Piedras Blancas

I thought that I'd posted all the drawings from my visit to San Luis Obispo this summer, but it turns out there are two more to share. At the end of June, my family and I drove to a beach near Hearst Castle to see the elephant seals. These enormous beasts spend a lot of time studiously napping, but then they can leap into pretty ferocious wrestling matches to impress the ladies. They're quite impressive. 

Pensé que había terminado con los dibujos de mi visita a San Luis Obispo, pero ya descubro que todavía faltan dos bosquejos más. A fines de junio, mi familia y yo conducimos a una playa cerca de Hearst Castle, para ver los elefantes marinos--animales gigantescos que vacilan entre una siesta enfocada y batallas feroces para establecer dominancia. Son increíbles.

It was a very windy afternoon, so I went back to the car with my grandma and from there I painted the "Piedras Blancas" rocks which rise out of the water just past the elephant seal beach. The fun thing is that I discovered a painting of the exact same rocks hanging on the wall of my grandmother's house that afternoon--my grandpa had painted it years before. His version was a stormier day, more muted colors, painted in oils...but it was a fun to find that link nonetheless! 

Como había mucho viento en el momento de visitar, regresé al auto con mi abuela, y yo pinté la vista de la Piedras Blancas que salen del océano en este lugar. Lo divertido es que, al regresar a la casa de mi abuela, descubrí una pintura de las mismas piedras que mi abuelo había hecho, desde hace varios años. El lo había pintado en óleo, en un día del invierno con el cielo más gris con las nubes, pero todavía era divertido encontrar esta conexión.  

Last sketches from San Luis Obispo

My goodness, you can tell it's a good sketching trip when, a month later, you still haven't gotten all the scans posted! Here are some sketches that I did while exploring San Luis Obispo and Paso Robles last month--focused on historic buildings and neighborhood scenes.

Híjole, es obvio que dibujé mucho en mi visita a San Luis Obispo y Paso Robles: una mez ya ha pasado y ¡todavía no he compartido todos mis bosquejos!  Aquí hay algunos dibujos que hice al explorar la cuidad, enfocados en edificios y vecindarios históricos.

Los Osos Oaks

While visiting my grandmother earlier this month, I took a bike ride to the Los Osos Oaks State Natural Reserve. I'm already a fan of oak trees, but this particular spot simply knocked my socks off--gorgeous grizzled coast live oaks that are estimated to be around 800 years old, and have a ton of character and expression in their branches.

There were so many amazing shapes to explore that I quickly realized it would be good to fill my sketchbook with little thumbnail sketches, to catch as many snippets as possible while I wandered around. In the margins around each mini-sketch, I've got notes on wildlife--lizard behavior, transcriptions of unfamiliar birdsong, etc. (Click on the image to get a zoomed-in version.)

Waking up on the Train

I've been posting a lot from the overnight train trip that I took to San Luis Obispo at the end of June. One of the highlights of that trip was opening my eyes early in the morning and seeing this sunrise whooshing by the windows right in front of me, somewhere north of Sacramento:

It's great to travel with watercolors. Yes indeed.