Santa Barbara Holiday

My family spend part of the holidays in a magnificent home in north Santa Barbara, CA. There was laughter, singing, playing pool (yes, there was a pool table in the kitchen) in the gigantic kitchen, painting with my niece, just hanging out with everyone.....

 watercolor view from the dining room

 winter leaves at the SB botanical garden

 view from our front yard

Rattlesnake Canyon trail hike....wonderful views! 

 manzanita blossom 

 Rattlesnake canyon hike at the creek

 Boulder at the botanical garden... unbelievable colors!

 Brother John, Sister in law Angela, Niece Alex and Nephew Ben ....my 

New Zealand Family came for a visit

My brother's layout of yummy veggies for dinner 

Ready for the grill.....Tuna  from my friend Ron. He caught it off the shores of Baja, Mexico....so good! 

Agave Light Tutorial #2

Happy Holidays Everyone! 

So....here are the next steps in my 22" x 30" painting called "Agave Light" The reference photos were taken a couple of years ago in my town at a country stop sign intersection. There was a row of giant agaves with beautiful bougainvillea  blossoms intertwined throughout the big grey green leaves. Great cast shadows were abundant.  A must paint situation. This is acculally the second large painting I've completed of this same corner of agaves. My friend Carolyn owns the first one in the series! 

 I painted the negative spaces with greens, blues and then ...at the right moment...dropped in some reds in the middle section. The bougainvillea blossoms were painted as individual shapes of dropped in color. 

and here you can see the  almost  finished bougainvillea blossoms 

  I also darkened the right side vertical cast shadow on the agave leaf. It wasn't showing enough contrast before.....

 On this side I used more yellow in the dropped in color blossom area along with the pinks. 

 I decided to leave more lost edges on this side to show off more of the yellow succulent blossoms.

And here it is...finished! 

Agave Light...a painting in progress

This is a large watercolor painting in progress. 22" x 30".

 I started out with a pencil value drawing in my journal.

The first applications of color were painted with the  "dropped in color" technique. I started with warm colors and dropped in cooler greens and blues to create a variety of hues.  The light flower clusters are Bougainvillea   blossoms. I'm going to add magenta to the petals.

 This area shows negative painting. I painted around the flowers and leaves with darks. I did that so it would be easier to paint light values on the positive  shapes. 

 Another view of the same area....I'll post more photos soon ....I'm finishing up this painting over the weekend! 

San Juan Capistrano

My friends and I took the train last week up to San Juan Capistrano to paint on location at the mission.

 It was a grand day with a stop to grab some yummy lattes, a couple of sessions of drawing and painting at the mission, plus a little shopping......if you look closely at the left hand lower corner you can see two figures...Ann and Candy painting....

this painting is one continuous run on in a Moleskine watercolor journal.....great little journals! I started with a waterproof ink pen drawing...yes...there are some pesky perspective issues!.....then watercolor washes.

San Miguel de Allende part dos

My friend Beth and I visited my friend's Joe and Pat Miller home in the north section of San Miguel de Allende as well as their gallery  in town.  Joe and Pat are incredibly talented artists .....

                Joe's sculpture in the gallery

 Ceiling treatments in the casita.....

                some examples from our Tesoro de Corazon Retreat project

                       

                                     Jan Davis....beautiful painting

           Katherine England decided to go with a limited neutral palette...isn't this extraordinary!

Oh Mexico...pics from our retreat part uno

San Miguel de Allende ....a trip of a lifetime...our retreat was beyond fantastic ...here are some photos from November 1 and 2...Dia de los Muertos.....

                                                an altar in the Starbucks patio

                                  an altar in the Jardin in front of the Parroquia

                 Camino Silvestre - one of my fav stores in San Miguel de Allende

                                       two happy gals in the Jardin

             the small parade right outside of casa for the evening celebration in the Jardin

                                   Giant paper mache skeletons  in the Jardin!

My good friend Jane LaFazio interviewed me on Sketchbook Challenge a couple of days ago. I talk about

Journaling and expressing ideas.  My sister wrote to me tonight...she's my organizer and we joke about how many sketchbooks I own....lol.....you can never have too many!!

"Sketchbooks are where all the concepts are started. Ground zero....so to speak. Anything can happen in a sketchbook. I have the freedom to create, then shut the book to view later."

                                                                                                                                                                                       

a night to remember.....

 It's official ....I'm now a Signature Member of San Diego Watercolor Society! Thanks to all of my friends who attended the opening .....it was an evening of great joy! Thank you Jane, Don, Margaret, Ann, Madeline  for enjoying the evening with me!

Create Chicago!

Many thanks to all of my lovely students in Chicago at Create!
My students created some incredible works ....why one gal even printed an inky print right on her Create apron! How clever is that?   Thanks so much to our amazing staff who coordinated all of the workshops and dealt bravely with all us!

 Happy students from my Collage Monotypes workshop!