Stanford University Quad. Thursday, March 17th, 2016

You've heard of the "Mozart Effect" in which listening to Mozart is supposed to increase, at least short-term, your IQ?   By some obtuse reasoning, I'd hoped that there was a comparable "Stanford Effect" which would improve my artistic IQ.   Didn't work, at least for me.   And nobody else needed any such boost as we turned out our usual fine body of work.  

Collectively it was a great day:  the last paintsite of the Winter of 2015-16 felt like a Spring, if not Summer, paintout.    And since it was Spring Break, altho' there were occasional large student tours, it was very relaxed and enabled us to make friends with unhurried tourists  and Campus Security Officer Victor who provided much interesting info about the campus   --- all were appreciative of our work.

Upcoming Paintsites:

• Thursday, March 24, 2016:  Santa Clara Mission, Santa Clara.
• Thursday, March 31, 2016:   Wunderlich Park, Woodside.

For details, see the SCVWS website and the upcoming March Newsletter.   Remember, check your e-mail or the SCVWS website Home Page for cancellation notices as more rain is forecast for March.  

For more information (lots more) about Stanford University see the official University website which has Visitor and Parking information:  https://www.stanford.edu/ 
For just a taste of the many websites devoted to photo images of the beautiful campus, particularly the Main Quad, see:
http://bayimages.net/photos/california/stanford/quad/

The Main Quad West Gateway/Portal.    This was the number one favorite subject as the textures and shapes of the building, the dramatic palm trees (which more than hold their own against the blocky buildings) and their cast shadows in the foreground all contributed to some very interesting compositions.

Anna, a long-time SCVWS member and experienced & accomplished plein air artist, joined us for her first Paintsites outing.

Anna typically works in a journal format and this painting of the West Portal is her latest entry.

Lisha's friend Annie is another experienced & accomplished plein air artist joining the group for the first time.   Annie normally paints in oil but stepped out of her comfort zone to give watercolor a shot ....

... very successfully I think.    Annie's painting of the West Portal.

Marilyn, Thursday Paintsites co-coordinator.

Marilyn's painting of the West Portal.

Cathy B.

Cathy's sketch book with her value studies and finished painting.   Scroll down to see them in greater detail ...

Two of Cathy's value sketches.

Another value sketch.

And it all came together in this fine painting of the West Portal.

Kaaren set up in the arcade separating Memorial Court from the Main Quad which gave her a more oblique look at the West Portal.

Kaaren's painting of the West Portal.   (That's one of us on the planter wall in the foreground.) 

Joy

Joy's painting and her neat, well organized supply box -- everything an artist requires in one tidy package.

Joy's friend Sharon joined us for another paintout.

The Memorial Court Arcades:  Another popular subject --- both as a subject and as a shady place in which to set-up:

Jane, the other Thursday Paintsite co-coordinator, in a Memorial Court arcade.

Jane's painting looking down the arcade.

Lisha in a Memorial Court arcade.

Lisha painted an administration building thru an arcade.

 

Brad's painting of Memorial Court's West Arcade.

 Other subjects:    There are many other equally interesting subjects...

Liz working on her painting.   Unfinished when we held our critique - visit again as it will be posted when it's done to Liz's satisfaction.

Away from the Quad, Kathy W. found a secluded little garden in which to paint.   Working on very rough, hand-made paper was a real challenge but it seems ideal to capture the rough, uneven texture of the sandstone buildings.

Altho' it's rumored that Stanford discourages distinguished UC Berkeley alumna from painting on campus, potentially showing-up Stanford alums (Kaaren excepted of course), Mary actually sat on the cold concrete of her own volition while working on a sketch.

The Stanford Art Gallery was closed but I suspect that if they'd known we were on campus they'd have opened it for us to exhibit our work.    Can't you just picture a big, bigger banner above the Stanford one:  "One Day Only - World Renown SCVWS Paintsites Artists!".

Calero County Park, San Jose - Hike & Sketch. Thursday, March 10, 2016

Although the forecast was for only a slight chance of rain, once we got to the park, it sure looked like that was an overly optimistic forecast.   Plus the recent heavy rains had made the trails muddy and slippery in spots, boggy in others, and seriously eroded in others (the trails weren't open to equestrians) but none of that deterred the Paintsites crew.    We set forth and almost the first thing we saw was a sign describing the tracks of the various wild animals with which we'd be sharing the trails.   Most are fairly benign and would be fun to see --- except for one: wild pigs!   We crossed paths with the brutes a few years ago and I wasn't anxious for a repeat encounter.   Although we didn't see any pig tracks in the mud, Jane wasn't particularly reassuring when she commented that she'd seen evidence of their depredations along the trail.   So some of us (me in particular) kept a keen eye out for them.   Fortunately we didn't see any.   We only saw some beautiful California landscapes and had a happy morning and afternoon painting them.

For more information about Calero County Park, check the official website:
https://www.sccgov.org/sites/parks/parkfinder/Pages/Calero.aspx

 Upcoming Paintsites:

• Thursday, March 17, 2016:   Stanford University Quad and Sculptures, Palo Alto.
• Thursday, March 24, 2016:  Santa Clara Mission, Santa Clara.
• Thursday, March 31, 2016:   Wunderlich Park, Woodside.

For details, see the SCVWS website.    Remember, check your e-mail or the SCVWS website Home Page for cancellation notices as El Nino is definitely back.  

First Stop:  About a third of a mile uphill hike from the parking lot we settled down for our first sketching session.

Left to right: Sharon, Joy, Sylvia, and Georgia on a more or less level spot on the Los Cerritos Trail.

Joy's painting of sturdy oak just leafing out with the Figueroa Trail snaking uphill in the distance.

Sylvia's painting of the Los Cerritos Pond and the Figueroa Trail in the foreground, the Coyote Hills in the middle-ground and the Diablo Range in the distance.

Katherine

Katherine's painting of the Los Cerritos Pond.

Candy, Jane and Helen (hidden by foliage) in the wildlife viewing platform ( a perfect place for plein air painting the  pond) above the Los Cerritos Pond.

Brad's painting of the wildlife viewing platform and three artists.

Or, looking at this a different way, left to right: Helen, Jane and Candy.

Helen's panorama of Los Cerritos Pond in the foreground and the Coyote Hills and Diablo Range in the distance.

Jane's painting of the same scene.

... and Candy's.

Second Stop:  It started clouding up a bit more and we (at least some of us) considered hiking back to the parking lot.   But Sylvia, who is used to making these sorts of decisions from her years of leading Hike & Sketch paintouts, said we'd made it that far and we should keep going -- all of us should keep going.   It turned out, of course, to be the right decision so we pressed on and set-up at the junction of the Los Cerritos and Pena Trails.   From this vantage point we could see the old stables, the barns, and the Bailey House (built c. 1867) - all in run-down condition and currently off-limits to the public.
 

Left to right:  Helen, Sylvia, Katherine, Candy and Jane.

Candy's sketch of the artists lineup - left to right: Jane, Katherine, Sylvia, Helen and Brad.

 

Jane's painting of the Bailey House, barns and stables with the Diablo Range in the distant background. 

Katherine's painting of the old Bailey ranch-stead and the closer Coyote Hills.

Sylvia's painting of the same.

and Candy's ...

... and finally, Brad's.

Wildflowers:  We'd hoped to see hillsides covered with wildflowers but it turned out that the best wildflowers were in the parking lot (and off Bailey Ave. on the drive to the park) so that's where John and Marilyn, after reconnoitering  the trails, returned to paint...

John's painting of a bunch of California Poppies.

Marilyn's painting of another bunch of California Poppies.

John also did this sketch of the picnic area from the parking lot.

... and this one of another of the handsome oaks.

Lunch and Show-and-Share Critique:   We reunited in the picnic area adjacent to the parking lot for lunch and a brief "critique".

Saratoga Heritage Orchard, Saratoga. Thursday, March 3, 2016.

The National Weather Service said there'd be showers.   Weather.com said there'd be showers.  We said: "bring 'em on, we're going painting anyway!".    Turned out that it didn't rain or shower so our resolve was never really tested.  But there were misty clouds hanging over the Coast Range which reminded us of what might have been --- and which gave us a nice atmospheric contrast with the dark hillsides.
Our plan had been to paint the apricots (the largest section of the orchard) in bloom but they'd finished blooming weeks earlier.  (Seems like we go earlier every year but it's not been early enough the last few years - maybe we'll schedule it for the end of January next year.)  Still, it was fun to get out in the orchard and paint even if it was just some of the old trees sans blossoms and with the first leaves appearing.   For those of us who absolutely had to paint fruit trees in bloom, the plums and flowering crabapples were in bloom and they were still a few individual apricot blossoms to paint close-focus or at least get a feel for what the orchard had looked like a few weeks earlier.   So most everybody went home happy.    And dry.


Upcoming Paintsites:

• Thursday, March 10, 2016:   Calero CP, San Jose.  Hike & Sketch or Sit & Paint.
• Thursday, March 17, 2016:   Stanford University Quad and Sculptures, Palo Alto.
• Thursday, March 24, 2016:  Santa Clara Mission, Santa Clara.
• Thursday, March 31, 2016:   Wunderlich Park, Woodside.

For details, see the SCVWS website or the March Newsletter.    Remember, check your e-mail or the SCVWS website Home Page for cancellation notices as El Nino is apparently paying us a return visit.   And for the Calero Paintsite, check the driving instructions sent by Paintsites in the e-notification as there are several entrances to the park and we want to make sure everybody gets to the correct one.

The Apricot Orchard:   Artists working on a 'big picture' image of the orchard looked generally southwest down the rows of trees toward the Saratoga Gap shrouded in the mist...

Rich

Rich's painting from the middle of the apricot orchard.

What could be more convenient?   Lisha was able to set-up next to her car.

Lisha's painting

Mary was also able to set-up next to the parking lot.

Mary's painting looking down a row of apricots toward the misty mountains.

 

Same with Elizabeth.

Elizabeth's painting.   (That's Marilyn in the mid-ground.   We can always recognize her by her pink hat.)

Joe

Joe's painting of the orchard and an enormous oak in the middle of the field dwarfing the relatively puny apricot trees.

Dick and Salinda

Rather than painting down rows of trees, Salinda's painting looks across the rows of trees.

New member Carole.

Joy hasn't painted with us for awhile but she's back and, now that she has a new tripod set-up, will hopefully be a regular.

Favorite Trees:   Sometimes an individual tree (or maybe a pair of trees) just 'speaks' to you.  That was the case for these artists ....  

Dick's painting focused on two gnarly old apricot trees.

Joe's 2nd painting --- this of another pair of trees done at a time when the sun had broken thru enough to create some shadows.

 

Kay

Kay's painting of another pair of old, old trees leaning out to each other for support.

Kaaren

Kaaren's painting of one of the orchard's "ancient ones".  (With perhaps a few more blossoms than were actually there --- but which she couldn't resist adding.   And which I'm glad she did as this is how these old trees should look.)

Apricot blossoms:   When you see apricot trees in bloom from a distance, they're a bit reddish - but the blossoms are somewhat complex color-wise so some close-ups make one appreciate their beauty even more.....   

Helen

Helen found some branches that still had enough blossoms on them to look in near full bloom.

Iris working on apricot blossoms close-up.

Zeroing in on the blossoms, this is Cathy's painting of a branch end.

Marilyn

Marilyn's really close-up painting of some blossoms using techniques she picked up in recent workshops.

The Plum Orchard:   First prize in the Non-Apricot subject matter category goes to .....

Brad.    For this painting of  plum trees in bloom.   (Note, it's true that this is the only non-apricot painting but it would be very rude to point that out to Brad.)

Lunch & our Show-and-Share Critique:   Sorry to disappoint as there are no photos of lunch or our critique as the Paintsites photographer was busy stuffing his face after a hard morning's work in the orchard.    But we did have a pleasant session under the flowering crabapples before heading into the Saratoga Library to see Nancy Near's wonderful one-woman show --- if you're in the vicinity, check it out.    (Saratoga Library, 13650 Saratoga Ave., Saratoga.   Hours: Mon - Tue: 1 - 9;  Wed - Sat: 10 - 6;  Sun: 1 - 5.