![\"Watercolor](\"https:\/\/b1204804.smushcdn.com\/1204804\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/JMG-Dana-Adobe-Color-72-dpi.jpg?lossy=2&strip=1&webp=1\")
This is a watercolor painting I did recently for my sweetheart….So what better time to post it on the internet than Valentine’s Day !\u00a0 It’s a historic structure in Central California which has a lot of personal significance….My wife, Susan Lynn Dana, is a direct descendent of William Goodwin Dana, who constructed this home in 1837….The following is a description borrowed from “historycenterslo.org”:\u00a0 “The Dana Adobe or “Casa de Dana” is a historic\nlandmark in Nipomo, California, lying about 25
\nmiles south of San Luis Obispo. It was one of the
\nearliest adobe dwellings built in San Luis Obispo
\nCounty and became the celebrated home
\nof William Goodwin Dana, his wife Maria Josefa
\nCarrillo Dana and their very large family. William
\nDana was a wealthy Boston sea captain who
\nsettled first in Santa Barbara, where he courted
\nand married Maria Josefa in 1828. In 1837,
\nMexican California Governor Juan Alvarado
\ngranted Rancho Nipomo to Captain Dana, over
\n50,000 acres, as a reward for his loyalty. Dana
\nemployed many native Chumash laborers and
\nothers to build the adobe between 1837 and his
\ndeath in 1858, a tumultuous time in Alta California.\u00a0 The Dana
\nadobe and Rancho Nipomo also served as an
\nimportant exchange point on the first official U.S.
\nmail route between Monterey and Los Angeles.”\u00a0 Regarding the watercolor painting, I really enjoyed working on it….Some of the challenges were capturing the hills in the background which are soft and gorgeous in the distance, and concentrating more on the landscape than the building itself–something that I don’t usually attempt because frankly, my job is typically focused on the architecture….It’s actually liberating to shift the balance away from buildings, and focus one’s attention on the natural beauty that surrounds….I wanted to keep the background and the house itself light and bright on the value scale, then frame those elements with darker richer tones in the foreground trees, landscape, and historic El Camino Real monument….This artwork is hand-drawn and painted in the watercolor technique by Jeffrey Michael George, Architectural Illustrator.\u00a0 Jeffrey lives in Chico, California and creates many architectural illustrations for projects located in all parts of the great state of California including the San Francisco bay area.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"