BRINGING IT BACK HOME GLOBETROTTING ARTISTS TO DISPLAY THEIR WORKS.

Byline: Sharon Cotal Staff Writer

SANTA CLARITA - They've earned the right to take life easy in their rocking chairs, but for one group of seniors it's far more exciting to see the world - and paint it.

A group of students at the Santa Clarita Valley Senior Center has been traveling, then painting what they have seen when they return to class.

Their artwork will be on display 2 to 5 p.m. today at the Bouquet Canyon Senior Housing Complex, 26705 Bouquet Canyon Road, Saugus.

Works of art in oil, watercolor and pastels, along with drawings, calligraphy, crafts and a variety of greeting cards will be shown, and many of the items displayed will be for sale, said the senior center's fine arts coordinator, Mary Lou Carraher.

Some of the featured artwork will be drawings by a group that traveled to southern Spain and Morocco last year on an art tour. The group visited the Rock of Gibralter, Seville, Picasso's home on the town square of Malaga, the mountain village of Mejas and Tangiers, Morocco.

``We toured a wide variety of places and not everyone sketched the same things, so the result is quite a varied group of drawings,'' Carraher said.

The group also toured locally last summer, visiting a different spot every Thursday morning to sketch and then returning to the senior center to paint. Local areas displayed in artwork at the exhibit include the William S. Hart mansion, W. C. Field's home, Vasquez Rocks, the waterfall in Texas Canyon and views in the Angeles National Forest.

Don Trout, an art teacher well-known in local art circles, will have his watercolors on display. Trout has lived in the area for many years and does mostly landscape watercolors, some featuring desert scenery of the area.

Also on display will be the work of former World War II Marine pilot Leo Harman, who paints many of his works from his memories of serving in the Pacific Theater during the war.

``Leo is a varied artist, but every once in a while he will remember something from the war and he will paint it from memory,'' Carraher said. ``He's very good at it, and it's a very difficult thing to do.''

The war paintings are mostly landscapes rather than battle scenes, although sometimes there are planes in the background, but not all of Harman's paintings are from the war. He also creates beautiful sunsets, animals and camping scenes, Carraher said.

Chinese sculptor Jiet Situ, now a local resident with a studio at the complex, will display his sculptures of people as well as his sculptures. His work is internationally renowned, Carraher said.

There will be more than 100 works of art on display at the exhibit, as well as photographs depicting the various stages of the painting of a mural the group recently completed at the senior center in Newhall.

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Photo: (color) Don Trout, left, displays his painting of a California coastline, and Leo Harman shows a depiction he painted of him flying his plane over the Solomon Islands during World War II. These and many other paintings will be featured at a Santa Clarita Valley art show.

John Lazar/Staff Photographer