November Vines, California Watercolor Landscape Painting

November Vines 13 1/2 x 15 1/2

This started out as an experiment for me, I was waiting for a bicycle event in Sonoma to end and found these two ancient vines next to the road, I was missing fall color in New England so decided to try my hand at these two wild ones.

I liked their wildness and the play of warm and cool reds and burnt oranges.Like painting trees , I concentrated on the gesture and main shapes made by groups of leaves rather than rendering every leaf. The distance away I was sitting helped. It is a luxury to get to paint outside in California where the fall colors are accompanied by temperatures in the 60's.

California Watercolor Landscape Paintings Calendar 2014

California  Watercolor Landscape Paintings 2014

By robin purcell

Calendar January 2014 (12 Months)

Price: $18.99

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Here is the link to see all the paintings on the calendar

http://www.lulu.com/shop/robin-purcell/california-landscape-paintings-2014/calendar/product-21314295.html

Susan's Evening Walk

Susan's Evening Walk 10 x 12

This is a recent commission of the scene outside my client's vacation cabin in New Hampshire.
It was painted from a lovely photograph Susan took.
I don't usually paint from photographs but this one had a lot of positives going for it:

The Arrangement of light and dark areas( the foreground trees were already separated in value from the bog beyond.)
The Color contrast of warm and cool colors along with complementary colors.
The Subject with a clearly depicted foreground , background and lovely atmospheric perspective.

I made a few adjustments( of course)

I grouped the trees more closely together for the sake of the composition.
The value of the water was lightened to help with distance.
There were bird houses on the trees that were distracting.

I enjoyed this collaboration and hope it is the first of many!

Why I Revised Point Lobos Summer

Point Lobos Summer 11 x 14


I thought Point Lobos Summer was finished but as I looked at it it needed something, it took until this week for me to know what to do.
Originally the foreground was a very warm, intense gold, which was very close to what was in the landscape. I realized it overpowered the rose green  areas by the trees and rock clff that I  had intended as the focus.
To bring the painting into balance, the foreground needed to be cooler but not darker.
Here's where my willingness to break any and all rules to get a painting where it needs to be comes in.
After rewetting the area and blotting off excess pigment, I mixed a pale lavender ( actually the sky color) using as much white as I needed to create a semi opaque wash and scumbled it over the grass area to create texture and change to hue to one that is more in keeping with the rest of the painting.

Here's Point Lobs Summer in it's earlier form.

October Oak 12 x 12 Plein Air watercolor

October Oak 12 x 12

I ran out of Q Burnt Orange while painting this one.
The importance of the bits of blue green ( I used manganese blue hue and cobalt turquoise for the blue green color patches.) to contrast with the warm autumn colors is what I was concerned with colorwise .
The distance away I was standing was important , it allowed me to see the larger shapes and not try to paint every leaf.

Hollister Peak Morning, Hollister Peak Afternoon, Port San Luis , Plein Air watercolors from San Luis Obispo

Hollister Peak Morning 14 x 21

Hollister Peak Afternoon 14 x 21

Port San Luis  10 x 16

After a few tries, I was able to paint Hollister Peak in San Luis Obispo. The peak is so close to the coast that it is frequently covered with fog.

This was a good chance to look at the effects of morning vs afternoon light on the same subject. The peak was famously painted by William Wendt as " Where Natures God hath Wrought ". I am happy to have my own versions of this subject.

The afternoon version of this was a challenge, I usually paint in the morning. The colors were cooler and closer together in value in the afternoon.

 Port San Luis was a wonderful place to pull over with the beach next to me and the ridge in front of me.
I was directly across from the entrance to another Diablo, Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant.