A Bike Ride

I saw a picture, not THIS picture but one similar and it inspired this picture. The only real similarities are the bike rider (yes, that is a bike rider LOL) and the road. Funny, where our imaginations find a "jump off point" and just go. It's done in my sketchbook and the plan was to just keep it loose. I feel like I did accomplish that part. I started to paint this last night but ended up with so much foreground that I hated it. Does anyone else have this problem; too much foreground to fill and nothing really to fill it with? What do you do?

While I was painting this I realized how much I miss the vineyards and farms from home. I love the trees and the ocean up here but I miss the farms, too. I accidentally got the green a little saturated in PS, it's actually a little more yellow but closer than I've gotten in the past with those colors.

Wave Work

I went to the beach yesterday thinking I would just practice painting a couple of waves at different points of breaking. I had my watercolor block with me and decided that I'd try that instead of my usual sketchbook. I can't believe the difference the paper makes! So if I am growling about a picture, feel free to ask me what paper I'm using; in the meantime, I'm going to try to be more consistent with using the right paper for the right work. The sketchbook works great with my pen and inks with simple washes like my "IF" post from the other day.

Now, let me go see what I can find to paint today....Still could use more practice on those waves.

Sunset in the Glen

I'm not overly pleased with this but, "ya' win some, ya' lose some...", and in the interest of painting on a regular basis, here it is. I didn't realize that I didn't have enough color in the sky until I was all finished with it. See that little smoke stack, that's how you tell if some one is home up here. Every one has wood burning stoves and in the winter we all have them going during the day. It's kind of comforting, seeing the smoke drifting up.

IF....

If...it were spring in the California foothills; the Lupin and Poppies would be in bloom.

And

If...I were 20; I'd have long red hair.

And

If...I had a convertible; it would be red.

And

If...I had the top down; this would be how my dogs would ride.

So...

The only reality in this whole drawing is my dogs...

I woke up with this picture in my mind. Wasn't sure if I could draw it well enough for others to be able to tell what it was; but I think it came out fine. Hard to get the tones right in PS with the golds and greens...The Lupin really are purple, not mud blah...

Hay Hook

I miss my Scanner! If I take pictures of my paintings during the day, when the light is bright, so I don't have to use the flash, I don't get the blue background. I guess the solution is either paint eariler in the day or wait till morning to shoot. I wanted to get this posted tonight because I am trying to get back to painting every day; so you get blue. Looks like my shadow is a little off too. I was working from an imagined light direction since the lamps were casting odd shadows.

When I was growing up, my grandfather had these hooks hanging around all over the barn, we used them to move the bales of hay. Deadly looking things none the less. Found this one laying around my moms house.

Three Shells

Although it was sunny today, there was so much glare from the moisture in the air, it made plein air painting virtually impossible. After telling myself that I wasn't going home with out painting something, I painted these 3 shells (they were painted at home however). I had a little trouble with photo shop getting the background a little blue but the shells themselves are pretty true to what I painted. Had some trouble with the form on the top shell, it is actually shaped like a conch but you can't tell by the way I've painted it. Fiddling just made it worse...

Life on the Forest Floor

If you've been wondering where I've been, I've been with family for the past 3 weeks and am finally back home.

I took this picture a while back. I couldn't see the fine trails of spiderwebs until I up loaded the image out of my camera. I loved the thought of that spider carefully stitching together all of these mushrooms.

After 2 hours of painting, I realized that I was doing way too much work for this to be in my sketch book instead of on good watercolor paper. This is a picture that I'll be re-doing in the future as I really like the way it turned out...

Thanks to all of you faithful, who keep checking my blog to see if I posted anything new. A special thanks to those of you that give me the nudges with your e-mails to pick up the brush...Now that the holidays have passed and things are settled back down, I intend to paint and blog consistently again.