Fullerton Arboretum

Last Wednesday Eula, Yukon and I went to the Fullerton Arboretum for some sketching and painting. My mom was here and went with us with her sudoku book. It was a nice warm day with a cool breeze. We brought sack lunches and had a marvelous time. It's a great place with so many wonderful things to sketch. Architecture, plants, animals, ponds and lots of shade.

There are garden patches with wonderful veggies and flowers. I sketched the rhubarb for my mom, one of her favorites. The Cactus and Century plants were in bloom and were spectacular. They have quite the variety of cacti. We are going back on Weds. the 23rd if you're in the area. See you around 10 a.m. at the Victorian House. Just look for sketchbooks and join the fun!

Robert Bateman Sketchbook

Pen and Watercolor

Road Trip to Carmel

Road Trip! My kids and I took a road trip up to Carmel for a few days. Here, we are enjoying a great brunch at Casanova's. Of course this included Champagne as well as great food. It was a wonderful fun trip with lots of great food, wine, card playing and time spent together.

We also stayed one night right on the beach in Cambria. Here I am with the Harbor Seals. I would like to go back and stay in Cambria. The town and surrounding area is beautiful. More great food and wine, and massages before we started for home.

Wine tasting on Carmel Valley Road, Carmel. This lovely place has a large garden and patio area. Here is where we found the red table wine we drank at La Bicyclette restaurant in Carmel. It was a very nice close to the afternoon of wine tasting, followed by a great dinner at Wickett's.

Of course, we visited Hearst Castle on the way up. It was a nice cool day to tour the castle and grounds. We also hiked around Point Lobos and went to the Monterey Aquarium.

We were so busy having fun I only managed one sketch. I did this over two days at the Edgemere Cottages in Carmel.

We took my Prius and drove 930 miles on less than 25 gal. of gas. As J said on the way home, "The Prius is the perfect car!" Great trip and memories. Thanks guys. I love you!

San Felipe, B.C.

This last weekend I went down to San Felipe, Mexico in Baja California with my friend, Levana to help her with her new house. The first night we had dinner at an outside restaurant in town. We bought some souveniers from the locals. The stylized fish is a painted sand dollar and the little turtle and snail have boogalee heads. The blue fish is from the tile in her bathroom. I would have liked to get a postage stamp from town but too late. Oh well, next time.
This sketch is of the fireplace in their living room that her husband, Kelly designed. The weather was warm with a lovely ocean breeze so I went out on the patio and sketched some of the plants around the house. They have a very nice desert landscape.
The next day we walked down to the beach. As we walked along the shore I collected, sea shells, drift wood, feathers and even some crab legs. San Felipe is known for their seafood. Levana had never seen a sand dollar and I found a group of them left on the sand by the tide. We took the collection back to her house and I layed out a "sea life" still life. A very fun weekend.

Robert Bateman Sketchbook
Pen and Watercolor

Recent Sketches

When I was up visiting my sisters in Washington I did some sketches . I started with the grid and added the made up green vines. The dragon fly, sunflower plaque and bird or in this case the "squirrel" feeder were from her yard. I added the pussy willows to bring the whole design together. Artistic license I guess.
Lynette has some great Christmas cacti which were still blooming in April. It was a fun sketch with all the sections and blossoms. I started on the left side and soon realized I didn't have room for the largest bloom so I decided to add a box and move the bloom into view.
While I was drawing my nephew, Case got out his sketchbook and we worked on some contour drawings to help his skills. It was a pencil drawing so after I got back home I added the grid and then the flowers and beads to fill up the page.
My friend, Nancy and I sat one afternoon to play in our sketchbooks. Nancy sketched some of the plants out of my kitchen windows. I set up a still life with a couple of silk tulips and a ceramic tea pot. It was dark by the time we were finished. Time can pass so quickly when you are having fun with a friend.

Robert Bateman 5" x 7" Sketchbook
Ink and Watercolor

Columbia River Take Two

These are rest of my sketches from the Columbia River cruise with my mom. Man made Stonehenge in Oregon. In Astoria there are these brillant green pilings in the water. They are covered with algae or moss and are beautiful in the sunlight.
Always ask if they have a stamp. I like the addition they make to my pages. This page is bits and pieces at the Museum of the Columbia River Gorge. The wooden carved sturgeon was about 10 ft. long. Yikes!
At the Maryhill Museum there were two rooms of chess sets. They were very stunning, eveything from art deco, golds and silvers to ivory and wooden carved sets.
The last day of touring was at Fort Clatsop and the Maritime Museum in Astoria. I tied all my sketches together with strands of coloful glass trading beads. It was a fun trip. I will definately plan a cruise with Cruise West in Alaska.

Robert Bateman Sketchbook 6"x 10"
Pen and Watercolor

Columbia River Cruise

My mom and I took a riverboat cruise on the Columbia River with Cruise West. We had a great time and met some wonderful new friends. The cruise was based on the history of the area, the river, the native tribes, Lewis and Clark and the flora and fona. I had a great time finding lots to sketch on our many stops. There are four locks on the Columbia and four more on the Snake.
I really like the way this page turned out. I don't plan out a whole page when I start sketching but continue on until the page is full. The sketch of the fish was copied out of Clark's journal.

The chains and ropes were for the gangplank and were tied up outside our cabin. I liked the design that they formed and had to sketch them. We got to see many petroglyphs, which are carved and pictographs, which are painted. The figures and animals have so much character.

After the gangplank was used the ropes and chains were tied differently and so I sketched them again.

More petroglyphs and pictographs. We took a jet boat ride on the Snake River and at one of the stops there was a cold or root cellar. As I was sketching a very cold wind was blowing and I was shaking which added the roughness to the stone wall.

Robert Bateman Sketchbook 6" x 9"

Pen and Watercolor

Sherman Gardens

Spent a lovely day with Toni yesterday. We visited a very cute boutique in Newport Beach and then had a nice lunch at Sherman Gardens in Corona Del Mar. After lunch we took a short stroll around the gardens and I managed to do one quick sketch before we had to leave. Last week I had a bit of a tussle with a valence as we were taking it down and broke my index finger. It's not a bad break but it does make things a little slower and challenging. This was my first attempt at sketching with two fingers hooked together. As Tim would say, "Carry on!"

Robert Bateman Sketchbook
Pen and Watercolor

Fun from Costa Rica

Everyday Jan Yatsko had a
creativity exercise to get our juices flowing. This one was using a Spanish word that started with a drawn letter. I picked a "U"! I had already drawn the crocodile at the River Tarcoles and decided to go with "ultravioleta" and paint him purple. Without that "U" I never would have gotten a "cocodilla ultravioleta".

Diane and I went up to the cloud forest in San Gerardo de Dota and the Savegre River. While hiking we poured water on the rich soil of the trails and I painted the background of this page. Then I added bits of plants from the trails and around the hotel.

San Gerardo de Dota is very popular with the bird watchers. Large groups come to see the numerous

song birds, woodpeckers, hummingbirds and of course the Quetzal. It really is a spectacular bird but who could pass up sketching those "birders", they were almost as entertaining. Can you say, "zip off pants"?

Jan had a bandana on her list of what to bring. We had a great many laughs over the bandana and it's possible uses. I actually came to rely on that bandana in my pocket and have bought three more since returning home. I was enchanted by the silhouettes of the trees covered with moss, vines and bromeliads. These bromeliads are the epiphyte variety that attach themselves to the trees. They don't cause any harm to the host trees. I loved the different varieties.

Robert Bateman Sketchbook Pen and Watercolor.