Fairytale Setting

Another painting I have been living with for years, in its latest version.

Oil on canvas, 30" x 40".

Reaching for Life

Oil on canvas, 30" x 40".

This is a painting that started from a photo I took of one of Pasadena's ficus trees.

I have added to it over the years, and decided to post the updated, and re-named, work.  (The first title was something like "Ficus on a Sunny Morning.")

Tree Nymph; Smiling Face In Red; Women In Blue

 Drawn this morning, from life.

Tree Nymph is pastel and charcoal on 9"x12" card.

Smiling Face In Red is oil pastel on oil painting on 11"x14" canvas.

Women In Blue is oil pastel on 12"x16" pastel paper.

About these:

It is such a beautiful day today and the trees outside the studio are so lovely, that the colors of the day and the shapes of the trees made their way into the first drawing.  And the sun and blue sky made their way into the third drawing.

This terrific model also seemed to be enjoying the day.  She kept a relaxed and happy expression for the entire time she was posing.  (Not an easy thing to do.)

At the Stables (work in progess continues)

I did some painting this morning. So I'm posting what I did, and now will give this painting a rest and look at it later to reassess. It's time to get some other paintings going.

On an unrelated topic, except that it involves rocks, as does this painting, I recently saw the eagle in Eagle Rock. It was about noon and I was a passenger in a car headed up Figueroa and onto the 134 freeway west, and I looked up at the big boulder and saw why it is called Eagle Rock! Small mystery solved.

At the Stables (work in progress)

When it's hot, I look for a shady place. This, an oil painting on a 30"x40" canvas, is my first stab at painting the San Pascual Stables, in the arroyo area of South Pasadena.

Ficus on a Sunny Morning (30"x40")

More of my ficus obsession. This is the painting first posted on July 14th, further developed.

Ficus on a Sunny Morning (work in progress)

This 30"x40" painting on canvas is of another Pasadena tree, this time one on Cherry Drive.

"Cloudy Morning on a Ficus" and "Ficus on a Cloudy Morning"

These two paintings, each on approximately 20"x24" shellacked hardwood boards, are my two takes on the same morning scene. On the left, I painted the sky, then outlined the tree limbs. On the right, I painted the tree limbs. There are bits of green and glimmers of light in each, in honor of the courageous acts of those who speak out, everywhere, despite great peril to themselves.

Ficus on a Cloudy Morning

This is an oil painting on hardwood, approximately 20"x24".

Yesterday morning, after going to Gelson's to pick up some bagels and lox (because if you give a dad some garlic-scallion cream cheese, he's gonna want the lox and bagels), we went farther east on Green, close to Hill, to an area with larger, undecorated ficus trees. I painted this from one of the photos I took yesterday morning of the trees. (The garlic-scallion cream cheese is my own version of the addictive, Pinnacle Bagel cream cheese. Pinnacle Bagel is in Greenwich Village, so not available for our morning walk.)

In my own version of rule-following, I'm not posting this with the tree sketches from life (see June 20 post) because I used a photograph.

Tree sketches

Vivien Blackburn at paintingsprintsandstuff has a challenge going to draw trees from life. This is my first stab at it, a marker drawing done of one of the trees outside the yoga studio I go to. If I get around to any others, I'll post them here, as well.

Note: As you can see, I've just noticed the link icon on the toolbar.

Update: The first two sketches are from this morning (June 30th), in my hilly backyard.

For tree paintings inspired by this challenge, scroll up to my June 27th post and my July 18th post.

Most recent versions of "At the Museum" (36"x18") and "Trees at Night" (24"x20")

June 19th update: I've posted the earlier versions of each painting directly below the newer versions, at the request of Altadena Hiker and Pasadena Adjacent.

I've been working further on the paintings I started recently.

Trees at Night

This is an oil painting on a shellacked hardwood board, about 24"x20." Another Pasadena Old Town scene, this time off a side street, at the side of a parking lot.

I was inspired to paint these trees by a recent post by Vivien Blackburn, at paintings prints and stuff, of trees she had drawn and painted.