"Bixby Creek Bridge, Big Sur" (watercolor on paper; 9" x 12") sold

sold

I love Big Sur, California. Ocher and green hills, intense blues of the ocean, colorful wildflowers, the Bixby Creek Bridge, and so on. I visited it this summer, this time under sad circumstances. The coastal paradise was as beautiful as ever.

"Big Sur Moment" (oil on linen; 11" x 14") sold

sold

Reference photo

As I wrote yesterday, I started a new series called "California Colors."  All the paintings of the series will be based on the pictures I took five years ago during a family vacation to northern and central California.  The occasion for this two-week vacation was a family wedding.  A nephew of my husband got married at a Napa vineyard!  It was the kind of a beautiful wedding you see in movies.  A lucky boy!  He and his wife now have two adorable kids and live in San Francisco.  A lucky couple! 

I had been to the city, but not to the rest of my favorite state.  So we made a vacation out of a wedding.  Why not?  Do you know what happened later in that summer?  A younger brother of the groom decided to get married six weeks after the said wedding, instead of waiting for a couple of years as he and his fiance had promised to the family.  The year of 2007 thus became the year of family weddings.  We made the two remaining boys swear that they would never ever get married in the same summer! 

The second wedding took place in Minnesota, my husband's home state.  We love Minnesota, but Minnesota is not California.  Besides, we were burned out of vacations.  We took just a few more days off in addition to the necessary time, in order to visit with relatives.  The trip didn't result in as many glorious pictures as the California one either.

We had only a day for Big Sur toward the end of our trip, which was a shame.  How can you explore this spectacular spot on earth in one day?  We made a lot of stops to take pictures, that's all.  But I still  dream of the incredible blues of Big Sur.

"Agapanthus and Yellow Wall" (oil on linen, 5" x 4") sold

sold

This is a wall of a motel in Eureka, CA--painted in bold yellow.  Then the management had had the ground landscaped in a complementary color scheme with blue flowers.  Their color sense was impeccable.  I love California!