Tahoe Meadow

8″ x 10″ oil on panel

The paintings I did on this trip to Lake Tahoe are divided in my mind into two chunks. The paintings I did before I broke my ankle in 2 places (and leg) and those I did after.

The  painting above is an “after” painting. If I had to be stuck on a porch, the one I was on at my friend’s house in South Lake Tahoe was pretty much perfect with shade and a view through a trees of a meadow. The lake is just behind the trees in the distance.

Painting Vineyards

I recently had a wonderful and very productive (3 painting) day at Guglielmo Vineyards in Morgan Hill. It’s a place I’ve enjoyed painting before and wonderful to take in the changing light from morning through the end of the day. I’ll be signing and varnishing a small 8″ x 10″ oil painting and putting it in my section of finished oil paintings.  Here I’m sharing the other two.

Dancing Vines:  This 16″ x 20″ is large for me as a pleinair piece. It was very fun to use a big brush and to intentionally create out of my comfort zone.

Old vines late summer

Vineyard Path:  I started this one late in the day and had to move to complete it in the diminishing light. It’s a 9 x 12 painting.

Late day Shadows Guglielmo Vineyard

I’ll need to get back to Guglielmo to paint bare vines this winter. They have some lovely old growth sections with beautiful gnarled grapevines that will be fun to capture after the leaves go. And … their petite sarah is pretty wonderful too!

Wednesday Bridge Partners

11″ x 14″ watercolor

I don’t remember seeing so many snowy egrets when I was growing up in the Bay Area. I am certain there are more of them now and I delight each time I see them. They often appear alone. When in pairs their behavior can vacillate between cooperative, oblivious and intimidating.

Summer Shivers

Though it’s all sunshine in the photo above, it was a misty morning at Santa Cruz Harbor. The sun didn’t make an appearance until I was nearly wrapped up and it was COLD. My solutions were lots of hot coffee and simplifying the scene to a single orange sailboat. I used this as an exercise to closely observe the colors from life as subtlety can be lost photographs. I’m looking forward to another Santa Cruz Harbor paint day soon.