Fall colors are almost non-existent outside of urban areas here. The best we see when hiking is a few colorful trees or shrubs here and there. The rest is either brown or green that later turns bare. But there is a a nice aspen grove at the edge of the Stevens Creek Park, it actually turns golden in October. It’s a wonderful sight then – glowing trunks and branches against bright yellow foliage. The only thing that can make it better is a backdrop of either blue skies or water.
colored pencil on canvas, 3.5″ x 2.5″
I know that Sunol Park looks pretty impressive in fall too, but for one reason or another we keep missing its autumnal beauty every year.
Derwent offers a free Inktense water-soluble ink block sample. It’s just one block, and they don’t specify the color. This could be something like Prismacolor art stix, only water-soluble. Or maybe not. I applied anyway out of love for their excellent pencils.
One entry per person. Closing date for applications is August 31, 2011.
Sunshine, light clouds, and blue skies – everything our weather at the moment is not. I do not mind misty and rainy one single bit, but somehow it is not what I want to draw.
pastel pencil, 5″ x 7″
There is a wonderful exhibition in the Main Gallery of the Pacific Art League this month – Hau Pei-Jen: Fifty Year Retrospective. Mr. Hau is an instructor at PAL and a well-known innovator in the “splash ink and color” tradition in Chinese painting. His art combines traditional Chinese painting and modern Western techniques, it’s almost abstract sometimes and very captivating.
Hau Pei-Jen Rhythm of the Mountain ink and watercolor on paper, 18″ x 21″
Paul Pei-Jen Hau is the founder of the American Society for the Advancement of Chinese Arts that is having a diverse group show in the Norton Gallery upstairs.
ink, charcoal, and colored pencil, 6″ x 4″
We had an artist trading card exchange at today’s CAG meeting. Here is my contribution:
colored pencil on illustration board, 2.5″ x 3.5″
That’s my first experience with the illustration board, I am not sure if I liked it. The thing has no tooth at all, very weird. Not sure who got my card, the exchange took place at the very end of the meeting and was a little hurried.
And this is what I got from a fellow CAG member, Sharon LaBouff:
I am very pleased to have Sharon’s little piece.
As it turned out, you can fit quite a lot into 3.5″ x 2.5″, more than I hoped to. If I planned a little more carefully, there would even be more space for the water at the bottom. Instead, I ran with the clouds first and fitted the rest into what little space remained. Morale: even for a tiny piece, start with thumbnails. I would love to do something with cloud reflections.
colored pencil on canvas, 3.5″ x 2.5″
About me: Yelena Shabrova, an artist and web designer who lives and works in Silicon Valley, Ca. See more of my art at 
