Daily Painting

I was in Cupertino for an hour and a half during my son's chess lesson. I was equipped to draw in pen/ink and paint, and drove up and down De Anza looking for inspiration. The first vignette is of a white building that I have always been drawn to because the shadows look more dramatic on white, and there is more opportunity to play with reflected light on white. The second painting is of the activity in a car repair shop across from the white building. One of the employees walked out of the shop to where I was sitting. He looked at my sketch, then at the building [which is his daily view from the repair shop] and said that he never thought that building was very interesting! All four paintings were done with the mini Sennelier travel watercolor set. Very vibrant pigmented colors. Then, we drove to the San Francisco Ferry Building. After a lunch at Reem's at the Farmer's Market, I painted these two scenes while the family went here and there on a dessert binge, bef...

I have often passed by the Campbell Community Center/Heritage Theater and been struck by the beautiful Spanish Colonial Revival architecture with intricate ornamentation. Finally, I had the opportunity to paint it today with the SCVWS Thursday plein air group. I think I should have used a ruler for this as some of my verticals aren't parallel to the edge of the paper! I do like the purple/blue shadows and how the colored shadows blend into one another around all the bright white areas. As always, for me, greens are troublesome - they often look overworked in my paintings. But, I am pleased with this overall.                       “One Ticket, Please”

I made new friends today as I [finally] joined the POPs plein air group. Most of them are oil painters, but there were a couple of watercolorists. There is a hint of the very mirrorlike and reflective bay in the first painting. It was actually a small puddle. I made it much bigger, and reflected the building in it, to acknowledge the water all around us. A group of school kids stopped and chatted with me - I love plein air, though I was terrified of doing any brushwork while they stood around me. I need lots of space where people aren't moving erratically near me. There they are, on the path on the left. The shadows got even more dramatic as I ended this painting - they were slashing diagonally across each bay. The second painting is of a cabin near where we had lunch. The shadow side is a strange color, but overall, I like the looseness and want to be looser still. As I drove away after lunch, I saw an airfield/aviation club on Embarcadero Road. I need to go back and paint some...

An overcast day - hence the color choices in the first painting. The first is very much my style - an architectural subject, typically framed by other architecture! - softened only by trees :-( For the second, I used a very large round brush and was determined to use nothing smaller for the entire painting. Not my style, but I like the looseness. *Trying* for it to be *more* my style. There is a fine line between being loose and being somewhat careless. I wish I had been a little more careful. I feel this crazy panic to finish once I start. Perhaps it stems from paint drying too quickly, so go go go!