santa monica view
Tag: urbansketchersla
overcast
Behind me, a flock of Elegant Terns kept rising, wheeling and calling before settling down again. A Great Blue Heron swallowed an enormous fish after slapping it about for a while. We each did our thing, and I came home sated and peaceful. I never regret visiting this place.
la parrilla (“the grill”)
This restaurant facade is actually a garish combo of red, orange and yellow, but I thought I’d save you from getting a headache, and just serve it up in gritty city shades of grey. Every time I have to go into the deeps of Los Angeles I come home so very grateful that I don’t live there.
I never promised you a rose garden
The Exposition Park Rose Garden is a historic 7-acre site containing more than 20,000 rose bushes and more than 200 varieties. My favourite parts of it are the corners, where no roses are growing. This is the south-west corner, tucked between the Natural History Museum and the space shuttle’s external fuel tank.
at starbucks
I was attracted to the colourful vessels on the shelves, and found myself a seat facing them, at the end of a long table. It’s only now that I’ve scanned and cropped the image that I see how skewiff (one of my Mum’s favourite words) those shelves are! It’s quite comical, really. That upper shelf is ready to take off into orbit!
in the garden
In Liz Steel’s Sketchbook Design class, she shows how, even if you don’t particularly like your first sketch, you can rescue the spread by adding another one, and/or other design elements. I’m not going to win any awards with this spread, but it’s somewhat improved from where it was an hour earlier.
coyote
I sketched this coyote a few weeks ago from a different angle. There are eight mosaic sculptures in Malibu’s Legacy Park by the artist Robin Indar. Maybe I’ll eventually get around to sketching them all.
mott adobe ruins
In 1910, Johnny Mott, a famous LA attorney, built an adobe home on the banks of Malibu Creek, in what was then Crag’s Country Club. It was reported in the Los Angeles Times that Mott’s longtime friend, President Herbert Hoover, was a frequent guest.
When 20th Century Fox bought the property in 1946, the adobe was retained as a movie set. You can see it in “Viva Zapata!” (1952), starring Marlon Brando, but by 1970 it had fallen into ruins.
The Mott Adobe ruins are now part of Malibu Creek State Park, and only the dramatic stone fireplace is left standing.
the bees moved in
We have a low retaining wall that was built long ago with an old hollow metal drugstore sign, supported in front by a pile of broken concrete. Yesterday morning I realised that bees have taken up residence inside the sign. I was working around that wall the day before, weeding and watering, and didn’t notice any activity. Was I just oblivious? Or did they move in overnight? Either way, they are welcome.
descanso gardens
The stone-fruit trees are flowering at Descanso Gardens, so I went with Urban Sketchers LA, on a chilly morn, to enjoy (and sketch) the display.
While there, I wandered into the California Native garden (designed in the 1950s by legendary nurseryman and native plant advocate Theodore Payne) and saw a ground cover sage that I think would do really well at our place. I believe it’s Salvia Bee’s Bliss — gotta get me some!
hashiworks 