Dahlia Tango

 

Dahlia Tango
5" x 5" gouache on hot press paper

Gosh, this gouache is FUN! The opposite of efforting, which is how I feel sometimes with watercolors. 

I tried using gouache years ago, but I was taught to use it as a thick paste. This time I'm adding more water to make it creamy. It's as if a light has been turned on. 

Statue at the new Transamerica Redwood Park
5" x 7" gouache on hot press paper

 

Rediscovering Gouache

 

Holly's Hocks
5" x 5" gouache on hot press paper

Excuse me while I have this little love affair with gouache, which in some ways is sooo much easier than working with watercolors. I'll explain more about it later. For now, let me just be swept away.

Beauty and Irony

 

While Coming into Mt. Shasta

I love the unexpected inspiration that comes from road trips. My husband and I traveled recently up I5 and then over to the southern Oregon coast, then inland to Portland for a few days. We headed back home via I5. 

This scene struck me as we entered the town of Mt. Shasta for the final night of the trip. The town is the namesake of the second highest mountain (after Mt. Rainier in Washington State) in the Cascade range. 

To be honest, the beauty of those simple sheds and solid colors is what first caught my eye. The irony of that simplicity against nature's rugged majesty is what caused me to paint the scene. 

In Love...with California Live Oaks

 

California Live Oak 1
8" x 8" watercolor
Arches 100% cotton hot press

I haven't yet unlocked the code of how to paint California live oaks (AKA coastal lives oaks), but that doesn't keep me from trying. They're so lovely to look at, these drought-resistant trees that populate the hillsides, sometimes all by their lonesome. This time of year, the contrast with the dry, whitening grasses is especially beautiful, though with this recent hot spell, we're especially ready for the fall rains to begin.  

California Live Oak 2
10" x 10" watercolor
Arches 100% cotton cold press paper

Iowa

 

Iowa
5" x 7" watercolor 
on Arches 100% cotton hot press paper

Each state has its beauty. Iowa, my home state, has plenty of it in skies, fields, and prairies. 

The Joy of Practicing

Corner of Morton and San Jose
7" x 10" watercolor
on Arches 100% hot press paper

Lately I’ve hit an inspirational doldrum as a painter. Travels, such as my recent trip to Colorado, tend to tickle the Muse; routine can soften her voice, even though I live in a place surrounded by beauty and great weather. 

So this week I took two mornings to drive around our island in search not of subject matter that reaches out and touches me, like travel does, but that at least interests me in terms of light/dark, textural, or color contrasts.

For this painting it was the light/dark contrast of the sun-soaked houses (including that bright white trim of the charcoal-colored house on the right) with the darker trees and the shade they threw on the sides and foreground.

The yellow right-turn sign on the bottom left was the icing on the cake. I left it out of the value study below but decided to keep it in the top painting.

This is not a painting I’ll frame, but painting both the value study below and the full-color painting above did provide me with a couple of hours of transcendent joy as I practiced with lights and darks. And it might make a fun card folded in half to some friend who appreciates my quirky paintings.