near home notesIt was a  morning after a very dramatic thunder storm in the night and the dark clouds were still lingering but trying to clear away. I’m driving down the road after visiting my in-laws on Mission Gorge Rd in Santee, CA. (1997) I wish I had a camera in hand, but the best I could do was to grab a pencil and a piece of scrap paper while at the wheel driving. I took a few skimpy notes just to keep the memory in my mind until I could get home to put it in paint, that gorgeous view ahead of me on the road. So awesome with sunlight trying to spotlight the wet colors on nature with dark clouds framing the basic land.

I rushed to get to my studio and to paint what I had just seen, using the little notes I quickly wrote while driving.  Texting hadn’t been invented yet, but even if it were my handwriting was sufficient for the moment. I know, it’s hard to read what I wrote on this little piece of paper!near home

I waited till another year to hope to see that scene again, but never had the opportunity to be out on a February morning after a violent storm.  And then a few years later, the road had be changed and traffic directed in a different direction and that very view had all been changed, but the hills in the background remained the same.

I never knew I would someday be living on that very road with the hills in the distant background!  As to what happened to the china berry trees and some of the simple landscape, it all got moved for some new housing development to be built.  And now I live on Mission Gorge Rd. where my memory remains with a beautiful view of that very morning I sketched just some words to get this little 4″ x 8″ watercolor. Yes, as an artist I can sketch with fast hand writing!   The notes got thrown into the trash, all whadded up, and then I decided I better keep it just for the sake of having a reference on how some of my paintings come about even if it is a “quickie.”