Rural Renderings : VENTURA COUNTY WEEKEND

Dawna Osborne’s watercolor imagery, now at the Ventura County Government Center, focuses primarily on mild-mannered animal scenes and wistful renderings of pastoralness. Sometimes there are local resonances, as in “Topa Topa (Upper Ojai),” presented as a verdant northern-like mountain scene.

Nothing here would stop passersby from going about their governmental business. And yet, out of this mostly ordinary, pretty, familiar landscape, modest delights spring forward. “Three Amish Friends” and “Folk Art Country” project an enchanting rural aura.

As art lovers, we all have our little quirks. Some of us, for instance, are suckers for a good, empathetic bovine portrait, and Osborne’s “Cows” is that. The subjects of the title assume position in the foreground, staring with a bovine impassivity. In the space behind them, a rhythmic array of haystacks dot the landscape while a large red barn anchors the composition.

It made the concerned critic think twice before stopping at Carl’s Jr. on the way home.

* Dawna Osborne’s watercolors, through Jan. 10 at the Ventura County Government Center, 800 S. Victoria Ave. in Ventura, in the Administration Building atrium; 654-3963.