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Westbrae Nursery Buddhas

Westbrae Nursery Buddha

Micron pigma ink pen, watercolor in Moleskine large watercolor notebook
(Click image, select “All Sizes” to enlarge)
(This was Monday’s post–I thought I’d clicked “Publish” but when there were no comments on it at all, I checked and discovered I had never actually put it on line….oops).

After working this morning I rode my bike into Berkeley this afternoon to do some errands. Last time I drove down Gilman I noticed that Westbrae Nursery had a bunch of Buddhas on display so after I finished my unshopping at REI (returning a clip-on umbrella that I thought would work for plein air painting but wouldn’t clip onto my easel) I rode over to the nursery.

I discovered that my new bike seat worked perfectly as a table for my teeny Winsor & Newton watercolor field kit. I stood with my bike just outside the nursery entrance to draw and paint this. One of the workers stopped by between delivery bags of manure and big plants to people’s cars. His comments: “Are you painting?” “Don’t you get tired standing?” “Wow you’re fast!”

Today was warm and sunny but by the time I started for home, the fog and wind had returned. Having not carried a jacket (a foolish mistake in the Bay Area), I had a chilly downhill ride home.

12 replies on “Westbrae Nursery Buddhas”

I love to sketch Buddhas too, feel like I get some of their stillness in the process. I’ve been looking for your new sketches since the self portrait a while back and realized I was hitting return after typing Jana and my computer brought up the earlier page. Now I see that I was missing skads of great stuff. Won’t do that again!

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This is great! I love your use of colors and the calm Budda at the center of your dynamic composition. Of course, that’s one of my favorite nurseries when I’m down in the East Bay, so I might be biased.

By the way, I’ve found the best thing for attaching an umbrella to my outdoor painting rig is an articulated arm designed for professional photographers. I have one with clamps at both ends, and I can get the umbrella to sit just about anywhere without too much fuss.

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I have such a hard time managing a scene like this, so much detail, I love seeing how you’ve pared it down and yet still beautifully capture the view, wonderful colors too!

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I have to ask the same thing the nursery employee did…”Don’t you get tired standing?” Do you do this because it works best for you, or because you have no where to sit. I’m afraid I would feel terribly uncomfortable standing…not so much because my body would get tired, but because I think it would draw extra attention. Does it?

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Lin…how to get loose? I think doing the painting first without drawing or worrying about getting the shapes just right and then putting in the lines afterwards but not trying to match them up perfectly is what helped me be loose.

Suzanne…I’m used to standing a lot, as sitting for too long makes my back hurt (an old injury). I work standing part of the day with my raisable electric computer work station too. It’s true that I was more obvious that way at the nursery–in fact, being at the entrance everyone going in or out walked right by me and looked at what I was doing. I don’t really care though–either they’ll think my drawing is good or bad, or will think I’m an artist or a silly perosn, but I don’t care because I’m having fun doing something I enjoy.

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