36. Dairy Farm Hills

There are many beautiful rolling hills just north of Davenport, CA. Some of my favorites are the hills off of Old Cement Road. The entire area is now included in a proposal to be designated the Santa Cruz Redwoods National Monument which includes these hills in a parcel of over 5000 acres stretching back into several redwood forests in the Santa Cruz Mountains. 

The thing that strikes me about painting these hills is the curving soft forms with deep cul-de-sacs that take on anthropomorphic female characteristics. Painting there made me think of Nature Goddesses that one finds in Native American lore. When the land resembles human characteristics it gets named for them such as the sleeping princess laying horizontally across the top of Mt Timpanogos in Utah. The hills north of Davenport remind me of curving female form. The next time you paint see if you can also see anthropomorphic shapes in the landscape. It will help you be able to feel the land you are painting.