Stanford Arizona (Cactus) Garden. Saturday, May 16, 2015

Rain, thunder, and lightning kept all but the heartiest of us (Liz & Melanie) away from the Stanford Arizona Garden on Thursday --- so some Thursday Paintsites regulars were happy to join Uma's new group of Saturday Paintsite plein air painters for a day in the garden.   This made for a chance to not only paint what we'd missed (lots of cactus, some in bloom, and some interesting succulents) but also to meet some other like-minded artists.   We shared the garden with a large group of volunteers, lots of lizards, and possibly a rattlesnake -- but we all got along just fine.

For information about the Stanford Arizona Garden, see: 
http://bgm.stanford.edu/groups/grounds/special/arizona




For information about specific plants in the Garden, see:
http://bgm.stanford.edu/groups/grounds/plant_life/flower
 

Upcoming Paintsites:

• Thursday, May 21, 2015: Sunset Magazine HQ and Gardens, Menlo Park.   (This will probably be our last chance to visit this wonderful site as the building was recently sold and will probably be re-purposed.)
• Thursday, May 28, 2015: Guadalupe Oak Grove Park, San Jose - short Hike & Sketch or Sit & Paint

Brad and Anne painting while volunteer works

Our paintings and sketches

Uma's ink pen and wash studies of cactus blossoms

Uma's unfinished painting of Alan

Uma's painting of a riot of cactus

Broncha's painting of cactus of wildly different shapes

Brad's painting of more rioting cacti

Stanford Arizona (Cactus) Garden. Thursday, May 14, 2015

Altho' the Stanford Cactus Garden PaintSite was officially "cancelled" due to a forecast 77% chance of rain, Liz and Melanie (like many artists, rebels at heart), defied not only the National Weather Service but also the Paintsites Coordinators, and showed up to paint!    And paint they did until higher authorities started hurling lightning bolts and thunder claps at them.    At which point they confessed they retreated to their vehicles.   

Note: The first 2015 meeting of Weekend Paintsites will be in the Cactus Garden at 10:00 AM on Saturday, May 16th.     Thursday Paintsites currently has no plans to return to the Cactus Garden anytime soon so if you were disappointed by the rainout, this is your chance to see the garden at its peak.

 For more information about the Stanford Arizona (Cactus) Garden, check out:  http://bgm.stanford.edu/groups/grounds/special/arizona

 Upcoming Paintsites:

• Saturday, May 16, 2015: Stanford Arizona (Cactus) Garden, Stanford  (1st 2015 Weekend Paint Site)
• Thursday, May 21, 2015: Sunset Magazine Gardens, Menlo Park
• Thursday, May 28, 2015: Guadalupe Oak Grove Park, San Jose - short Hike & Sketch or Sit & Paint

 (All photos by Melanie)

The entrance to the Cactus Garden

Liz and her guest Christine

Cactus with yellow blossoms and really sharp stickers.

Liz's painting of cactus with yellow blossoms.   (And really, really sharp stickers!)

These cactus were painted with watercolor pencil on the rainy Thursday just before the thunder and lightning -  kind of a little crazy imagery for me   Liz

New member Christine, (Liz's & Melanie's Mt. View / Los Altos Adult Ed watercolor teacher --- she must be good judging from Liz's & Melanie's work), braved the bad weather and came up with this on her first Paintsites foray.

And toughed it out to do a second painting.

Cactus with red flowers

Melanie's painting of cactus with red flowers

Artist unknown - an exercise in photo-realism.

San Jose Municipal Rose Garden, San Jose. Thursday, May 7, 2015

Were we ever in for a surprise:   Anticipating a glorious May day in America's Best Rose Garden (really) and more or less seasonally attired, we got the beautiful roses we hoped for but also got sprinkles (not the kind we all like on cupcakes), then drizzle, then showers, then rain and persistent cold that would have discouraged less hardy artists than the Paintsites regulars.   But not us.   We painted on!    (Tho', I confess, we didn't stay as long as we normally would --- we're tough & determined, but we're not stupid.) 

For more information about the San Jose Municipal Rose Garden (voted America's Best Rose Garden in 2010), see the official website:   http://www.sanjoseca.gov/facilities/facility/details/74   and the Friends of the Rose Garden website:  http://friendssjrosegarden.org/

Upcoming Paintsites:

• Thursday, May 14, 2015: Stanford Arizona (Cactus) Garden, Stanford
• Saturday, May 16, 2015: Stanford Arizona (Cactus) Garden, Stanford  (1st 2015 Weekend Paint Site)
• Thursday, May 21, 2015: Sunset Magazine Gardens, Menlo Park
• Thursday, May 28, 2015: Guadalupe Oak Grove Park, San Jose - short Hike & Sketch or Sit & Paint

(Note:   We didn't have an opportunity to photograph all of the paintings so visit later and hopefully we'll have the completed paintings posted.)

Broncha

Dan

Marilyn

Brad's painting

John - his sun umbrella doing double duty as a rain umbrella.

John's unfinished painting of the central fountain

Lisha, Helen and Iris

Lisha's sketch

Lisha's unfinished painting of the fountain

Iris' painting of a lovely yellow rose.

Helen's sketch of a rose and the young duckling that followed her around

Helen's unfinished painting of rose beds and rose arch.  That's Rich under the umbrella --- eventually even that wasn't enough to keep the rain off his paper and he retreated along with the rest of us under the magnificent antique Cecile Brunner Arbor.

This is the orange rose arch by Rich while he was set-up under the red and white umbrella (see Helen's painting above).

Single rose by Rich.

Painting under the Cecile Brunner arbor - cold but at least dry.

Iris, Helen and Lisha in their close to primary color jackets. (photo by Rich)

Chateau CharMarron Peony Gardens, San Jose (above Milpitas). Thursday, April 30, 2015

Readers of this blog are probably rolling their eyes and asking themselves: "What another garden?"  Yes, another garden!   We're so fortunate that there's no end of Bay Area gardens worthy of our best efforts with brush & palette.     Highs in the 90s were forecast for San Jose but, surprisingly, it was quite pleasant higher up in the Diablo Range.  A gentle breeze both cooled us and wafted the fragrance of the peonies over us and made for just a perfect day's painting.   And, as was the case last week, we were fortunate that the gardener who created and now maintains the garden, Marcia Reed, was able to share her knowledge and love of peonies with us.

Marcia, our wonderful hostess and the woman responsible for the spectacular  peony demonstration beds in the background.

For more information about the Chateau CharMarron Peony Gardens, see:  http://4peonies.com/
If you plan to visit (do so pretty soon while the peonies are still in bloom), be sure to follow the driving Map & Directions link provided on the website as it offers a much better route than heading straight up Sierra Rd.

 Upcoming  Paintsites:

• Thursday, May 7, 2015: San Jose Municipal Rose Garden, San Jose
• Thursday, May 14, 2015: Stanford Arizona (Cactus) Garden, Stanford
• Saturday, May 16, 2015: Stanford Arizona (Cactus) Garden, Stanford  (1st 2015 Weekend Paint Site)
• Thursday, May 21, 2015: Sunset Magazine Gardens, Menlo Park
• Thursday, May 28, 2015: Guadalupe Oak Grove Park, San Jose

 
This is an area of great natural beauty so if peonies weren't your "thing", we could look in any direction from Chateau CharMarron's hilltop location and find something interesting to paint...

Waiting for the paintout to start, John did this sketch of Calaveras Reservoir from his car.

Marilyn was equally taken with the Calaveras Reservoir.

Marilyn's painting of Calaveras Reservoir with Mt. Diablo in the far right background

John supplied his own shade while painting a hillside and barn to the west of CharMarron.

John's painting.

Sylvia experimenting with a new watercolor and oil pastel technique.

Sylvia's peonies (left), poppies (right) and path (center) painting.

New member Salimah joined us for her first SCVWS Paintsite.

Melanie up close with a peony that (figuratively) grabbed her.

Melanie's gorgeous painting captured all the colors in this particular variety.

Iris

Iris' perfect peonies.

Lisha, surrounded by peonies.

Lisha's painting of a "bouquet" of peonies

Mary P.

Mary's pink peony painting

Liz braved the sun to paint her perfect peony

Liz's panoramic "Peachy Pink Cobbler" peony painting 

Jane K. and Helen

Jane K.'s peonies.

Helen's sketch of the same peonies.

Marilyn took a long view of some peony beds.

Brad's painting of a particularly floriferous peony.

John, who as "The Painter of Rust" has a reputation to maintain, waited until he thought everybody else had left before tackling some decidedly non-ferrous peonies.   But he didn't reckon with Liz who was still there and took this photo to document this historic moment.

A "Belleville", but not the one that we usually see.