In keeping with my winter themes and white space, here is another “I wish I lived in the snow!” picture!
Strange Fruit
Winter Sparkle
After a fresh snow, an icy snow or blizzard, the day is filled with sparkles when you look against the sky. In photography, it’s easy to capture – line up the sun, the light, move around, and you get it. In painting, though, it’s a totally different thing. How to express that sparkle? I tried to capture it in the upper left corner by dabbing in colors of blue and black and bits of ink – did it work? I don’t know. On the bits of snow in the lower left, small dots of blue to represent shadows on the white snow. Perhaps that is a bit more successful.
Pen, ink, watercolor, limited palette. Wet on dry. Ink on paper. Ink on painted paper. Wet into wet. A morning mish-mash, but every day I am trying to do something with ink or watercolor. Not always successful, but an everyday activity from which a lot can be learned!
Left Behind
Joshua Tree
Joshua trees are a strange and wonderful plant. The US National Park Service runs the Joshua Tree National Park, which is now closed because of the government shut down.
Joshua trees are amazing. You see a flat desert, and then these odd plants, which are members of the yucca family, popping out in all sorts of strange and eerie shapes. Driving through the southeastern part of California, along the Pear Blossom Highway, they are everywhere. David Hockney immortalized them both. Be sure to take time to visit the park and drive the highway when you are next in SoCal.




