2 duds in search of a reason.

We all make mistakes. But mistakes, while frustrating, can be a great source of learning. Here I present two of such mistakes. Now, to be fair, nothing is more uncomfortable than urban plein-air painting but all that means is that you need to adjust and I quite didn't.

In these examples, some things are missing. Whether it is color or contrast or tonal values or brush adeptness I will figure out eventually.
This first example, overcast day but heat galore, light barely peeking. That tower in the background way too detailed and the trees kind of mushy, some errors in the drawing of the jeep with the open hood. You can tell it is a little overworked.

Second case: Good depth but bad color choices in the sky. The dark tree in the middle has not receded enough and there is a messed up perspective in some of the buildings . Weird base for the bottom edge with that car hood peeking through. A re-do. The scene has potential though.

A nice commission piece.

It took me two attempts until I got this right but I am happy I put the extra effort. The owner's of this ranch style beauty wanted a portrait of their house...an the amazing rose bushes in the front. I arrived in the afternoon and the light was ok but did not frame the roses properly. The next morning I arrived early and the piece painted itself. I gave the owners both pieces since not only are they very nice but they already bought two previous paintings.

Santa Rosa Plateau.

This is what i ended up after my hour 1/2 hike in the Santa Rosa Plateau. I'll probably retouch the branches a bit and clean the color of the tree. I tried to be as accurate with color as possible which somehow tends to dim colors and muddy them a bit. I think accuracy should not be the goal in the final result but it helps to have the tonal scale correct. These kinds of landscapes are much less forgiving than urban scenes in that sense.

So that was a long trip to paint. This other pices is what I see right across from my house. I made the neighbor move one of his cars because I wanted the blue VW . I hope he didn't mind ;)

Thoughts on location

I did two hikes recently. One, with Armando, to the waterfalls at Eaton Canyon. Another one today to the Vernal Pools in the Santa Rosa Plateau. The watercolor sketches here are the result of 10/15 minutes of taking a break from walking.


I really went to the Santa Rosa Plateau in search of wildflowers to paint. And there were so many. But not in patches of color. So I looked around for other subjects and the place was so beautiful that I ended up walking for about an hour and a half with my backpack trying to take it all in. I will soon post the result of that trip but here are my sketches for now.

New notebook. yay!

Two sketches from an unusual spot in Pasadena. Memorial park I think it's called. The Park has a definite East Coast penchant but what attracted me there initially were the blooming trees. They are spectacular. You can see a small one in one of these watercolors. This is one of those rare occasions where I miss the masking fluid. It would work so well with the bloomig trees and little specks of light in the counter-light.

Chinatown

Exciting and artificial colors abound, shapes are never sedate, everything scintillates with people and movement. We are in Chinatown. Here are two of three studies I made from the same angle in three consecutive weekends(one sold) and under different weather conditions.

Firs Los Angeles Notebook

Here are some pics that final my first watercolor L.A. Notebook. The first one is of the Rose Bowl and there is not much more to say. I exercise around there so it was a question of time before I found some merit on this very ungraceful building. The time to paint os late afternoon and if the neon lights up when the sky gets dark, it can be very ineteresting. The second one is of the Lyle Center for Regenerative Studies in Cal Poly Pomona - that's a mouthful- an interesting place where they have all kinds of agricultural experiments. What was I doing there?