100 Views of Silicon Valley: Baylands Park, Sunnyvale, California

I've finished my 100 views in June but with all the traveling stopped posting. Since then I found that many of the mini paintings I would like to re-paint or add/adjust - so this is a new stage of the project - and I will continue sharing it as it nears the conclusion of gathering all the images in one place.
This is a wonderfully spacious Baylands Park in Sunnyvale - place for runners, birdwatchers and people who enjoy looking at the hills at all seasons.

100 Views of Silicon Valley: Downtown San Jose State - University Campus and Art Museum

San Jose is a lovely city - constantly changing and evolving - at least that's how I feel. Every time I visit it I am a little lost and frustrated about something not being "as it was last time" but by the end of the visit there is usually something new I love. This time I was painting with Suhita and we saw that city was flooded with scooters to ease traffic in the downtown and people were really having fun riding them :)

100 Views of Silicon Valley: Los Altos and San Francisco

Top: Chamber os Commerce, Los Altos.
I've learned about this super cool corner of Los Altos through instagram's comments and went to paint it as soon as I could - it's a really neat park tucked between two roads and a standalone mostly-glass building looks very cozy between large trees.

Bottom: San Francisco.
I did not paint enough of San Francisco for this project - but I will! This is a very colorful part close to the Bernal Heights Library.

100 Views of Silicon Valley: Redwood City

Redwood City has a sign at its entrance "climate best by government test" - and I just had to paint that as it was one of the first things I saw when I visited the city for the first time.
Downtown is filled with people at all times of the year and I loved painting it in early spring as I was able to see more of the buildings against the signature color of the sky in California. 
  

100 Views of Silicon Valley: Los Gatos

This is probably the South-most part of the Silicon Valley I painted. I love Los Gatos - with the mountains always in the picture and lovely streets lined with crooked trees and amazing colors of houses!

100 Views of Silicon Valley: Apple Park Visitor Center

I wanted to paint Apple Park for quite some time, looked into different options of approaching the building and even tried to talk security into letting me in so that I can have a good view at the new Apple Inc. headquarters a famous spaceship building from up close. But it did not work :) They were very nice though and pointed that there is a great view from the top of the visitor center - which is where I ended up.

100 Views of Silicon Valley: Mountain View Public Library and Little Free Library in Palo Alto.

I painted Mountain View Public Library and one of the "take a book - leave a book" - little free library houses that sprung in the valley during the last few years. It's a great system for book exchange - supported by neighborhoods and you can learn a lot about the people who live next to it if you look closely :)

100 Views of Silicon Valley: Los Altos

100 Views of Silicon Valley: Stanford University and Downtown Mountain View

100 Views of Silicon Valley: Mountain View - Google

Google occupies a wide range of different buildings in Mountain View and around the area but they all have some things in common: colorful umbrellas, chairs, and google bikes. And googlers everywhere :) Soon there will be a whole set of specifically google buildings - I sketched the construction site at the beginning of this project. Based on what's in the proposal it will be a grand building - but I am sure my way of recognizing a place by a bright set of yellow, red, blue and green will work there too :)


Here is a couple of process shots:

100 Views of Silicon Valley: Los Altos

I've been in love with some streets lined with blooming trees in Los Altos for a while now. But when I tried to find a good angle to draw I saw that the best view is from the car actually - while driving. So I ended up setting my little stool on the divider and painted top two paintings very quickly - while cars zoomed by loudly. And the bottom two are Los Altos Libary and a historical oak tree behind it.