Friday, March 27, 2009

Union Square feeding Pigeons

This painting shows my sister and me in downtown San Francisco at the Union Square. We loved going there and feeding the pigeons, green peas bought at this huge indoor Farmers Market. We lived about a block away from the Union Square when we first moved to S.F. the hotel was a fleabag hotel, mom working across the street at KNBC Radio Station. Needless to say we did not stay there long, but what an experience! It's amazing it took so little to entertain children in those days. We learned English quite fast because mom would take us to the movies a lot...movies at the Alexandria Theater, Fox and the Coronet came to mind...maybe this is why I like watching all the old movies on TCM.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Playland Carousel 1950's

Well the German came out in me today! Stubborn as can be...I would not give up on this painting...it took three times as long to finish...all that time I could have started over, but noooo, I was determined to finish it even after I spilled paint on it. Having no plan, just painting as I went along made it even harder to repaint. I couldn't remember what and how I did it, that's because I forgot to take a preliminary photo for reference...here is the worn out version.
Mom used to take us to Playland in San Francisco, at times she would allow us to take the bus by ourselves and just spend all day there, it was after the war and filled with sailors. Doubt you could do this nowadays.
Our favorite place outside of the Fun House was the Carousel. My sister Alex and I had our favorite horses, mine being a Black and sis liking the White one. I have no memory of how exactly it looked...here is my interpretation, most likely not an outside horse, as they where standing horses.
I remember thinking while going up and down on the black steed, that someday I was going to own a black horse (which I did) and I would ride it at my favorite places, on the beach and the Golden Gate Park, galloping with the breeze hitting my face, my hair tussled in the wind. I loved my black Carousel horse, and if someone else was riding it, I would wait till that kid got off.
When the Carousel sold/auctioned off in the '70s, I seriously debated on buying one of the Black horses instead of my Arabian mare and foal...it certainly would have been cheaper and a better investment, although I would not had gotten the joy of having my Arabian horse breeding program.

Monday, March 9, 2009

San Francisco Beach

Thanks for the push Surly-Mac! the sun today put me in the mood to finish this painting.
I'm still messing around with the font colors, can't make up my mind, just want it to be easy to read...any input would be appreciated

This scene is on our Birthday, March 12th 1951, my mom took us to Playland and the San Francisco Beach. We always went there on weekends and ate at the Cliff House...mom had moved us to San Francisco where she worked at KNBC and then at Fiberboard Paper Products(my sister and I both worked at Fiberboard later on, where the image of me ended up on the SunMaid Raisin box)