We had a tumultuous March - some bright sunshine on cold days, some very warm rains, a couple of atmospheric rivers, a few crazy winds, and at least one dense hail. So I am not entirely sure what this orchard is thinking - did it try to bloom and the wind got all the flowers? Is it waiting for a proper start of spring? Is it as confused about the future as I am? I passed by it a couple of times trying to gauge when would be a good time to come over and sketch it and could not make up my mind but then an opportunity presented itself and Suhita (@Suhita Shirodkar) joined me for this outing to Los Altos Hills - it was short but accompanied by singing birds and we saw some unusually large California poppies - which means we soon will be heading for the hills to paint them!
I started thinking that I would make a one-page sketch but quickly realized that I wanted to expand to a much wider view and used both pages - so not a lot of planning went into this composition but in my defense, I can say that I was too distracted by courting turkeys between the trees and dreams of bringing a concertina to get a whole horizon in. Turkeys did not make it to my sketch though. Tender pink flowers on the branches are telling me I will get at least one more chance with this landscape before a delicate monolith of leaves obscures the structure of branches that I love so much.
There were other sketches from the same outing and I will share them too when I process them - when I figure out what bothers me about those sketches :)
No comments:
Post a Comment