Crown Beach Poppies

 

Crown Beach Poppies, 7.5" x 7.5" watercolor on Arches 100% cotton rough w/c paper

Living next door to the Crown Memorial Beach State Park in Alameda is such a gift. 

Those who help preserve public spaces deserve a special place in heaven. Thank you to Robert W. Crown, a state legislator who campaigned for the site to be preserved as a public park. Tragically, Crown died in 1973 at the age of 51 after being struck by a car while jogging in Alameda. 

But his legacy includes 2.5 miles of beach and a biking trail that follows the San Francisco Bay, along with acres of green spaces for picnics, soccer, and thousands of shorebirds that winter here. 

These poppies are currently in bloom in a large bed of native perennials near the bathhouse. Behind them are bushes with vibrant purple flowers. 

While walking in the park along the bay trail once or twice a day, I often see what appear to be tourists snapping photos with an air of wistfulness as they try to capture their special times here, just like my husband and I used to do when we visited this area from Iowa. 

But now we live here, and each day is literally a walk in the park. And the poppies are in bloom and life is good.

(Not quite as crazy about this painting as I was with "Poppy Pleasure." Background is too controlled here, and the intensity of the purples fights with the intensity of the poppies, whereas with "Poppy Pleasure" I muted the background and kept it looser--all by intuition rather than intention, mind you. So goes the learning curve.)