Lotusland

On Saturday I joined a tour through Laguna Nursery with Ruben Flores to Lotusland in Montecito by Santa Barbara.  Lotusland is a spectacular private botanical garden that is open to the public by reservations.  The story of the gardens and Ganna Walska is quite interesting and the grounds are fantastic.  We had a great guide and the weather could not have been more perfect.  The metal figure on this page was not at the gardens but at Laguna Nursery.  I sketched it after my mimosa and before getting on the bus.  It was a long day but well worth it and it felt good to get out there and do a little sketching again.

The actual tour moved too fast to sketch as we tried to cover the 18 acres but after lunch we had some time so I managed to get a few things down. This page is a compilation of some things I found interesting.  The bird is from the Japanese garden, some plants from the bromeliad area and the interesting shaped flat stones were  almost planted themselves as they stood upright is their own garden.  Fabulous!

Robert Bateman Sketchbook
5" x 7"
Pen and Watercolor

Monday Art Day with Sarah

On Monday Sarah came over for art day. We took a piece of watercolor paper and put two different widths of white artist tape on the paper to make windows.  In these windows Sarah experimented with watercolors, playing with wet in wet, dry brush and salt techniques. When it was dry she used a black gel pen to play with design.  Awesome job Sarah!

9" x 12" Watercolor Paper
Watercolors and Ink

Art Day with Jessica

Jessica finished this painting today in our fun art day class.  A few weeks ago I had her draw a picture from her imagination and she came up with the real world meeting her fantasy land. Nice work Jessica!

9" x 12"
Pen and Watercolor

First Beets!

First Golden Beets of the season!  Roasted beets for dinner,Yum!  I haven't been doing much sketching lately so I'm thinking I may have to assign myself the task of sketching before I eat the harvest.

5" x 7" Robert Bateman Sketchbook
Pen and Watercolor

This little black and white page was started when Jessica and Sarah were drawing a fantasy picture to watercolor.  I started with the butterflies and decided to continue in black and white except for the balloons.

5" x 7" Robert Bateman Sketchbook