Invited to a Beagle Birthday

Playing with abstract design in watercolor, this turned into a birthday celebration for a dog. Lot of angles and spots before anything developed, but definitely had a celebratory feel. This was one of my loosening up exercises for painting. Only 3 colors were used and when wet they mixed to allow others to form.

Rare Bird

Just returned from two weeks in Mexico. Had a group of 20 celebrating and every single one of us got sick for 1 to 7 days. Not a coincidence since this town has sanitation problems and lots of other visitors complained. We are home and all better but got little plain air painting done. I played with abstract watercolors and had fun. This is a bird of very rare plumage. I start warming up with 3 colors that are transparent. After playing with all the color I start to shape it up and this is the result.

Dreary Day

It was a cold morning for painting. No sun and threatening rain but I was out there with the Wednesday morning group. I did a lot of sketches and then setup my easel and painted an old familiar landmark of Winters, CA. At first, I was intensely occupied with composition and value; unaware of any chill. There was no color to the sky. Traffic moved but few people were out. After an hour, I was cold; it being 43 degrees. The only asset of being cold is a shaky hand for drawing tree branches, it helps. I did not touch up this painting and it is as painted. We all gathered later at the Cafe for some hot chocolate and soup and slowly everyone came back to life.