If your follow me over on Instagram, you will probably want to skip this post as it is a wrap-up of the competition I entered over at @raileurope. Rail Europe is sponsoring a contest for two creative people to take a trip via rail over Germany and Switzerland. Their #talesonrail2017 closes today and the winners are to be announced in the next two weeks.

To read the Instagram post, click here

To read the Instagram post, click here

To read the Instagram post, click here

To read the Instagram post, click here

To read the Instagram post, click here

To read the Instagram post, click here

To read the Instagram post, click here

"If you don't [keep that travel journal], you'll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life."

What could it be!?! A pill box?

No...

Painted Thoughts Blog's 1st Giveaway!!

I have wanted to do a GIVEAWAY for a long while now, but it had to be just the right item! I've looked for a long while, and finally, I think I've found a very special item for the 1st giveaway! I must say it's hard to let go of this little goody, too...

So, ready!?!

Love the lilacs on the top!

How about a mint tin?

Getting closer!

California Poppies - Detail Click to Enlarge

If you've been reading Painted Thoughts blog for any time at all, you know that I worship at the altar of details. Love, LOVE, LOVE details! It is in my nature to sit down and paint the finest of details for hours on end.

It's also crazy making.

When I don't have the level of detail I think I "need" in a photo reference or worse, when half way through the painting, I'm done. Finished. O.V.E.R. I.T. And it makes me crazy.

Such gorgeous oranges, yellows and pinks! Click to Enlarge

Then I rush through to the end and invariably regret it afterwords.

One of the things that travel sketching as well as sketching on location has taught me is there is no time for detail-worship. You go for big shapes, smaller shapes in shapes and then a few well chosen details and you're off to the next location.

Yes, at first it bothered me to leave out those scrumptious details.

Until I realized that sometimes less is more. It's kinda fun to paint an image and leave just enough out that the viewer can and does interpret the work differently from me.

So easy to get lost in all that detail! Click to Enlarge

Now, with this said, my default position is to get into the details waaaay too soon in a sketch or painting. I've had to get fairly "inventive" to outsmart my detail-loving-self.

I painted this standing up with the sketchbook turned upside down with a number 10 round with one hand tied behind my back!

....oops, wait, no, just kidding. I didn't tie my hand back.

Once the entire painting was dry, I sat down and painted in a few of the details—still using the #10 brush. I had to restrain myself from putting in every crinkle and wrinkle in those sweet, happy flowers.

And yes, it was hard not to go overboard with the details given to my desire to paint every stamen, shadow, crinkle, and hair.

Full Spread of California Poppies 11 x 8.5 inches Click to Enlarge

I am so glad I didn't. These flowers were so beautiful swaying in the breeze with their bright happy faces lifted to the sun. We saw these all over San Francisco...in gardens, by utility poles, in sidewalk crevices. It didn't matter where they were, they were beautiful.

These are not as loose as some would paint, but for me, given my proclivity for painting every single detail, this is loose! I still fed my desire for detail by including "just enough" detail to balance out the loose. I'm a happy girl!

Join me in my happy dance, won't you?!

We picked up the rental car on Friday morning at the airport. We even managed to get on and off the BART System without incident....getting the tickets to ride the BART was an entirely different matter. Let's just say it's not an intuitive process.

We figured once we had the car, we'd really start covering some ground. So what did we do? We parked the car and walked around for 5 hours!
We started off in the Japanese Tea Garden and what a treat this place is to all of your senses! There was a calmness there that made it hard to leave even though we were sharing the garden with a host of other folks.
Some much was in bloom and there were so many cool lanterns to see...it seemed there was another secret garden around every curve of the path. The koi were rather lazy with some basking in the warm sun.
In the two pages above, I chose to go with a grid pattern of small boxes on my two pages. I limited myself to 20 minutes per block. I hand-drew the blocks and then decided what to put in them. This allowed me to capture a lot of different views in a short period of time. Because of the time limit, I didn't get caught up in the details (too much).

This type of sketching is a great way to capture a day's outing when you don't have much time at each location. Do a quick sketch in either pen or pencil, snap a photo ref and add color later as time allows if you don't have time on location. Try limiting yourself to just 5 minutes and see what you get—you'll be surprised at what you can capture!

You'll note that some of the structures are cut off by the edges of the boxes. Because I chose to stick with my 20 minute time frame, I knew I wouldn't have time to erase and start over, so I left them as they were. Setting a timeframe and sticking to it (no matter what) is a great way to "train" yourself for working live on location.

From the Japanese Tea Garden we went over to Shakespeare's Garden, the Ancient Garden, Rhododendron Garden and then on to the Fragrant Garden.
We sat down on a bench for a while only to find we were annoying the squirrels as we didn't have any peanuts for them!
After all the gardens, we were a bit lost until we discovered the path to Stow Lake...up 979 steps...okay, not quite that many, but it sure felt like it! Almost immediately, we spotted an empty bench, and it didn't take us long to claim it.

We decided to do some sketching since we were too tired to keep walking, but there was a problem with this bright idea of ours...it was bright. Too bright. As in we were looking straight into the setting sun as we attempted to sketch. However, we'd decided it was just too bad because we weren't moving!
You can see from the glare in the photo this was not the best of places to be sketching, but it worked out.
As I mentioned before, the object of the trip was not to sketch but to visit as many different locations as possible. I'm thrilled that I was even able to sketch the two I did as that's two more than I did in NOLA.

After finding dinner and collapsing back at the cottage, we both discovered we had a slight sunburn for our efforts of the day!

Next up, a different kind of mission....

Ever get that feeling that you know you're making a mistake when you're creating a piece of art, but you just can't see it?
Well, that's what happened when one of my cyber friends let me know that I had misspelled macaroon on my page...it should have been macaron. And I knew it, but for the life of me, could not see it! I had a good laugh when she mentioned it.

Normally, I'd let the mistake stand and simply add a note below, but I thought I'd show you how I corrected it instead.
The first thing I do is to "white out" the area to be corrected. I either use a Sharpie Poster Paint pen or white acrylic paint. The Sharpie Pen is acrylic white ink. This helps to cover up the area quicker and it stops any bleeds I'd get if I happen to be using non-permanent materials like watercolor.
Once dry, I add a thin layer of Daniel Smith Watercolor Ground and let it dry. Then I add two more very thin coats. The reason for adding the thin layers is because this stuff is thick and it shows up on the page if you don't thin it out. In fact, you can sand this stuff it's so thick.
Once it has thoroughly dried, I repaint the n, s and the exclamation point. Done! DS Watercolor Ground is fun stuff to play with and has many applications beyond just making corrections.
Moving on to Japantown, I wanted to capture some of the cherry blossoms that were in full bloom as well as a modern, metal lotus bloom.....and I nearly ruined the page!
I decided to use non-permanent ink for the lotus bloom and then flood with water. It turned out okay, but obviously, my mind was somewhere else when I drew the shadow. So I stuck a Maido sticker to help camouflage the mistake. Maido is a pen/stationary/journal/office supply paradise for anyone addicted to pens, pencils, journals and office supplies!

The cherry tree did not turn out anything like I'd hoped and I wound up salvaging it by using a Uniball Signo White Gel pen to create more of a blossom look to it.

After completing the page, I realized I had started off the page with the word Chinatown rather than Japantown....erk! So our comes the DS Watercolor Ground again to  fix that mistake—are you seeing a theme to this post yet?!
This was the view at dinner and it was the end of our third day on foot—we were exhausted and sore. We had seen this quote in the Jack Keroauc Alley we had visited in Chinatown. It seemed appropriate for the page and the memory.

This was also as close as we came to actually seeing a sunset. We were either no where near the water at the end of the day or it was foggy/cloudy. Still, it was a beautiful evening!

Next up, we get some wheels so we can really start covering some ground...

Our third day had us exploring the Painted Ladies near Alamo Square. These Victoria beauties simply sparkled in the bright sunshine! It was a brilliant day to be out walking and exploring. So much so that before the day was over, we'd walk over 16,000 steps!! (I worked it out in miles, but I didn't right it down and I don't remember now. I do remember it was a bunch! Maybe KJ will remember?)

No matter where you are in San Francisco, you cannot help but notice all the things green, growing and blooming!
This is one of two cats I managed to photograph during our entire stay. I have 100's of dog photos and two cats—hopefully, all the kitties were just inside, safe and sound, snoozing away.
Something I've recently discovered about myself is that whereas I can paint detailed architectural structures, I don't much like to....I get bored long before I get done! In the future, I will probably pick a doorway, a pretty window, etc. rather than the whole darn thing! This is quite simplified but you probably wouldn't guess it without seeing the photo reference.
You could spend a lifetime painting just flowers and gardens or just houses or just doors or just....you get the idea!

And then, wouldn't you know it, but we stumbled into the cutest little restaurant (11 blocks away from the Painted Ladies, so yes, I do mean stumbled!)....

French made macaroons, no less! These are caramel and they were soooooo good that we had to go back down the block to their bakery to buy a box of these little gems. Now, you know if we had to go back down the block, they were good!
I've even forgotten what kind of coffee we had, but I remember it as being very tasty whatever it was! I will also mention that I had a couple of macaroons from a different bakery—and I was not impressed. In fact, I'm glad I had these first or I probably wouldn't have been tempted to try any others.
 Kay, I think it was you who asked if we found any pralines and/or beignets...at any rate, someone asked, and no, we didn't find any, but we did find these delicious little bites of joy! Soooooo yummy! And trust me when I tell you those will not be my last macaroon.

Lunch revived us so off we went in search of Japantown.....

After cruising around Chinatown on foot, we decided to catch a cable car and head over to the docks to look around. We landed at Fisherman's Wharf.

Watercolor and pen

Is it touristy? Yes!

Is it fun? Yes! In a touristy kind of way.

Dancin' Crab, Clock Tower at the Ferry Building and the Souvenir of Choice Watercolor and Ink

And once you've been, you've been. There's no real reason to go back unless you're 12 years old and want to play in the arcade.

The dancing crab is a sculpture out in the very front of the wharf that's about 12 feet tall, pedestal and all. Behind the crab is the clock tower at the Ferry Building. I believe the ferry goes to Sausalito, but we didn't go so I could be wrong.

The little plush toy seem to be the souvenir of choice and he was awfully cute! If I'd had more room in my luggage.....anyway, I saw several being toted around under the arms of small children.

There was a Ghirardelli's Chocolate place in there....and a sourdough bread restaurant!

Boudin Sourdough Restaurant Yum! Watercolor and Ink

There may be better sourdough bread places in San Francisco, but I gotta tell you, Boudin's was good! We were cold and tired. The rustic tomato soup with cheese and croutons in a bread bowl couldn't have tasted any better. I also purchased a "lunchbox" loaf so we could have sourdough bread toasted for breakfast!

We wandered over to see if there were any sea lions (this link is a live cam to look at the sea lions! You can choose the sea lions, Alcatraz or the Golden Gate Bridge) out of the water....judging by the crowd and the laughter, we knew we were in luck....

Pier 39 Sea Lions Watercolor and Ink

...and this may be a good enough reason to go back—to sketch and paint these curmudgeonly like creatures! Grumpy, rude, cantankerous they may be, they're still quite entertaining to watch! They were also much harder to draw than I expected them to be!

The flag does not actually fly in this area....artistic license in play.

Finished up our day by eating a pizza in a small restaurant not far from our cottage. Had my first glass of Prosecco wine. Not bad, it took the edge off, but I still like riesling better. We went around to the market and purchased a bunch of daffodils for the cottage, some chocolate for KJ and coffees for both of us before heading up the hill for the evening.

And last but not least, a very short video starring none other than the grumpy, barkin' boys from the sketch above.

First Lesson of the Day 

Do NOT stop in front of handy street maps that are placed in front of commuter stations in CA...unless you want every homeless guy in the surrounding vicinity to offer you "helpful" directions to your next destination.

This very situation brought about our hasty retreat up Stockton Street towards Chinatown. Turns out Chinatown was a bit further than we thought, but we were enjoying fabulous weather and just being out into the city. It also brought me to a shop that had shoes....comfortable, "looking" shoes.

Since the shoes I had on that morning were not all that comfortable, I decided to go in.

And walked out with a brand new pair of Keens (the blue you see is the color of my socks, not the shoes).

My new shoes (and blue socks)!

On our way again, it wasn't too much later and we knew we had arrived at the gates of Chinatown....

Chinatown

Chinatown Gate

I have wanted to visit Chinatown for a lifetime or so it seems. This place does not disappoint.

Beautiful, fresh produce was just about everywhere. We saw several types of produce we could not identify.

Colors, movement, design, architecture, flowers, music, cars, horns blaring, barking dogs, laughter, folks speaking in foreign (to me) languages, merchandise tumbling out of stores onto the sidewalks, produce stacked precariously, food  smells, people taking photos, people arguing, streetcars whizzing by, people laughing, panhandlers begging, bicycles flying by...can you say sensory overload?!

This is the EastWest Bank...it looked like a little dollhouse stuck between to big hulking square brick buildings with no personality or design to them!

Busy, busy, busy!

For all the commotion, it still seemed more like organized chaos with a certain flow to it.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

If time had permitted, I would have loved to have found a quiet piece of wall to prop against and gotten out my sketchbook. Since it was the first day and we were fresh from a good night's sleep, we didn't pause for sketching.

Creating A Sketch For Chinatown

Arriving back home in Florida (and before I glanced through my photos), I reflected on the things that had impressed me most about our foray into Chinatown and decided to create a page of impressions because one sketch just couldn't do it justice.

Of course,  I fell into the details of Chinatown like a person on a carb-restricted diet falls into a plate of pasta...and devours it! This page was done in the studio where I could savor each small detail as much and as long as I wanted. It also caused me to fall away from sketching for a few days, but more on that later.

Chinatown Impressions Watercolor and Ink 10 x 8 inches

All of the items on the page represent a memory or desire met. The swinging red lanterns, the street lamps, firecrackers, and architecture all contributed to the visual stimulation of Chinatown.

Loved all the textures in this guy. I would have loved to have seen him roaring down the street in a parade with smoke issuing forth!

Being that 2012 is the year of the Dragon and the fact that I happen to be born under the Dragon sign, it seemed appropriate to include a fierce looking specimen on the page.

Isn't he cute?!

This adorable little creature came home with me as a souvenir of my Chinatown experience. I am hopeful he will bring me wisdom. So far, he's just brought cuteness to the desk lamp from which he hangs in the office.

I painted him from memory rather than make the trek to the office from my studio (25 steps maybe) and it quite amused me to see that I had painted the details wrong! So much for my memory of something I see everyday!

Last but not least, I just had to paint some of those red lanterns and a street lamp!

Red "bobbles" dancing in the wind with flags snapping—just a gorgeous day!

Such fun to paint!

As to sketching details....the Chinatown page was the first time I've indulged my love of details without restraint. I enjoyed. Immensely. Until it came time to create the next page....and I didn't want to. I was still "full" from the feast. It took several days before I felt ready to pick up the pencil, pen or brush and start another page. I'm finding that for me, moderation is key to continually sketching.

Next....Fisherman's Wharf! This post was meant to cover Fisherman's Wharf as well, but I figure this one probably long enough as it is without another romp.