More sketching near home

We’ve had so much rain in Northern California this winter and spring (and it’s still raining, which is so unusual for us) that it is super-green everywhere, and the lakes and waterfalls are pretty spectacular.
This waterfall was at the end of a trail at Big Basin State Park. I mostly painted around the gushing water, leaving it the white of the paper, but I added little bits of white gouache at the very end. You can see them pretty clearly in the photograph I took while the piece was still wet.

This classic view of Mission San Juan Bautista is one I’ve sketched a few times before, and I really love it. There’s something about how the light hits those whitewashed adobe walls, the bells and the always-blue sky that gets me every time.

A slightly dilapidated sign in deserted parking lot? Enough to make me stop for a sketch. Neil’s Supermarket in the town of San Juan Bautista. Plus, an old abandoned pay phone.

Two sketches from another regular sketching spot in downtown Los Gatos at the intersection of Santa Cruz and Main streets.

In this last loose sketch, I created much of the layered effect by painting in negative shapes.