Tag Archives: La Jolla

A New Gig for the New Year

Posted 1/4/2022 by Kerry McFall

CoverPage

Cover art for the Casa de Manana newsletter by yours truly

I volunteered to do some art for the cover of our bi-monthly resident’s newsletter here at Casa de Manana, and that’s the result.  The back cover explains where residents can find the models posing for the “portraits”:

CASA Parrot Tiles

This fella resides just outside the southeast door from the patio to the upper lounge, a gorgeous example of the original Casa tile art from the 1920’s.

Hummingbird

We see these jet-propelled flyers as they zip from blossom to blossom, and occasionally engage in aerial battles with any other bird silly enough to fly past our balconies.  When a sunbeam strikes their feathers, irridescent colors take our breath away!

Gull Discouraging Device

Seagulls decorate the patio and rooftops with their own brand of graffiti… The latest discouraging devices seem to be working: wires strung across the patio at just the width of their wingspread!  Which of course Mic (a particularly loud and chatty gull that one resident named Mic) finds immensely annoying.

Pelican

These majesties soar above us and float in the cove below us, masters of aerial serenity and Olympic diving and fishing skills.

Pompeii

This pet cockatoo can be seen making the rounds of residential shoulders, pecking at earrings and hearing aids, and occasionally flying high in spite of the best efforts of the Wing Clippers!

Rooster

Occasionally seen strutting around on a walking device in the Casa Dining Facility. Move over, Foghorn Leghorn! (This is actually a metal sculpture, about 18” tall, that rides on the lady’s walker)

The folks here seem to enjoy my art, and I really had fun putting it all together.  For the next edition, I’m thinking about all the exotic flowers around here… or maybe the types of waves and tides and cliffs… or all the fish-related experiences… or, oh, dear, here go the fireworks in my head, too many ideas, too little time!

Prickly Cliffs and Jewelled Surf

La Jolla Cliff Cacti, mixed media by Kerry McFall

The elegant homes on the cliffs at La Jolla near Bird Rock are teetering – literally – on the sandy edge of foaming, crashing waves.  To say that anyone with an ounce of common sense would never have built any kind of structure there is an understatement.  But I love the tiny “pocket parks” that have somehow managed to survive, wedged in between the mansions every few blocks, each one unique.  This painting shows the park that is at the top of a steep stairway down to the surf, a small wreath of jade-colored cacti with golden blooms, and waves of purple statice flowers, crowning the crumbling cliff.  Plenty of traffic even during pandemic, but on the edge of the sea the salt air is fresh and clean.  There is exactly one bench, but surfers apparently never sit on anything but a floating surfboard, which leaves that bench available for itinerant artists like me!

Surfers tote their boards up and down the steps with ease and grace, now skimming the foam, now plunging in and out of the waves.  As I watch, the color of the water transitions from chalcedony to turquoise to diamond, over and over, never the same…  Not coincidentally, those jewel colors are street names nearby!

Technique

I painted from my photo.  9 x 12″ Canson Mix Media sketchbook.  Watercolor first, nothing fancy, just trying to capture those jewel colors.  Then a sponge  (just a slice of an old kitchen sponge) on damp paint for some textures, followed by black ballpoint pen, more watercolor, a few white ink highlights.  Finally picked out the edges of the cliff and the “frame” with a blue 05 felt tip pen, and rubbed the edge of a colored pencil over that tuscan red plant on the right edge – no clue what the name of that plant is, but I’m pretty sure it’s a succulent…  Dr. Seuss would have loved it!