Goleta, California using fewer colors

While staying for a week in Goleta on the Central Coast of California, I decided to see how I could do just using my smaller watercolor set--12 colors versus my larger 35 color set (which I thought I couldn't do without). Here's three I did there.

Rose Beds
This was done from the 2nd floor balcony where we stayed, looking down on the backyard garden.

Coral Tree
Also done from the balcony, looking across the neighbor's yard and beyond.

In process: Zig Kure Taki set I've had for decades.

Snail on Swiss Chard Leaf

More images from the trip West

A small casino in downtown Henderson...I thought it was a theatre!

Security guard where J. deposited his check...

I love car sketching...this was on the 15 between Las Vegas and California...

Home from the West!

I always enjoy taking time to record whatever airports we pass through...this is LAX, on the first leg of the journey home.

We spent some quality time at Dana Point!

I sketched while J. arranged for his dad's mass...

 ...and as always, it's good to be HOME...

California: Captured 3 Ways

My recent trip to California was to the Central Coast, staying in San Luis Obispo. It's a place I return to; it has a bit of Brigadoon magic for me. I travel with probably way too many different medium. (I never have mastered the travel-light mode.) But sometimes circumstance and time calls for one medium and then sometimes another. So here are 3 different ways of representing my week long time there.

"South Hill View and Sweet Pea Bouquet". NEOCOLOR II WAX PASTELS on black paper.  From the house where we stayed, looking across the foothills to the Santa Lucia Mountains. The bouquet was purchased from a white haired woman at the farmers market, whose clothes matched the colors of her flowers. For  more Inside/Outside drawings go here.

"South Hill Neighborhood".  Another from the house in San Luis  Obispo, this time in WATERCOLOR.  Looking across the adjoining open space preserve into the neighborhood below and the foothills beyond, it's 45 degrees to the right of the Neocolor above.

"Morro Rock from Black Hill". 15 miles to the coast from San Luis Obispo is Morro Bay.   Hiking to the top of Black Hill on a glorious clear day, I was rewarded with the view of the last visible, of  a string,  extinct volcano that defines this region and the Pacific Ocean. My pocket-size moleskine and a stick of WATER SOLUBLE 9B GRAPHITE STICK was all I carried. Maybe on another trip, I'll lug my easel and Neocolor II or watercolors up there. For now, small, fast sketches are  a great part of my process.

If you'd like to see more from this trip they're on my flickr photostream. Comments or critique are always appreciated!

More California Sketches

This was a quick one, done right before we went off to the beachside restaurant...it's the lifeguard shack we mentioned before...

You can see the spares, waiting in the wings at Zuma Lagoon...

My painting setup, on a nice big flat rock...

I love these little shacks all up and down the coast...

Here's last year's drawing, as promised!  Marcia Milner-Brage sketched them in 2011 as well, as you saw in this post.  They're irresistable!

I seem to have edited out the highway and all the buildings...

Zuma Lagoon, lifeguard shacks, and Highway 101 in the background...

And a few more travel sketches on our parent blog, Urban Sketchers, here.

Home again, home again!

We Midwesterners seem to be on a traveling kick!  I just got home from California with 19 pages of sketches in  days...

I always like to do one composite page in the airport...

I've yet to EAT here, but it's really cute...

California backyard...with my Noodler's flex pen...

A Hotel composite...several days worth on one page...

Across from the Sunset Restaurant in Malibu...

Nice landscaping...

And my father-in-law's poor, sweet rescue beagle...I think I ended up with 15 sketches of her.  (I was raised by beagles...)

Venice Beach: An Iowan Explores a Corner of the LA Metropolis: Part III

This is the third and final post, showing my time in Venice Beach, California.  My husband and I stayed in a rental house (really more a cottage) on Flower Avenue, during our week in this west Los Angeles neighborhood. We did all our own cooking (Whole Foods Market and year round farmers markets close by). So I stood at this kitchen sink window everyday, looking at this huge cactus and the backyard.

"Kitchen Window Flower House", watercolor and ink, 7"X7"

We rode the bike trail, that borders the expansive white sand beach, from Venice to Santa Monica, the adjoining seaside community. On a previous trip, last September, I sketched the Santa Monica Pier, an old time amusement park.

"Santa Monica Pier", 5B pencil, brushpen in pocket-size Moleskine, 7"Wx5.5"H 

This time, from the same spot, but all I could muster was this snippet. I guess I was played out after doing over 20 drawings during the two weeks in California. I was ready to go home.

"Santa Monica Beach", 5.5"W x  3.5"H, pocket-size Moleskine

And from September 2011:

"Santa Monica Beach", watercolor, 16.5"W x 5.5"H

Packed and soon to leave for the airport, I did a final quick one of the house diagonally across the street. 

"Orange Tree on Flower",  ink & brushpen in pocket-size Moleskine. 7"W X 5.5"H


Link to Part I and Part II Venice Beach: An Iowan  Explores a Corner of the LA Metropolis

Venice Beach: An Iowan Explores a Corner of the LA Metropolis: Part II

Midweek of my weeklong winter getaway in Venice Beach, California, I pedaled off on my rented bike to capture the swaying palm trees that tower above the rooftops of this beachside Los Angeles community. Coming from the Midwest where trees are prized for their shade, I wondered what these trees offered, since they are too high to supply much of that. I drew from the boulevard  on my folding stool, loving their wild tossing silhouettes against the sky and the rustling, swishing sound of the fronds being moved by the wind.

"Palm Trees & Wires", Neocolor II wax pastels on black paper, 12.5"W x 11"H

Across from our rental house on Flower Avenue was a lovely, pale green stucco apartment building with a beautifully tended garden. I enjoyed sitting out on the front stoop--perfect temperature and no mosquitos.

"Green House on Flower", watercolor, ink & white acrylic ink, 8.5"W x 11"H

One of my fellow Urban Sketchers, Stephanie Lowe, teaches art at Animo Charter High School in Venice Beach. Stephanie and I met in Portland at the first Urban Sketching Symposium in 2010 and then we both attended the 2nd Symposium in Lisbon in 2011. Having taught drawing at the elementary and college levels years ago, I was excited by her invitation to visit her classroom as a guest artist and share my excitement about sketching with a younger generation. 

Stephanie (on the right) and I (on the left) last saw each other  in Lisbon, at the end of the Urban Sketching Symposium, July 2011. In the middle is Orling Dominguez from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, who is one of the organizers and instructors for the upcoming Urban Sketching Symposium

I met with two groups of students: a regular drawing and painting class and then an after school group--the newly formed Animo Urban Sketchers. I showed them  some of my sketchbooks (mostly drawings from this California trip) and I drew alongside them. The kids were great and interested! I enjoyed seeing what they'd done in Stephanie's class and in their sketchbooks.

Animo Urban Sketchers and me

I talked to the kids about how I sometimes use windows in drawings, how it helps to zero in on what to put in a composition and to define foreground and distance. We drew together in the school courtyard. Here's what I did with the kids watching over my shoulder.  My "window" was the opening to the sky created by the horizontal of the rooftop and the darker green trees on either side.

"Animo Charter High School View", 11"W x 13.25"H, Neocolor II on black paper

Me working on the above drawing

Kids wanted to know what I was going to draw next. They gave me their recommendations, which is why I went to the beach and Venice Skateboard Park on my last day before flying home to Iowa. These will be in my next and last installment of Venice Beach: An Iowan Explores a Corner of the LA Metropolis.

Venice Beach: An Iowan Explores a Corner of the LA Metropolis: Part I

As a getaway from winter, my husband and I spent two weeks in Southern California, in late February and early March. The first week was in Joshua Tree. See my 3 posts showing my view of the Mojave Desert by starting here.

Our GPS predicted 2-1/2 hours to drive to our rental house in Venice Beach, a charming beachfront district of Los Angeles. It took closer to 5 hours--the extra logged on the abysmally backed up freeways closer to LA proper. We're wimps when it comes to traffic: once we finally made it, we vowed not to use the car until we drove to the LAX airport to go home. Okay by me, I had a great week walking, biking, drawing, and basking in the SoCal sunshine.

"Palm Trees", ubiquitous with Venice Beach. These drawn quickly, soon after we arrived, with watercolor and ink in a new square format sketchbook (7"x7") that I really like.

Venice Beach has a charming neighborhood of walk streets. Mostly small Craftsmen-style houses front onto narrow pedestrian lanes. Our first full day, I made a beeline for a spot on Marco Place with amber glass globes hung from trees in someone's front yard, one dangling above the public walkway, that I had discovered on an earlier visit to VB.

"Venice Walk Street" done with Neocolor II wax pastels on black paper (11"W x 13.25"H)

I'd rented a bike for the week. The wheels of choice in VB are beach cruisers: wide tired, one-speed, brakes in the pedals, and in bright colors. It made me happy that mine had pink rims. Here's my set-up, when I got up to stretch my legs. Hard to believe this is less the a block from the busy Highway 1 that spans much of the California coast.

With the drawing in progress, a closer look with my trusty folding stool and boxes of NeoColor II wax pastels. The boxes are cedar Jamaican cigar boxes I inherited from my father.

I did this watercolor September 2011 in a bound sketchbook (5.25"Wx16.5"H), when I last was in Venice Beach. "Venice Beach Garden" is of a  rental cottage's courtyard garden, also on Marco Place, very close to where I drew the NeoColor II above.

This will be the first of three posts, showing my exploration of Venice Beach. Stay tuned.

An Iowa lowlander visits the Mojave High Desert of Joshua Tree, California: Part III

Junk and making creative use of junk seem part of High Desert culture around Joshua Tree, California, where my husband and I spent a week earlier in March. At the rental house, a rusted out Chevy pickup, permanently marooned in the driveway, served as a firewood bin. Our initial days were cool, but finally warmed so drawing outside was comfortable.

Often when doing a watercolor, I first sketch with a warm grey Faber-Castell PITT artist pen, which is permanent Indian ink.

Rusted Out Chevy scanned once home.

A cactus garden, using cattle troughs and old red oil drums, was along the driveway-facing side of the house.

So much fun to get messy with my Neocolor crayons!

My last drawing before leaving the desert was in the guestbook. A quick ink sketch--a view from inside with cactus close to the house, rocks in the mid-distance, and mountains beyond.

Good-bye to the desert.

See Part I and Part II of An Iowa lowlander visits the Mojave High Desert