Plein air painting and experiments

Here you can see an experimental piece of Bob from a photo taken by a friend as we passed through Portland on our return train trip across Canada and down the West Coast after our bicycle tour. I had never painted on a gesso surface so this is totally an experiment inspired by Myrna Wacknov’s blog. I applied gesso over a failed watercolor. I loved the way the gesso resisted the watercolor and the fact that I could wipe away the watercolor if I wanted. I realized that I should not have used an eraser on the gesso as that left a residue and I had a real tough time in those spots getting the paint to adhere. The next time I will use a small paintbrush to draw the image. Another time I would take more care creating a nice texture in the gesso. This one pretty much has horizontal brush strokes. As always, I have a hard time getting the image I upload to the blog to match the original piece in terms of light and color. People tell me they recognize Bob.

Yesterday morning I joined a half dozen people from the Santa Clara WatercoloSociety to paint plein air at Las Palma Park in Sunnyvale, CA। This small park has tennis courts, a dog park, and two play areas for children. The day was cool, damp, and overcast much of the time we were there. Though possible rain was forecast, we had none. I decided to paint the sculptures and palms. I understand that in the summer, water flows from the three blue "pipes" and the decorative enclosure has a small pond, but I guess that goes away for the winter. We live in a very multicultural area, so I listened to people chat in more than one language, watched moms walking babies and an older man doing tai chi, to the sounds of happy dogs, one unhappy baby, and the kathunk of tennis balls on the courts. When finished, we enjoyed our picnic lunch together and I headed for home to warm up. I can see that the colors, were influenced by the grey atmosphere.