These are some thumbnail images I created with watercolor and ink to help sort out my thinking for the start of a new series of paintings. I’m playing around with possible composition ideas here. It’s a Spring theme, with lots of blossoming fruit trees and California poppies, reminiscent of Spring in the past where I live, but with other unexpected elements thrown in.

This series, which doesn’t have a name yet, will be a merging of my recollections of two beautiful states and is a result of months of contemplation of the question, “where should I be living?” I love the Santa Clara Valley, but there are some definite advantages to moving to southwestern Michigan. If my hubby and I moved, we could potentially live where both of our moms would be within a few hours’ drive and our cost of living would be lower.

I’ve lived in California over 20 years now and have fallen in love with California and the Santa Clara Valley and California native plants. I’ve been painting a lot of California poppies and other native flowers in the last few years. I’ve been thinking a lot recently while being locked down due to COVID about what I’ve learned about our beautiful valley. It used to have acres and acres of plum orchards and was known as the Valley of Hearts Delight.

Michigan is also beautiful. California has the Pacific ocean, Michigan has the great lakes. Both states have miles and miles of nature trails and numerous state and national parks. If I were to choose based solely on beauty, it would be a hard decision to make. This series will take some of the beautiful features I love from both states and merge them together in a contemplation of the wonderful aspects of the two states. You can expect to see California poppies and bright cheerful lupines; plum trees in honor of Santa Clara Valley; delightful barns with round roofs, also known as gothic arch barns, that were scattered across mid-Michigan back when I was a kid (though most have fallen down since); palm trees; dustings of snow on the spring flowers, a very Michigan thing; and more.

These paintings are intended to be a beautiful reflection of so many things that I love about both places and some of the history of those places, and the difficulty in choosing between them. As usual, they’ll come out of my head and be painted mainly with palette knives and credit cards, BBQ skewers, and all sorts of other odd tools, along with a few paint brushes and many, many layers of color and texture.

I’ll probably be working on this series for much of 2022, but I hope to have a variety of paintings ready to introduce during Silicon Valley Open Studios (SVOS) in May. More information about the open studios events will be coming soon.

Please note that the plum blossoms are pink in my thumbnail images, but usually they’re white on the trees. I used pink because it’s much easier to paint using pink rather than white with watercolor paints. I wasn’t trying to create true to life mini masterpieces. 🙂