June 2014

A few months ago, I painted a creek scene from a photo taken on our sierra camping trip last summer. The painting was not too bad, but I wasn't very satisfied with it and thought I could it better. I don't usually like to re-do a painting. It feels like too much work. A lot of artists do repeat the same idea, trying to get the most out of it. Georgia O'Keefe comes to mind and her series of Jack-in-the-pulpit flowers. In that case, her paintings became increasingly abstract as she zoomed in on the essence of the idea. But that kind of thing is way beyond my reach.

I didn't get off to a very good start with this one. I was in too much of a hurry, and I put down masking fluid over some already painted areas before they were completely dry. When I pulled off the mask, a lot of the color came with it, leaving splotchy areas. I was able to patch them up pretty well and I think it ended up pretty good. I did the whole thing pretty fast, and maybe it would have been better to spend more time on it, but I like the looseness of it too.

A couple of months ago I went hiking in Bishop Ranch Regional Open Space in the hills west of San Ramon. I took a bunch of photos, but I thought one of an oak tree trunk and log would work best for a painting. I liked the sun and shadow on the foreground grass combined with a distant view. Like the previous painting, I feel like I rushed this one a bit, but I like it pretty well.

I was thinking that I'd like to do something with some water in a creek, and looking through some older photos, I came across one of a group of us crossing a creek on horseback. This was from a 2011 weekend horse camping trip to Rancho del Oso Horse Camp, part of Big Basin State Park. The photo wasn't a very good one, just a quick shot behind my back as my horse, Rio, was still climbing the bank, but I figured that a blurry photo wouldn't matter too much for a watercolor painting. The scene brings back some bittersweet memories, because Eddy, the second horse in line in the painting, is gone now. He passed away in his early thirties, so he had a full life.