Los Gatos Plein Air

It was a beautiful day for painting in downtown Los Gatos. We had a a huge turnout-28 people! The only downside was the parking-not many open spots and all of the spaces nearby had a 2 hour limit, so periodically, someone would have to jump up and run to move his or her car! We enjoyed a demo by Dick Zunkel, who uses a pen and ink technique with washes. He uses a Speedball nib in a holder, with black ink. I just used my Faber-Castell Pitt pen this time, but will definitely try out the equipment Dick recommends-loved the varied line weights he achieves with it.
I used an Arches cold-pressed block, 11" x 14". There are a few perspective issues, but I was happy with the first run at it.

Plein Air on March 29th

It was a beautiful morning after several days of rain and 17 people turned out at the old Agnews site. This was a state mental hospital for many years but when it closed down, 4 of the opriginal buildings were preserved. The clocktower, former director's house and 2 other beautiful  old Spanish-style buildings are adorned with intricate brick and tile work on stucco. One of our paintsite leaders, Sylvia remarked that the  grounds are almost like an arboretum.

This is the old clocktower in a 9"x7' Cachet spiral-bound watercolor book. the shade patterns changed rapidly, as the clouds moved in and out.

This view of some of the trees is in pen and ink on a 10"x 14" Arches cold-press block. The colors on this piece look awfully wimpy in the scan-they're not quite as pale in person, but I should have pushed them some. My main focus was mixing lots of greens and trying to differentiate among the various kinds of foliage.