Here is a start of a demonstration that I did at Ellis Creek, one of my favorite locations in Petaluma, CA. As you can see, I overstate the warm of the light in the first pass. I make sure that I organize my lights and shadows and try to get the big notes of color. As I develop the painting, I state the minor changes within the big forms. As my husband says, "If you don't get a good start, your finished." I have included a photo of the location. As you can see, there is no color information in this reference. It is the years of painting on location that allows me to interpret the light key of nature

I was out painting last week in my favorite neighborhood and a woman came up to me and asked, “Are you the artist who illustrated the Secret Life of the Seine?” I was amazed that she could look at what I was painting and make this connection. I said that was years ago (1994), and, yes, I was the artist. She and her sister both like my colorful paintings and have followed my career over the years.

This 1994 illustration job was filled with unanticipated and random connections. Here they are:

I had decided to take my daughter to France and I didn’t know how or where but I was telling everyone we were going to France. I eventually was offered an all-expense paid trip to the south of France (this is another story) where I was going to teach a few workshops. I didn’t know how I was going to fill these workshops.

Here is where the universe stepped in to help me. Around that time, I got an illustration job to do the cover of the book, The Secret Life of the Seine, by Mort Rosenblum. Mort lived on a boat on the Seine and had olive trees in the south of France. It so happens, that his sister worked for the San Francisco Chronicle so they ran my illustration on the cover of the Sunday Travel Section promoting the book and at the end of the article there was a bio on me along with a listing of my workshops in France. I was on the phone for the next few weeks and filled all my French workshops!

This slideshow is a series of paintings I have done in this neighborhood.