I did these three little landscape/florals from some photos I took in a wetland park behind a community center in Sebastapol California where my wife was attending a bellydance festival. I worked on them at one time - as a set, as I am really happy with both the small format, the way that produced a more richly textured work, the fact that they are more interpretive than photo realistic but you can still tell what they are. They look really nice framed and hung together as a set on our living room wall

Sebastapol Wetlands number one - happy with the colors and the shapes. Could have done better with the tree in the background and the direction and highlighting of the grass strands.

Sebastapol Wetlands number two - Really happy with the shapes and colors and patterns here. Even though this does not look exactly like the photo, it came out just the way I wanted.

Sebastapol Wetlands number three - Really happy with the central plant and the overall confusion of the multiple plant stalks and grass around and behind it. I think the colors came in a little too blue for this one and I'm unhappy with the pods above the main plant (back-grounded by sky).

Posted by Steve Medcroft at 09:17 PM | Permalink

I adapted this from a photo I took of my son looking out into the sunset at Laguna beach around Christmastime last year. I was happy with the sky and much of the water coloring. But the water in the photo has a liquid-metal quality that I just couldn't get. I also missed on the water colors - the purples were there in the photo but much different than I ended up in my picture. I was happy with silhouette - especially since I didn't settle for black and used dark versions of every color from the photo (learning again that shadows are not blackened versions of colors but deeper and darker shades).

Posted by Steve Medcroft at 09:11 PM | Permalink

I attend this bicycle festival in Monterey every year and this view (looking up on the North hillside surrounding the Laguna-Seca raceway where the event is held) is iconic for anyone who attends the event. I was experimenting with chunky, textured, childlike imagery and it worked well on the greens of the hillside and the sky. But I learned that I prefer realistic proportion and shading rather than the flattened look I ended up with here. I like the way the people in the crowds came together but looking back, realize I should have used more color and not left the figures all black.

Posted by Steve Medcroft at 07:36 PM | Permalink