Community Art Showing.

Some time ago I put up my works in the my local community center - and just recently I had a chance to update it to show some new projects:

Poppies of Palo Alto

Hills of Los Altos

Birds of the World - I am still on the owls but more on the way!

Here is how some of these look in the space:

Poppies - experiments!

Poppy season (moving from California Poppies to Flanders Poppies to Matilija Poppies) left me with all sorts of experimental thoughts this year - some things will come out next year when I face these challenging flowers again. Some are becoming an exhibition which I am pitching to show locally. And here are some of the results that I am ready to share:

California Poppies: Super Bloom of 2023

California poppies are extraordinarily bright and cheerful flowers - very much representing the essence of the California sun for me: I love it but sometimes it is too much. I cherish the instantly recognizable color of both flowers and the rest of the plant, the delicate wrinkles of the petals, the fingers of the leaves, and the hats of the seed pods. I love how flowers open and close based on the amount of sunshine they are getting, how you can always find a variety from warm yellow to burnt orange if you look for them, how they dance in the wind, and how shadows change colors with that dance. How you see them in the wild and an urban setting - still wild. NASA published photos of fields of California poppies visible from space. I didn't have a chance to check that out but my friend Suhita Shirodkar took me to some amazing hills down south: covered in so many versions of that orange!

We sat in the grass and painted both the hill and individual flowers. A Black Tailed Jack Rabbit (which is a hare) ran past - just a few feet away from us. Lots of people were on the hill - some drawing too! We came for the poppies but talked about so many other flowers covering the hillsides - the variety of their hues. And how we approach the endless task of learning all the names of plants that we see. It was a magical day when crayons were starting to melt in the sun but you could still enjoy a bit of a cold breeze in the shade. I wondered how long the poppies will last but then realized that there is always one or two even in the middle of August heat - if only you are patient enough to look for it :) 

California Poppies - and my gouache palette.

There is a wonderful little house in my neighborhood with a mesmerizing field of red poppies in front of it. Of course, there are some California poppies in the mix too. Painting these with gouache was pure joy! But my palette needs a major overhaul - so I spent some time trying to choose what colors to keep and what to let go of. 

I went to draw outside: California Poppies!

I did not have a chance to scan the pages of my sketchbook yet - but these photos taken with my phone will tell you about the amazing presence of color due to the abundance of poppies in my neighborhood now. I painted with gouache and used it both as watercolors wet-in-wet and as a solid, opaque medium. 

Sketchbook #112: California Poppies

California Poppies (Eschscholzia californica - a state flower of California) are amazingly bright. I always try to go on a hike and see them in the wild - on the hills or in the fields. But I find the best outcroppings by a highway or in a city - the closer to a road the better. I am not sure why.
I find myself sitting by the traffic painting and drawing these amazing shapes at all times of the day as they are beautiful when they are closed and open, young and old, singular flower or a whole meadow.