Leslie Landers

I didn’t bring oil paints to Colorado but did bring a compact watercolor set-up and painted every day. I’m working to improve my paintings of aspen trees. Here are a few paintings from this trip.

On this visit to Colorado, it was very noticeable that there were more Aspen in areas that had had bark beetle damage to evergreens. Like so many things, it’s a cycle. Small evergreens grow among Aspen eventually crowding out the light. The evergreens succumb to avalanche or fire or beetles and make way for aspen.

I am going to the Plein Air Convention in Denver in May so will certainly have a chance of more Aspen paintings then. Plus there is always my backyard birch tree which makes a pretty good stand-in.

My husband and I were recently in Aspen to celebrate our 25th anniversary. A highlight was taking a gondola to the top of AJAX to the exact spot of our wedding. The watercolor above is of the view from the top of Aspen Mountain where we celebrated champagne toasts all those years ago and again now.

Aspen is a delightful town. Unlike some ski resorts, the streets don’t roll up in the summertime. Aspen is full of historic buildings from the late 1800s when this area was awash is silver mining riches. A couple of the mornings we were there, I was able to paint at the corner of Galena Street and Hyman Avenue. The painting above includes the historic Aspen Elks Lodge.

We didd a fair amount of hiking while we were in the area. The Maroon Bells area is particularly stunning. This view is from Crater Lake which is a ~2 hour hike from Maroon Lake at the base. I painted this one fast. Just 20 minutes before we really needed to head down again.

It was our first time in Aspen in many years but we left anxious for a return trip.

My #1 goal going into last week’s plein air event in Tahoe was to have fun which I certainly did. Outdoor painters as a group are generous of spirit and fun to be around and Tahoe is stunning.

Quick draw competitions have become a thing at plein air events. The organizers of the North Lake Tahoe Plein Air Open encourage participation in a 2 hour painting sprint at the local farmers market. This means we had 2 hours to go from blank canvas to a framed painting for consideration by the judges. Sightly stressful.  Some of us chose busy market scenes. Others focused on the beach and Lake Tahoe itself. It is always fun to see what fellow painters focus on and how they tell their story in paint. My market scene “Boxed Peaches” is at the top of this post.

After four days of painting, we each hung the resulting paintings. We were each also able to bring one painting with us. In my case it is the piece at the upper left.

This was my second year participating in the event. The organizers at the North Tahoe Arts Association do a great job of welcoming us to their beautiful community. What a joy to spend a week with delightful people, painting beautiful scenery non-stop.

 

There is a wonderful landscape painting show that is opening today at the Harrington Gallery in Pleasanton. The paintings feature Bay Area Parks and will be up through July 20.

This is a juried California Art Club Exhibit. Most of the work in CAC shows are landscapes in the classic California tradition often with a modern twist.

“Ayala Pair” … my painting of the Angel Island Cove is in the show. Like all of my studio paintings, this piece began with a plein air painting completed on site.

When I think of Filoli, I mostly think of luscious blooms, manicured trees and reflecting ponds amidst the stately grounds of this historic property. In my earlier paintings of Filoli, I’ve been drawn to this organized beauty.

Last week it was a joy to paint a different type of beauty at Filoli. The rural views I painted include a caretakers cottage, a dirt road under oaks and an open field. I was somewhat surprised to learn that the farming heritage continues at Filoli. Apparently land is leased to a local farmer for oat hay production.

The desert has a different kind of beauty. I did a little painting while at Joshua Tree but mostly painted at the Marriott in Desert Springs Resort which was lovely. The views of distant mountains are framed by palms and saguaro cactus. An unexpected bonus … the resident pink Chilean flamingos seemed very healthy and were fun to paint.

 

When I started the sketch for this watercolor, I budgeted about a half hour break in my hike at Joshua Tree. Turns out, the scant cup of water I brought attracted hundreds of bees with minutes. So, this is a 10 minute view of the Joshua trees near Jumbo Rocks.

We missed the peak of the Joshua blooms though we did see some fading flowers and lots of the fruit that comes after the blooms fade.