I was out painting rather than shopping. At Arlington Garden, the citrus trees were heavy, and any windstorm damage had been lovingly cleared away. Exotic flowers were blooming and lizards were basking. Dogs and people were getting some exercise.

Once there was a enormous house here at Arlington and Orange Grove. The mansion wasn't torn down until 1961, by which time I was four and living in the area. How on earth did I miss it?

I also meant to note that instead of photographing my paintings laying flat in bright shade as I usually do, this was photographed upright in sunlight. The color washed out a bit, but is much more true, and you see the texture of the paper as well.

After Wind

Possibly you heard that California experienced some unusually strong winds which took down thousands of trees and knocked power out in many locations. The trees at my home all survived, with just minor injuries. Power was only out for about seven hours when I was most interested in sleeping anyway. But my old computer? Fried when the power went out. Surge protector notwithstanding. That is why there have been no blog updates. My advice to you? Replace your surge protector every so often.

I went out last Saturday to paint, but it was still pretty windy, and I became convinced that a tree would fall on me. Or at minimum, that my easel and paper would blow away. This painting is one I had been wanting to paint for a while. One morning I found a dead moth floating in the dog's water. It was really very beautiful. But when I took a photograph, it looked awful. Sort of like a dead moth in the dog's water. It needed artistic interpretation. Which I have attempted.

Thank you for being here.

After Rain

Nothing sparkles quite like a freshly washed garden.