Yay! It’s finally feeling like spring here at Summerhill. I’ve even seen some crocus popping up in the flowerbeds. After a snowy, icy, February, it seems like spring arrived overnight. Remember the gratitude sketch challenge that I was participating in last month? I didn’t manage to sketch every day, but I really enjoyed the hours […]
Category: Lettering
Sunshine & Risotto – Sketches + Recipe
Wintertime in Pennsylvania often brings periods of dreary, overcast days with intermittent snow flurries and/or drizzle. Sounds lovely, right? The gray days seem interminable at times, so when we finally get a dazzlingly sunny day, it puts a smile on everyone’s faces and makes my spirits soar. This scene is the view from my front […]
Grateful
It’s so easy these days to get caught up in all the negatives that pervade our lives. Fear, worry, uncertainty, and a feeling of helplessness have become our companions this past year, and many of my art friends tell me that they’re experiencing a sort of artistic paralysis. So, I proposed a challenge in my […]
California Road Trip – Part 3: 17-Mile Drive
One of the prettiest stretches of coastline that I saw during my recent trip to California was 17-Mile Drive in Monterey. This scenic road meanders around the Monterey peninsula, offering spectacular views of rocky beaches, crashing waves, and abundant wildlife. Ink & watercolor in a 5″ x 6-1/2″ Khadi hardbound sketchbook with rough textured 140 […]
Rincon Point Beach Sketches & More!
During my recent Santa Barbara workshop, I took the class on a sketching field trip to Rincon Point Beach, which was just down the hill from the barn where our class was held. Rincon Point is a world-famous surfing spot, but we settled in on the quieter side of the point where a long, crescent-shaped […]
Santa Barbara Mission Sketches
It’s the week before Christmas, and I’ve been busy shopping, wrapping, and making my signature Dark Chocolate Pecan English Toffee, but I thought I’d take a break from Christmas preparations to share a few more sketches from Santa Barbara that I hadn’t gotten around to posting earlier. This one is my favorite painting from the […]
California Road Trip – Part 1 + Creating a Flow Sketch
My workshop in Santa Barbara last month was a huge success, and the road trip that followed, although not quite what I had expected, was a lot of fun, too, and showed me a part of California that I had always wanted to see. I took hundreds of pictures along the way, so I have […]
Hotel del Coronado Sketch – Opinions, Please!
Whew! The holidays are over and the January lull has arrived. Don’t you love it? I really enjoy this quiet time of year, when there’s not usually much going on, and I have time to catch up on some of those projects that have been put on the back burner for awhile. I haven’t been […]
Tropical harvest
When I stayed with my friend Karen in southern California for a few days earlier this month, I was amazed that we could go out into her yard and pick all sorts of tropical fruit right off the trees that grew on the slope below her house. Every morning I had fresh grapefruit for breakfast […]
Casa Romantica Gridded Sketch
Earlier this month I taught a two-day plein air sketching class called “Sketch Your World” in San Clemente, CA, and on the second day we visited Casa Romantica Cultural Center and Gardens. The Casa was closed for the day, but they allowed our group to come and paint, so we had the place all to […]