Finished this one today! I started the final stretch by creating some "sky holes" in the tree foliage and breaking up the masses.
I used some inexpensive new brushes: a synthetic filbert and a bright. I'm finding that these Taklon and nylon brushes are ideal for acrylics as they glide across the panel and enable soft edges.
The recent rain has caused an explosion of wildflowers in California. Yesterday, we decided to take a day trip to Carrizo Plain National Monument, just east of San Luis Obispo. The swaths of gold were truly spectacular. I sketched the blooms near the salt encrusted Soda Lake. M. took a photo of me as I was working.
I sketched this on Bee Paper's Super Deluxe Mixed Media sketchbook, which has been recommended by several sketchers as a good, reasonably priced workhorse surface. While I've been happy drawing on Bee's Pen Sketcher's paper, the Mixed Media one just isn't my jam for ink & watercolor work. Its weight and tooth feel more suited to dry media.
Glad that a fellow artist has resurrected the long-neglected South Bay Plein Air Meetup group. Yesterday there were three of us at Vasona Lake County Park in Los Gatos. Since I was squeezing this session in between errands and appointments, I chose to do a quick painting in gouache on Canson Mi-Teintes Touch toned paper. The sun was hot and climbing, so the paint dried almost instantly. The whole thing took less than an hour from setup to signature.