As part of TULARIVA--Tuesday Los Angeles River Art we went to Sunland, California in order to paint the Big Tujunga River. We had a lot of rain so the river was bigger than normal. By east coast and southern standards it would be viewed as a creek by its size. I thought we could park under the freeway overpass, but they put up new signs for "No Parking". We parked at the shopping center behind the Foothill Saddlery building. We walked down towards the rivers. Some of us fell in love with the wildflowers and began painting there. I walked down to the river and found out that it had been carved 12 feet down in a straight line through gravel and small boulders. I found a place where I could make a gradual desent and walked on rocks to get across the river.

I designed the painting so that the line of stones, the lines of the river and the river banks all pointed inward torwards the place where the new yellowish green leaves were against a purple mountain in the back. This became the point of interest for the painting. Some of the other hills had mustard plants growing and they had a very light yellow color. I designed the hills to provide flowing upside down horseshoes that brought the eye back to the stream, On the opposite side the leaves of the trees take the viewers eyes upward. You can look at the painting on facebook and even watch the videos of me painting. Decide if you like the mountain in the background being so dark and purple or whether you would like some darker values towards the front of the painting. 

As  for the horses, they were on the embankment twelve feet higher than I was so my umbrella was seen from above and didn't frighten them.