Another view of the desert in bloom. Rains bring out all sorts of wonderful things to see in Death Valley, from vanished lakes to tiny, colorful flowers which cover the sandy soil, before vanishing as the season changes and the heat returns.
Watercolors, Arches Rough 140# 10×14.
I have been painting too much in oils – slow process, very satisfying, but it doesn’t come close to watercolors. I needed to take a break from it and return to my first love . . .
We have had a few good rains this year, and that can mean the desert blooms! The plain beige becomes green and flowers blossom. Sparse, harsh landscapes become far more gentle and welcoming. Death Valley was filled with life this year.
Watercolors, 10×14 Arches 140# rough paper.
There are some days where chaos is the daily menu and you just have to flow with it. I had an appointment in the morning so I could go to my painting class in the afternoon. Well, that appointment turned into a hurry-up-and-wait-for-a-phone-call situation. Solution? Watercolor!
This painting is loosely based on a photograph I took while out at the settling ponds in Ventura. In California, “Spring” happens after any rainstorm. The brown grasses green, trees bud, flowers bloom. It’s the nature of the beast. We had rain yesterday and have another big storm coming in next week. In the days before my visit to the settling ponds, we had a lot of rain, and the result is this lovely little bit of trees and grass. Hard to believe this is within walking distance to the beach!
I did a bit of post in LR on the photo, but it does catch the sense of Spring, I think.
Watercolor, Millford paper, 9×12.
While I am busy with lots of other things – sewing, painting, learning 3-deck Canasta – I am also trying to move back into photography and just getting out. As well, editing photos I have taken, and adding mood to them which matches my mood but perhaps not what the original photo looked like! I guess that is cheating per some, but for me it is artistic license.
Before the day begins and I have read my snippets of depressing news, coffee in hand, I am reviewing past photos and editing them. This photo is one I took while at the Settling Ponds earlier this month.
Taken with a Canon G7X, edited with LR and On1.
The vernal equinox is upon us, Spring is springing, and a few rains brings greens and oranges and yellows and lavenders to the hills of California. Poppies, more poppies, mustard, lupine. The hills are filled with them – of course, depending on where you are – but when we have really wet winters the hills are alive with color.
Years ago, and other years of yore, we would drive to the back country or the poppy reserve to just look. Lake Elsinore is well-known for its super blooms (what these massive flowerings are called) to the point where they shut off roads and keep people out. Like parts of the world, over crowding and over-touristed. I’ve taken a lot of photos of this bloom-a-thon, and it is always worth it. And, it is a challenge to paint in a ways as the colors are vivid and almost unreal when you live in a water-starved place and it is beige and brown.
The colors here had to be almost pure pigments with little dilution with zinc white. Gouache, of course. Colors include cadmium red, yellow, and orange along with ultramarine blue, zinc white, yellow ochre, and some umbers. Greens include every single one on my palette!! Once I settled the sky I brought out the titanium white for a bit of emphasis.
I spent a couple of days on this one just because it was really hard to paint. I tend to be a dabber, and that is how I began. Later in the process I just mushed all the colors together, and the next day dabbed in the poppies in the foreground.
Gouache, Strathmore Vision 140# CP paper, 9×12.
Ink, Yarn & Beer 