Well, the weatherman said 80 degrees! WooHoo! So I drove down to the beach. Fog! Drizzly, rainy fog. Oh well. I'm on this watercolor underpainting kick and I was dying to try it outdoors so.... Good thing I had an umbrella in the car.
Drizzle + watercolors + pastels = Yikes!
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6 x 8 pastels on Uart paper
Every time I go hiking in the old ranch grounds of what is now called Wilderness Gardens Preserve I walk by this enormous old oak tree. It's certainly been around longer than I have. I've been dying to paint it but it's so imposing and dominating on the landscape I don't really know how to approach it.
I decided I would try sneaking up on it a little bit at a time. So here's a stab at just the big ol' trunk. If I get a little braver I'll move back next time and take a stab at the whole thing. Maybe....
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9 x 12 pastels on Pastelboard
More cool, rainy weather coming in and I'm starting to dream about going back to Zion and the southwest red rock country. Looks like it's going to be a while, though, so I'm living in some of the photos from my last trip...
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8 x 10 pastels on pastelboard
Well, not me – I hope!
This was the view from the top of a trail I hiked today in Pala Valley. Boy was I glad that I put together a smaller pastel kit. It was a pretty steep trail!
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8 x 10 pastels on sanded paper
More rain so I riffled through some of my redrock photos from Zion NP and picked out this one from last fall. It was so rich and red and I tried to capture that. Hopefully I didn't get too carried away!
8 x 10 pastels on pastelboard
Sunday was cold but no rain so I scooted out to Daily Ranch and did this study. There was mud everywhere and setting up was an adventure. Behind me was Palomar Mountain - completely covered with snow. You would never know this was Southern California!
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8 x 10 pastel on pastelboard
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