Free Ride 5.5 x 7 Watercolor on paper
There’s a trolley stop at the bottom of the block where my booth sits in Little Italy when I exhibit at the Artwalk in San Diego. My friend VLB snapped photos to send me as painting fodder, and I tested this one to explore the composition as a larger painting. It’s almost an abstract of squares. (If I go larger, I promise to use a ruler.) She sent me a whole bunch of these from San Diego & NYC. I’m getting my urban-mojo on this summer. 🙂
The Sierra Madre Art Fair last weekend was a little wet from a Saturday night/Sunday morning shower, but the downpour stopped as a little Mother’s Day gift, and the crowds came out to gaze at the artists’ offerings and buy some art.
My friends Karen & Glenn Winters moved their set up under the arbor in Memorial Park when the rain came Saturday night. It was chilly all weekend, but there was a great turn out for the event and everyone had good sales.
Friends & patrons Holly & Gordon Howe arrived Saturday with a bouquet of sweetpeas and white roses from their garden, and a huge plate of swoon-worthy short-bread-pecan-caramel-chocolate squares. I handed out treats all day and still had cheerful flowers and amazing sweets to bring home.
Just after the rain stopped on Sunday – ready for friends in my cozy booth.
Art Quote
I had previously been taught to paint the head in three separate stages – each one repeating – in charcoal, in thin color-wash and in paint – the same things. By Sargent’s method, the head developed by one process. Until almost at the end there were no features or accents – simply a solid shape growing out of and into a background with which it was one. When at last he did put them in, each accent was studied with an intensity that kept his brush poised in mid-air until the eye and hand had steadied to one purpose, and then…. bling!. The stroke resounded almost like a note of music. It annoyed him very much if the accents were carelessly indicated, without accurate consideration of their comparative importance. They were, in a way, the nails upon which the whole structure depended for solidity. ~J. H. Heyneman
Hi Belinda,
I know I wrote you a comment telling you how much I liked the painting, and that you don’t need to use a ruler. Plus I love the quote and congratulated you on the Fair. But Blogger had some trouble last week and these remarks got lost. Love your work.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoBarbara
Love the painting, the photos, the post and the quote. The painting is great without the ruler.
XOBarbara