Our Free Fresco Demo Adventure!!

Today was such a beautiful day, Marta and I had to decide which to do, go with the Plein Aire group to the desert or go to the free fresco demo we had signed up for. It was at an art store in San Clemente, right next to the beach. We voted for the demo and left this morning at around 9 so we made the 11 oclock class with time to spare. The instructor was Russian and was very accomplished in his trade, was on the board of decorative arts and judged products and shows on faux marbles etc. He worked in NY and now has a studio in LA. His work has been on TV with Diane Sawyer etc. I know this free demo was to drum up students for the school but I couldn't help wanting to get all my questions answered here, for free! He struggled a bit with his english so much of the time he searched for the appropriate word to use. He was a bit on the scattered side, I am sure there is so much information in his head he doesn't know how to compress it for these short demos, so he rambled alot. I struggled to follow his english and his thoughts and it became exhausting by the end of the day. He thought he had all day and they ended up telling him he only had till two thirty at two. He had spent so much time talking he had pushed his actual fresco application and painting till the very end to keep us hooked. All I wanted was for him to hurry up and paint something. We behaved ourselves, but by two we were weak from a lack of food or drink and Marta, who was coming down with a cold, was fading fast. Although I found parts of the demo interesting and just learning about the complexity involved in doing frescos was amazing but I think I can speak for both of us when I say that we are cured from the need to persue this line of artwork. I can appreciate all the masters did to create them while I use my premixed paints in a tube on store bought paper, canvas,wallboard or any other premade surface. I do love the end result, but I think I would like a way to faux the result instead. We got some lunch at the El Adobe Mexican Resturant down by the Mission and ate outside, it was really a great adventure today.

Life Drawing Class

As I have mentioned before, I wanted to get more involved with our local Art museum so a friend and I have joined the plein aire group and we are taking a watercolor class on Thursdays for a few hours. It has been an interesting experience, some really good, others questionable. But I must say that it has felt so good to get out with other artists and just see what everyone is doing and get inspired and excited about art again. One the third Thursday of the month they have a life drawing class. Marta was going so I invited myself to tag along. Wow, it has been sooooo long since I did any life drawing. It turned out to be a wonderful night, great people, great art, music and the museum is so beautiful itself. It is an old brick building with so much character it just draws you inside. Here are a few of my very quick sketches. The model started out only giving us 2 minutes per pose, then went to 5 and so on, I found my best sketches were the ones that I only had a few minutes to do.

About the Museum: Located in the historic Mission Inn district of downtown Riverside, the Riverside Art Museum is housed in a former YWCA facility designed by Hearst Castle architect Julia Morgan. Built in 1929, the building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988. A History Wall located in the Museum's lobby gives visitors a brief overview of Morgan's career and the transition of the YWCA into the exhibiting Museum it now is.

http://www.riversideartmuseum.org/index.htm

Skittles

I did another watercolor of another one of my daughters cats. I used only 4 colors on a limited palette. I don't know how that works really, what colors are best together etc. I need alot more practice for that I guess. I am going to try and do a few others, I really don't like the paper I am using but its on a block and its a good size so I will try and use it up. I seems to grap the paint and likes to "ball up" when you apply multiple layers. Its not good.

I'm digging, I only have a week

I actually started this before the alleged watercolor class so I don't know if it counts. I have seen some paintings that I love, other artists work and decided to play a bit, try some new things. I have decided that I love color, I always knew that but I am now saying it out loud! For me personally, much of the story is told with color, its what makes my heart sing. I thought I would paint my daughters cat, I may do her several times, differently, for fun. Here is my first attempt, I actually added some oil pastels, just a bit to see how the watercolor reacted with them. Some of the colors did well while others I didn't care for, its all an experiment anyway. I think it looks a bit like an oil or acrylic painting. I really had fun doing it, and I am pleased with the way it turned out too! It is supposed to be stylized version of her cat, not a illustration, how did I do? What does this painting tell you about me that I haven't told you here? Anything?

People who rub us the wrong way, do they sharpen us?

I was invited to attend an open studio class for watercolor today at the museum. I was very excited since I haven't really been able to do any classes since I took a watercolor class when my kids were in elementary school. The class consisted mainly of older women who were working on varies projects, one in oil, one in acrylic and 3 of them were working in watercolor. My girlfriend Marta told me to bring some work so the teacher could get a feel of where I was artistically. The teacher said she was going to save me for last since it would take longer. When I put up all of my small study pieces, which are posted here usually, she began to say that I had the technique down and what was I hoping to do now. I told her I would like to become looser in my style and not feel like I had to stick every detail into each piece. She said that art has to talk to you, that you have to feel something about the piece. That the viewer should know something about the artist by her paintings in order to want to buy it for their home. I think I agree with that, but what makes you or I feel something will be as different as each of us are. She said that she felt I was a good painter, had the techniques down but didn't show anything of myself in my paintings. She said I was an "illustrator", able to reproduce an image but that my paintings were kind of boring. She went on to make some other comments, all said nicely but the words still hit hard. Here I sat in front of all these women, who were now hugging their own paintings, being called on the carpet. I told her I was ready to make the next step in my art and she said you have to dig inside and figure out who you are and then say it. I think she believes that your subject matter reflects who you are and that each painting we do should have some deep physiological meaning. I tend to believe that if I am a good artist I should be able to make something ordinary and boring beautiful based on colors and shading etc. That everything doesn't have a deep seeded thought process just a good outcome. Anyway, needless to say it was a hard day but it was thought provoking. I have been thinking and thinking, chewing over all the things she said that continue to run through my mind. How do I show myself in my paintings? How do I tell a story with my art? Do I just reproduce images to spare myself rejection. Does every painting have to say something or can I just paint an orange to paint an orange? Is my mural business side reflecting on my personal art side? How do I take my art to that next level, is it going to be a painful, personal, soul searching journey? Interesting concepts, makes me think about how complex we really are. I paid for four classes, I will go and do the assignments and "dig deep" as she said, to find a voice ( I only have a week). I told her maybe I need therapy instead? As I sat that last hour I just had my paint brush out and started to just doodle paint to kill the time. I wasn't following a picture or a model just from my head. She asked what that meant to me and where was I going to take it? That my assignment was to take and paint something that reflects me? I would love to hear comments on this, do your paintings all say something about you? Do they carry deep meaning or do you paint what you see. When you are depressed do your paintings become dark? Do you think that maybe that is what separates the painters from the artists? Why did illustrator sound like a bad word?

Blood Oranges

Well I managed to find a few minutes to paint today! I love when I can steal away and paint. I have several fruits and vegetables that I have been dying to paint but haven't yet. Due to the threat of rot I decided to paint the ones I thought may not survive another few days first, then I will try to get to the rest. I found asparagus and want to paint it too, maybe tomorrow.

These blood oranges were given to me by another artist friend and she has already managed to paint them beautifully, I was so jealous. They are called blood oranges because when you cut them their juice looks red like blood and they stain also. Not as sweet as a regular navel orange but still very good. I love the blushed skin that resembles an orange that is bruised with red. Here is my version, thank you Marta for sharing from your tree.

Painting Day!

I had a wonderful opportunity to go with a friend and paint with the Plein Aire group we joined at the museum. I had a wonderful time just meeting other artists and visiting with Marta. I wasn't too thrilled with my work today, I don't know what it is. I just hate those days that nothing gels and I feel so untalented. I think a big challenge when you paint plein aire is deciding on subject matter and getting a composition that works. I will post my painting tommorrow I am sharing a few photos now! They turned out much better. The house where we painted had some livestock and a huge racoon that was napping in a big pine tree shading the horse corral. The house sat on the foothills and offered a great vista view of Riverside. I hope to be able to go out with them more often, I love painting outside!

I forgot to post my Valentines Day photos

I have always loved to gather everyone together at Valentines Day. When the kids were little we would have a big dinner and decorate the table and give each other Valentines. As they got older, we started getting gifts and reminding each other that no matter what we were going through we loved each other. The kids grew up and our family has now grown to include son and daughter in laws and grandkids. I still do the big dinner, gifts and remind each one how much I love them. I know it sounds mushy and goofy but its more important now, since Jenn was so critically injured to make sure I say it loudly. Randy and I often try to do something special together too but it is often on an off day. Saturday night, before Valentines Day, our church had a dinner dance, we went and invited friends, one of my daughters and her husband and took Jennifer. She wanted so much to dance so we put on her leg and wheeled her over to the dance floor where we stood her up and Randy danced 3 dances with her. She loved it and after he was finished he was completely drenched from keeping her standing for all three songs! The night of Valentines I made dinner and had the rest of our family over, I am posting pictures of the dance and the table at dinner. I hope your Valentines dinner was as great as ours, don't forget to take the time to love them.

Some Pictures for those who would like to paint with me

Hi everyone, I have loved hearing from everyone, wow, I really appreciate the comments. I am playing again tonight with some looser paintings, I thought I would post some pictures so you can all join me for "Magnolia February". Sorry the backgrounds arent great but these are blooming up against my house. Hope you guys get some sunshine soon where its so cold, I don't know how you all do it!

Randy Magnolia's are blooming

I just love magnolia's, I have several varieties and right now the "Randy" magnolias are just starting to bloom. They are a unreal color of pink and fushia, they almost seem to glow. Their stem growth and blooms have such an Asian feel to them, simple lines that burst forth in pure color. I want to paint several versions and I want try and loosen up with a much wetter style. I have this habit of starting out loose and tightening up!LOL I will post more, I hope to get comments on the different methods I use, I will post some pictures too just in case someone wants to join me. Maybe I should call it Magnolia February, its funny because I bought these two magnolia's just because they were called "Randy" and that is my husbands name, with his birthday on the 27th it only seems appropriate we dedicate the month to his magnolia's.

A new avenue

I have wanted to join the Riverside Art Museum and get more involved with artists in my area for so long. I recently found out that there was a plein aire group that meets there and is very involved with the museum and has shows etc, so I joined. I am so excited, not only to paint and visit with local artist but to see more of the city and surrounding areas where I live. It looks like it is going to open some new doors and hopefully it will be something I can do more often. I had been driving to either San diego or LA to meet up with other artist, now they are in my own backyard.

Randy took me to one of the first meetings and they were having a local painter give a watercolor demo, right up my alley, it was great, we loved it. They also served wine and finger foods. I can't wait to see whats next!

Life gets in the way!

Have you ever had so much to do or so much you want to do that you can't get started because you can't get focused, well thats me. I have so many things that I really want to do I am finding it harder and harder to settle in on one and do something. I was asked to design a T-shirt for the Outdoor Adventures group at Casa Colina where Jennifer has her rehab. I have posted pictures from our week long adventure in Long Beach, well this year my design might be their T-shirt. Here is what I have done so far, it is only one design and I a few others I need to get drawn up to present to them. For some reason I could not upload the picture with the text so here is only the artwork. I love this program and how it empowers the participants. Everyone leaves feeling as though they can do anything, for a week they finally feel like a normal person. I am so deeply touched every year by this great effort by everyone involved to enrich a group of disabled people.

New Baby for the New Year

As you can tell from all of my posts lately, I have been a frustrated artist. With all the commotion and with the holidays I didn't find much time to draw or paint. I have had a few days before I have to start the craziness of undecorating. I hate undecorating although I do love the feel of the house back to normal and a bit less cluttery. I received tons of Christmas cards this year, due to the fact that I sent so many out! I am a true believer that if you don't send them you don't get them. I received lots of picture cards and some of new babies that were born close to Christmas. I took the opportunity to do another exercise but I think this one is not as loose as it should be. I still think the baby turned out ok although doesn't look exactly like him, don't all babies look alike? I was supposed to do a wet on wet letting all the colors mix on the paper, I cheated and fell back into controlling everything. I will try again with some of the other pictures I received this year. I think I will stick this in a frame and send it to the new mom as a welcome to baby Dylan.

WC tutorial

Hi all, I found a wonderful tutorial on portraits that I was just dying to try. It was a looser style than I am used too and within the tutorial there are several assignments to try. I choose one that was one color and one brush. You had to study your picture and then simplify and then simplify again, until you got the essence of the person with minimal brush strokes. Then you had to select one brush to do the entire picture in, it was great. It was a challenge and a great study. I loved it, I chose a picture of my grandson who is such a cutie anyway. The picture turned out good I think, I will do the other assignments soon. It is a great tutorial and I hope to continue to improve my watercolor skills and become a bit looser in my painting style. I really perfer a looser look verses the picture perfect look. I think for me, I appreciate leaving a bit to the imagination instead of painting every detail for them. Just my thoughts which is not to discredit realism at all.

Happy New Year!

I just got back from Las Vegas, we went for a few days inbetween the holidays. It was very busy which surprised us since it usually is a bit quiet before the New Years celebration. We had a great time but I am glad to be home. I took a WC challenge to work on in the room, here it is. I am anxious to start some new projects that I have been thinking about. Tonight I think we will spend it writing some goals for the new year, as a couple, personally, for the businesses, and helping Jennifer document some of her goals in her recovery. Then I want to sit in a nice hot bath and just soak in the New Year. I am looking forward to the quiet time. I hope all of you have the New Year your heart desires.

Merry Christmas!!!

I have been busy, as we all have with Christmas just around the corner. Jennifer was in for 8 hours of tests and it was grueling. I am so glad that is over, now we just have to wait for the results. Then yesterday my grandson slipped into a diabetic coma due to having the flu and not holding down food so his blood sugar was elevated to dangerous levels. Wow, it has been an "e" ticket ride this Christmas. He is doing better now but is still in ICU. Hopefully he will be home for Christmas morning and all the presents. Before all the fun started I managed to get out my Christmas Cards and I sent out this Christmas postcard for one exchange, then my quilt guild had a block exchange and I made a gingerbread block to exchange. I wanted to offer it to all my quilting friends out there, if you would like me to email you the pattern for the gingerbread block just send me your email and I will send it too you as my gift. I will ask the girl who got it to send me a photo, I forgot to take a picture before giving it away. It is a very simple design but turned out cute, I sewed rick-rack around the edges and did big giant buttons for his eyes. Enjoy

My brothers dogs

I did this watercolor of my brothers dogs, I am so unhappy with it, it lacks something and I can't seem to put my finger on it, I might do it over again and see if I can't do a better job. I think it might be my colors or my technique or the background, but there is something that is off. I love when I hit and I hate when I miss so I always try and turn it into a learning process, my continual state of learning. The pug's name is Charlie and the French bulldog's name is Winston. Winston is only a year and he was full of energy the few days they stayed with us over Thanksgiving. Jennifer loves dogs so much and she loved the time she got to spend with them. Her and my brother went on a few walks together with all the dogs. Although Pee Wee is so small she played fine with the "boys" and let them know when she was done! It always takes a women to get those men in line.

EDM #95 and update

I finished my NaNoWriMo challenge and made the 50,000 word goal. Yippee for me, I was really surprised how easy it was to find the words when I made the time to write. I mentally kept track of how far behind I was getting if I hadn't written in a few days and then attacked the computer with a writing marathon. I was often writing the words through tears but thats ok. I feel like it was a kind of purging for my soul. I am not finished yet either, I have a bit to go so I am looking forward to setting aside the time for that. Its funny with me, I really work best with goals and drop dead deadline dates. It forces my procrastinating soul to do it!

I have also been working on my Christmas Card for both the exchange and just for our personal card this year. I have settled on this painting, for the card I softened the edges and then printed them. I used some glitter for the snowy areas and put gold around the edge of the card, I like the results. With the exchange I am sending and recieving from Thailand and Sweden along with many people throughout our country so it should be a lot of fun.

Thanksgiving was full of family and food as usual. I was a little sick so cooking and just all the activity kept me tired and a bit grumpy but all is well and we had a great time visiting with my mom and brother who also brought his dogs, a pug named Charlie and a new french bulldog named Winston. Cute, cute they added alot of activity to the dinner.

Fabric Postcards

Have any of you tried these fabric postcards? They are a hoot and so fast. I belong to an online group and we send to people all over the world, its fun and allows me to play and finish fast. For those days when I am dying to play with fabric but don't have time to start a big project. Here is my latest one, we had to use things supplied by someone else and create the card. I hand painted the face and cut it in half and made two "indian princess's".

My book

Hi everyone, I am doing pretty well on keeping up with my word count. I find that as I become engulfed in the whole process of story telling I start to recall things that have long been buried. The concept is to get as much information down and then go back and edit, edit, edit later. So its so very rough but at least I am getting it out. I am at around 22,000 words now, almost half way and I am only in week 2, I know that it will start to move quicker now but I still have so much to get down. I am putting in the link to the site and my book, if you click on "read an excerpt" it will take you to the book and you can read it. My nano name is Imararefind so dont be concerned if you don't see my real name anywhere. Let me know if you do read any of it! NaNoWriMo

Another Christmas card to choose from

Ok, I got another one painted to add to the choices for this years cards. I love the feel of old Christmas scenes, the whole Charles Dickens thing. I might do a few and then choose one still working on it. I am doing ok on the novel too, it is hard to stay focused for me. I have so many projects going all the time that I find I have to force myself to sit and write for hours. I am still doing ok on my word count which shows up on the bottom right side of my blog on the Nanowrimo icon. I got a bit behind since I didn't feel like writing for a few days. My goal now is to get ahead in anticipation of the holidays that are quickly approaching.

Our sycamore tree

I love the fall colors although we get a limited and abreviated version of the spectacular display they have back east we do have a few trees that put on a show for us in the fall. I planted many coloring trees in our yard so I could enjoy the season too. But... usually sycamores don't really color, they just start looking old and dry and then they loose their leaves. This year a few of mine decided to give me a treat and they got a beautiful color of yellows and oranges and then within a week they just dumped their leaves. My poor husband had been out with the leave vacumn everynight after work in an effort to keep our neighbors from declaring war. The neighbors pulled out every tree that even looked like it would shed a leaf and planted palms, stupid queen palms. They are ok, I have 4 but, my goodness, they have tons of them, the guy across the street planted probably 50 of them, it looks like a palm farm. Can we talk about making some landscaping choices. Any way, don't get me started, so I ended up collecting all the rejected trees that were being ripped out and discarded as though they had no value because they were not in the palm family! We were given some beautiful trees as street trees and I made sure I looked them up if I wasn't familiar with them. The builder changed the trees on every street, so my street tree is different from the guy behind me. It was so beautiful in the beginning. But as the landscapers came in they ripped out most of them and put in palms. I know that trees that go deciduous are more work but their contribution to the yard is so worth it. One of my rescued trees is called a Chinese fringe tree, they are just covered in blooms during the spring, it is a blast of white and they color up a bit in the fall, the others are Pistache and liquid amber which put on a wonderful fall display. I moved mine but kept all of them and brought in more so... the leaves are an issue. Anyway, off of my soap box, I painted the tree and photographed it too. The color was great. Here to enjoying variety in all things!

Our Anniversary

It was our 26th wedding anniversary this weekend, we went down to Laguna Beach to stay the night and had dinner. It was really wonderful, and the weather was perfect. We went to a great resturant called "Hush" it was in LB overlooking the Pacific Coast highway, we sat outside infront of the fireplace and had a great dinner, pumpkin bisque, garlic ribeye, and a unique cinnamon ice cream with bread pudding. It was really quite nice and Randy was so romantic, and he is so good to me. After all these years he is still the nicest person I know. Anyway we stayed at the Marriott in Fashion Island and it overlooked a golf course and you could see the ocean. We spent the next day walking on the beach and through all the shops and art galleries, it was a great way to celebrate our life together. We appreciate those few special moments so much more now, we try not to take our time together for granted at all. Each moment is precious. I just love the picture of our shadows in the sand, Randy wrote 26 years. He's just so handsome too, whats not to love!

Update

Hi everyone, I wanted to update you on my writing so far. I have been really good about my writing, but remember I am a good starter and a not so good finisher. Keep me going, I am depending on you. If you are interested in reading a exerpt you can by going to the authors and looking me up. I go by imararefind, I have about 7500 words now, so I am above the required number for the three days. The website is www.nanowrimo.org .

I have also been working on an invitation for the gingerbread party I do every year, I supply the house and everyone bring 2 bags of different candies or cookies to share and we all decorate our house. Its tons of fun and is a great mom and kids holiday adventure that they can do together.

Nanowrimo is starting

For those of you who don't know, Nanowrimo is a novel writing challenge that takes place every November for people like me that don't have enough happening in their lives already! The idea behind this site is to just write, they give you 30 days to write 50,000 words. As they say its all about the quantity not the quality, its about just getting that book you swore you would write one of these days down onto paper. This will be my first year and I am both nervous and anxious about the amount of time that will be required to keep up with the 1600 words a day quota. The fact that I am a caregiver and I work out of my home will also add to this challenge. I have decided to write about my personal experience and journey with Jennifer's crash. Although they want us to write fiction I am going to write more of a memoir. I will be posting excerpts if you are interested in reading it and seeing how things are progressing. I would appreciate any support you might be able to offer since most of my family and friends think I am crazy!! www.nanowrimo.org

Christmas Card project

On Wet Canvas we are working on an exchange of Christmas cards. The way it will work is that we will do several different pieces of art and then choose either our favorite or several favorites. We will then make them into cards and send them out. I am very excited and have enjoyed the process so far. There is a thread in the learning center under watercolors that we all meet to show our latest work and get ideas and suggestions. I have wanted to make my own Christmas cards so many years now and never do it, this year I will.

EDM # 87 draw your lunch

I happened to take a picture of my lunch the other day and this was a perfect chance to immortalize it! I was hungry just painting it. It was a curried turkey sandwich on whole grain bread with lettuce and tomatoe. They bake all of their bread daily and is it good and fresh! I think for the bread challenge I will visit again and just draw all of the loafs sticking out of crocks in the shop. Its very quaint and homey, the menu is hand written on a huge black board above the sandwich station. The also bake and sell homemade pies, cookies, cakes that are to die for. I don't know how any one could work there and stay thin!

EDM #76 Draw some flowers

Well this is a flower so it qualified to me. These matilla poppies are so fragrant and beautiful. They, like the other poppies look like crepe paper as they blow in the wind.

LIMES

We just had a WinCo open up in our area, it was so fun to shop in a new store. They have a great selection of everything, I was very impressed. Anyway I stocked up on all sorts of produce. I happened to buy these limes, they looked so good! I must be a visual shopper! In my mind I am also thinking, these would make a great painting!

EDM challenge #59 draw a sign of spring or fall

I was outside today, working in the yard, trimming trees etc. My husband was trimming back some of the roses and when I turned around, in the middle of our lawn was the biggest leaf off of our sycamore trees. It was part green, part brown and yellow. Although Sycamores don't really do the color change thing, it does mean that fall is coming and they are getting ready to shed their tired, dried leaves. I grabbed it and ran into the house to do another quick watercolor, I just love leaves. I can't wait for the liquid ambers and pistache trees to do their thing, even here in Southern California.

More quick watercolors from Simple Simons

I took some pictures of people sitting near by me the day I had lunch at Simple Simons. I decided to do some quick watercolors of them today for practice with painting people. I have a hard time painting people in person because they often feel uncomfortable with me staring at them for extended periods of time. I have to get better at painting from a glance.

EDM challenge #86 Draw a traffic or street sign

Well, I know that this might seem like a stretch but I found this sign on my walk today, it was on the street and I felt it qualified. It is really a "sign of the times" as all the surrounding mountains, that we rode our horses across, are now filling up with huge homes. Its a bitter sweet thing, sad to see the natural landscape go from wild trees and bushes to a sea of homes but it does help send our house prices up and up. Since Jennifers accident I had to get rid of the horses so I don't feel the loss as much as I might have if we still owned them.

EDM challenge # 47 draw one of the past challenges

I thought I would paint one of the flamingos we saw on one of the sketchcrawls to the zoo. I sketched them there but also took tons of pictures, they are so vividly colored that they don't look real. They look as though someone got ahold of a can of orange spray paint. It reminds me of a picture in an old time-life book where these two men are holding a huge bird and they are painting it bright pink so it will stand out in the group of white birds. They would never do that today! The thought being is that these flamingos look like that painted bird from my past. I might like to do some large paintings of these interesting birds whose knees bend backwards and they drink and eat with their heads upside down!! That is talent.

EDM challenge # 61 draw a group of two or more

I had started this sketch back at the week long camp we took Jennifer to in Long Beach. All of that weeks activities are centered around water sports. As I waited for her to get back from a sailing adventure I noticed these life jackets all lined up. Almost like a patriotic red and blue army of men waiting for the assignments. They looked so pretty all lined up, hoping to be choosen to go out.

Another spot in Riverside

Ok, well I am off and running, I had a free day so I thought I would go and start my painting of Riverside. I decided to go have lunch at one of my favorite spots in a historic area of Riverside. It is in a open air shopping area right off of the Mission Inn. It is so beautiful, and there are tons of painting opportunities. I had a wonderful lunch and the wind was just softly blowing as I sat and painted the front of the resturant which is located in a retrofitted building made of old brick. Here is a picture of my wonderful lunch, the people sitting around me probably thought I was crazy taking a picture of my sandwich before I ate it. Also, Riverside had local artists paint giant oranges which were placed all over the downtown area for viewing. It was wonderful to see them and I was hoping to photograph them but I might be too late. Here is the one by the Mission Inn. They were all different and very clever. I hope they do it again.