We went to visit the La Purisima Mission nearby in Lompoc, California. It’s a state park which is a rebuild of the mission itself, which was destroyed in the 1812 earthquake. The mission rebuild was part of the Civilian Conservation Corps of the 1930s during the Depression. This is from a photo of the roof. The perspective is off, and it’s a bit muddy, but it was a lot of fun trying to figure out how to make the color for the curved tiles.
The studio is finally sort of back together. It was torn apart for flooring installation. Putting it back is slow – I didn’t realize how much stuff I had packed away in it, and how little I want to put back into it other than painting supplies, photography equipment, and books. It’s not gonna be easy.
So what! When in doubt, paint! And poppies are the best in a California spring!
There is a poppy coming up in the front garden! With rain, even more will begin to show up in the hills and fields, along with lupines and other wildflowers. The quintessential California wildflower – delicate, lovely, bright.
I did this as a quick sketch this morning to test out a package of 5o pre-cut 6×9 cotton papers from Bee. So far, the paper is pretty nice.
Today we went to see how the sky looked after 8 days of wildfires in our area. Earlier, the smoke was piled high into the sky, looking like an atom bomb had exploded nearby – a mushroom-shaped cloud on the horizon. The air is brown and hazy. Now, the wind has picked up, again with 60-80 mph gusts, and the clouds have flattened out. This is the view from behind the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California, looking west toward the cities of Ventura and further into Santa Barbara County where the coastal town of Carpinteria is being threatened. While my in-laws are now home, friends elsewhere are in danger. We await our turn . . . we have been lucky so far.
Today we went up to the Reagan Library to view the Thomas Fire from afar. Here, you can see it from the hills around Santa Paula, California, past Ventura on the coast, moving toward Carpinteria in Santa Barbara County. Nearly 200,000 acres have burned in 8 days through rough back country. Valiant efforts by fire fighters from around the country are helping, but here and elsewhere in Southern California houses and animals and people are all suffering.
Ink, Yarn & Beer 