Fielding Colour

This is from a photograph I took when I was last in England. It is of rapeseed fields which are in full bloom in May.

'Springtime Fields' 8" x 8" acrylic on board.

Tar Very Much

This week Hubby and I went up to a Los Angeles art museum with some friends. Right next door are the La Brea Tar Pits which I'd heard of but never seen. 

They are, as the name suggests, tar pits and they were formed by tar seeping from underground up to the surface over tens of thousands of years.

What was really interesting, and a little weird, were the bubbles, caused by escaping methane gas which make it look like the tar is boiling. 

The nearby museum tells the story of the tar pits and presents the results of the on-going excavations. Sadly we did not have time to visit it.

There are various models of animals around the site whose fossils were discovered in the area.

Pit 91 shows how some of the excavations took place and what was found there.

The Sun of the Parts

'Sunny Cove' 6" x 8" Oil on Canvas. This is taken from a photograph by one of my cousins of a beach in Cornwall, England. Cornwall has beautiful, rugged coastline as well as some quaint harbours and towns. I always visit Cornwall when I visit England as I have friends and family there.

I wanted to keep the painting's complexity to a minimum to stress the simple forms of the cliffs and a sense of depth.

Coasting Back

I love living at the beach. However, there are times when you have to venture inland to visit other places and people. 

Recently I was in Utah to visit friends and daily for ten days. Although we had a wonderful time, it was lovely to get back to that moist coastal air again.

As you might have guessed by now, I also love sunsets and these are two stunning ones I saw from our room.

 As always after a trip, there is a lot to catch up on but I am also working on some ideas for future paintings.

Working It Out

I have recently taken some workshops on painting with a palette knife. I love painting with a palette knife for various reasons but mostly because I love the sensation of spreading paint around on the canvas (or board).

This is the painting from one of my sessions. It is painted from a photograph the teacher supplied from a trip she took to northern California in May just a month prior to my own trip to the same area.

I've had guests from England staying with me for the last few days and it has been fun to share some southern California experiences with them: bonfire and hot dogs at the beach, sunsets over the ocean, surfing, shopping and people watching at Laguna Beach, eating where the locals go, and a visit to the Mission in San Juan Capistrano.

This Lily is from one of the Mission's fountains.

Now the guests have gone it is time to wash and put away the sheets and towels, put the furniture back in place, and return to painting.

Road Trip 6

This is the final post about my recent road trip. This post backtracks a little and deals with a reoccurring site we saw on the coastal portion, California Missions.

Read about the California Missions here and here.

Because of our schedule, we weren't always able to go into the Mission because we arrived outside of their visiting hours. However sometime we could get pictures of the gardens through the locked gates.

Mission San Jose de Guadalupe.

Mission Santa Cruz.

Mission San Juan Bautisa.

Father Serra who founded many of the missions.

Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo.

Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa.

Mission La Purisima Concepcion de Maria Santisima.

Displays showing how the rooms would have looked during the Mission era.

Adobe bricks.

How the bricks are made.

MIssion Santa Barbara.

Chalk artwork in front of the church.

Father Serra again.

Distance to the next missions.

Mission San Buenaventura.

For a review of my visit to Mission San Juan Capistrano see here and here.