You never know what you'll find...

Have been having fun with the Burlingame Plein Aire Painters. We get out to some picturesque local spot, each does his/her own thing. Then we share. Fun way to get inspired enough to paint in the home territory, instead of waiting for vacations years away. Today we were at Coyote Point Marina. I didn't find yet another boat scene to paint that worked for me, and I've already painted the bridge in the same light from that vantage. What I found instead was a shape I could relate to:

Dodging the Rowers in Foster City

We had a good time of a nice Fall morning paddling in the Foster City canals. Only hitch was that the entire Bay Area crew regatta was scheduled for the same time! I don't particularly like being out on the water with the rowers, though I like watching them. On the waterways, they hog the space and don't see you nor give much of a damn that you're nearby. A couple of them nearly swamped me coming too close on one stretch, and I was hugging the shoreline to stay out of their way. Ah well. We had a good meetup anyway.

K is for Kitten

Painting the town red...

Joined a new meetup group, Burlingame Painters, to see if I could get moving on painting here at home. Don't want to have to wait years for vacations to get some painting out of my head. We met this morning in the park behind Burlingame Station.

Well, it worked!

My customary illustration technique here: line and wash. Used black ink, colored ink, Inktense watercolor pencil, and regular acquarelle combined.

The lighting was very contrasty, with very dark shadowed areas and very light highlights, so this is farily accurate as a rendering.

GREAT Pumpkin Paddle Oct. 18, 2013

If only you could see this the way the normal eye sees it! The wide angle lens makes the moonrise seem smaller. In fact, the low angle in the atmosphere does just the opposite: It makes it appear HUGE! Ah well, we saw it and it was fabulous. This is the "Hunter's Moon", first full moon in Fall after the famous "Harvest Moon". There was actually a minor lunar occlusion visible on the East Coast, but not on the West Coast. We paddled into the sunset, then paddled into the moonrise. Spectacular - literally!

Labor Day on the Lagoons

Hate to see the unofficial end of summer.

We had a good meetup: Jeff C (haven't seen him in over a year!), Teresa and Sue. Cloudy, but warm and light wind. My camera wasn't charged, so only  shots are Teresa's:

Papa's Kayak!

Midsummer Hotel Irvington views

Time to post some nostalgic mid-summer pix from the old Irvington Hotel (or the "New Irvington Hotel" as the brochures used to say!) This is family stuff, but tops for Catskill Mountain or Borscht Belt fans. "Dirty Dancing" indeed!

cing" indeed!

Summer Vacation!

Pix from Aveiro Portugal

This was a stunning scene combining multiple styles of architecture with the canal and the "moliceiro" boats. Looks a lot like Venice, so they call this little town the "Venice of Portugal". Another river town with tidal marshes and beach towns at the end of it. This town started by drying salt from seawater, for which they still are famous. Three media here: various color pens first, then watercolor pencil washed and dry (traditional watercolor pencil and Inktense ink pencils), then some transparent watercolor.

We took the bus through the built up delta towns to their beach town at the end, Costa Nova. CN is famous for all these brightly painted, fanciful or plain striped and colored houses. This is done completely and only in colored inks.

Pix from Tavira Portugal

From a hilltop in little Tavira, a river fishing town near a large beach island and national park tidal area, I spied this view of a steeple top, some typical roofs (upturned edges in Asian style), with a view of the town in the background. Technique is mixed media. Primarily pen and wash (2-3 pen colors), but with transparent watercolor as well as watercolor pencil washed.

I couldn't pass up a B&W sketch of this lovely little church with so many typical Portuguese elements. Intended to paint it in, but liked the chiaroscuro better. Just pen and ink, plain and simple.

Pix from Sevilla

After viewing many beautiful street scenes and then the Alcazar Real in Sevilla, I was moved to paint only this little vignette. In the thick castle walls, dark on the inside, there was this sharp little window (no glass, open to the wind) with a small plant growing in it. This is done with watercolor pencil, in some places dry and others washed.

Pix from Granada

The first picture was done from the bottom of the hill by the Darra River in Granada. There is an elaborate quai system with some old stone bridges and houses that creep up the hillsides. Then a steep forested stretch, before you come upon the castle walls of the famous Alhambra. This was part of that scene. This one is my standard pen and wash technique, ink and transparent watercolor.

The second one is from above and across the river at the San Nicholas view point, the most commonly painted or photographed view of the Alhambra Palace. I made sure to include a representation of the snow capped Sierra Nevada mountains in the background, though this isn't an exact representation, rather a composite of two viewpoints. The technique was intended to use more wet-in-wet technique and less defined edges, with just a bit of pen for detail. This is actually almost totally a transparent watercolor, with only a few lines added in pen.

Pix from Madrid

"El Pintor", "the painter", is me! I was starting to get in the swing and saw this typical Art Nouveau street scene on Gran Via, where our hotel was situated. This was a view through the street level lounge large picture windows. While I was painting, people on the street side were watching and commenting as they went by the window. One artist came into the hotel to speak with me and to share information. The next day in the small eateries around the corner one of the waiters started to pantomime something to me. He kept squinting at the wall, sizing it up with his hands, then took up a pastry brush and started to slap at the wall. Then he pointed to me and said, "El Pintor!" Apparently more people were observing me than I'd realized.... This is a simple pen and wash technique with ink and transparent watercolor.

Never Going to Work - Merde!

After I don't know how many hours of fiddling with the second paddle project, I've come to terms with the fact that it's never going to work. Just spent 2 hours ripping away excess wood with a new belt sander. Despite all the effort, it's too heavy, awkward looking, just not even, and would take many hours more of hard labor to "finish". A wise old woodworker I know looked at it many months ago and told me so. He said the lumberyard sold me the wrong wood (some kind of heavy fir instead of aged sitka spruce) that would always be very tough to work with. So since I can't make it work with either hand or power tools and it's still looking like crap, I think he was right. I'm giving up on this one. Not even itnerested in finishing it crudely as decor, as it would still take many hours of frustrating slavery. A waste.... Might be a long time before I try again, but next time only primo western red cedar for me again! Meantime, Big Al, my original DIY Aleut paddle, still works and looks like a prize. Beginner's luck?

No pix, better that way!

Took a kayak lesson today to learn edging and bracing and strokes. Took a swimming lesson too! One water bottle added to the quickmud bottom of Redwood City Harbor, but all else is still with me, other than my dignity. Humbling....but entertaining. At least I did learn a few things and had more hours in a full size sea kayak. But I still have no idea which one to purchase eventually, because it's abundantly clear to me what I have yet to learn. Ah well....

Toolin' Around Foster City

A drop dead gorgeous day on the lagoons! Warm to hot, just enough light breeze to keep cool, but not wind. MAG and I paddled about and met Stanley in his canoe. I was trying out my DIY panning motor on the Gopro. For a change, it didn't work well. Not sure that's about, but we'll see. And, yes, i do need to aim it higher! Meantime, the water was absolutely terrific.

Testing Out DIY Fast Panning Motor for Gopro

Inspired by some of the fabulous kayaking videos from Gnarlydognews.blogspot.com , I decided to try to rig up a fast 360 degree panning motor for my Gopro. He has some great shots where the camera pans in under a minute a full circle, so you start looking forward toward the bow, turn to see him paddling, then turn back to the bow. Unfortunately, all the DIY instructions I could find for cheap panning devices were for timelapse photos, that is, a full circle in an hour! Not for what I intended at all. After much searching I stumbled upon small music box movements that wind up (no batteries or wires to contend with), then turn back. Found one inexpensively and rigged up all sorts of mounts to make it work with my rig. It's not perfect, but for $15 worth of materials and a bit of head scratching, I have something that does the trick. See below (though an unglamorous shot of my overgrown, under-cared-for back yard.)

What thunderstorm?

Time to keep doubting the weatherman! They kept predicting thunderstorms, but we had a brilliantly beautiful morning. Warm and mild wind. Bay Area Slough paddlers joined me in canoes. Wouldn't you have liked to be have been there?

So I love my grandson! One year old. Amazing.

Ides of March Princeton Harbor Paddle

Great late winter paddle in Princeton Harbor/Pillar Point area of Half Moon Bay.

Started out foggy, got very windy outside the inner harbor area. I had to high tail it back to the inner harbor when the 8-10 mph winds were kicking up the waves to the point that I was concerned about handling my little boat. Once back in the harbor, all was well, sun came out. Go figure!

Nice folks to paddle with, the Sacramento Paddle Pushers Meetup group. I've paddled with various of them several times before and always had a good time.

Not a lot of mileage to brag about here. Didn't see Moby Dick either. But it was still a beautiful place to paddle that I've missed this past year.

Enjoy the movie; get a bag of popcorn!

Finally!

After a month off the water (and most other exercise) recovering from a respiratory virus, I finally got back into the kayak yesterday. What a relief! With March 1 temperature hovering near 70 degrees F, how could I resist? Got off work early and grabbed my paddle before any sedentary instincts could take over. It's hard to describe adequately how absolutely beautiful water can be. Changeable, colorful, hypnotic, reflective. Being this close to the stuff, while gliding along, is a treat. And the rhythmic noises of the paddle combined with the sensation of floating and bobbing has that womb-return quality to it, too. How can you beat that?

Foster City lagoons January 20, 2013

Getting better at this Gopro video deal, but not perfect. Sometimes the wifi bacpac system thinks it's recording and it isn't; sometimes it won't shut off. Need to get it working consistently. Mostly it does, though. Take a look at the video of the shorter leg of the canal system in Foster City.

Movin' Along....

So I'm supposed to be healing and I'm finally feeling some strength and some pluck. Tired of being out of commission, yesterday I tested my walking around ability. I had thought that I could only walk an eighth of a mile before my leg got too tired. But a test of a brisk paced mile walk showed me that I had underestimated my current state. Also got on a friend's small bike and pedaled around the block a few times today, but that's another story. Meantime, feeling that it's time to put my hip to more tests, I decided to do a test hike (very short, but steep and slippery) at Montara lighthouse, an old favorite of mine. At the same time I could test out the new Gopro Wifi setup, which I finally got working. So I strapped the camera on my head, the control on my wrist, and took a stroll to the hidden beach. The product is below (and all worked out well, BTW.)

Vive la difference???

Hmmm. Have I finally discovered how to import, convert and upload a Gopro H.264 MP4 properly?

By trial and error I seem to have found that cutting the original Gopro HD MP4 in Avidemux and outputting as MP4 might actually work with good detail left in the process. Uploading anything to YouTube remains slow, however.

Let's see how this short clip compares. You won't really know until you blow them up to full screen size, though. First is the old one:


The new one:

Ringing Out the Old Year

Can't say it's been a fabulous mini-vacation, as I was unable to settle yet on the right next kayak. But I did get in a couple of good paddles, despite the almost constant deluge over the past 2 weeks.

One nice paddle at Lake Del Valle in Livermore, CA, gave me a good opportunity to check out 3 Wilderness Systems kayaks. Didn't settle my question, however, as that will take more time and lessons.

The last was on New Years Eve day, with a morning paddle in the cold clear weather. I had the Foster City lagoons to myself pretty much. Just me and the birds again.

This one gave me a chance to practice with my new Gopro Hero video camera, mounted via a suction cup mount onto the bow of the kayak. Let's see if I got it more "right" this time, though there were glitches in the conversion and editing, and for some odd reason the clarity and detail is missing from this version, but not from the original. Just a quick encapsulation of a 1.5 hour 6 mile paddle that is my normal practice run. It traverses more than half the Foster City canal and lagoon system, heading south, then east from the boat park, and returning. It was cold and clear on 12/31/12 and I had the canals pretty much to myself. A beautiful morning paddle!