Seems like everything’s blossoming, growing, and greening-up time of year. It’s so much fun to walk around the yard every day and discover what poked up through the soil overnight. Echinacea, hosta, and primroses are all growing, and the bleeding heart is covered with buds. The forsythia was spectacular this year – I brought a […]
Category: Sketchbook Journaling
Crazy for Daffodils!
Daffydowndilly has come up to town, in a yellow petticoat and a green gown.~ Traditional nursery rhyme I taught a lesson on painting yellow daffodils the other day for my April “Sketching at Summerhill” party, and one of my sweet friends who came to paint brought me a gorgeous bouquet of daffodils from her garden. […]
A Change of Season
Spring is here! Flocks of robins are hopping all over our yard and the snow is finally gone! 8-1/2″ x 11″, ink & watercolor in a Stillman & Birn Beta series sketchbook. Drawings done with a black Pigma Micron 01 pen. Last Friday was officially the first day of spring, and even though the temperatures […]
Travel Sketch Kit + Texas Travel Sketches
(Continuing my posting of sketches from the Monologue Basics A5 sketchbook that I reviewed here.) My husband and I spent five days in Texas last fall visiting friends in San Antonio. I didn’t think I’d have a lot of time to sketch, so I took a minimum of supplies, but it turned out to be […]
Snow Day!
We have a SNOW DAY! Yippee! I still get a thrill from being snowed in. We’ve gotten ten inches of snow since last evening and everything is cancelled, so I thought I’d share a snowy sketch with you today. This is one I painted a few weeks ago of the view out our driveway… Ink […]
More Random Sketches
As promised, here are more random sketches from my Monologue Basics sketchbook… I deviated from my usual technique in this marigold sketch. Instead of doing a line drawing, then painting light, medium, and dark glazes of color, I did a quick initial freehand painting with watercolor, then, after the paint had dried, I did my […]
People Practice
In my last post I commented on the strengths and weaknesses of the Monologue Basics sketchbook, and mentioned that I liked using it for practice drawings. One of the things I always feel I could use more practice in is drawing people, and I’ve hit upon an easy way to find people to draw – […]
Impressions of the Monologue Basics Sketchbook + Random Sketches
A few months ago, the Monologue company sent me a few of their sketchbooks to try, and I decided to play around with the A5 hardcover to see how it handles the materials I normally use for sketching: ink, colored pencil, watercolor pencil, and watercolor paints. It measures around 5-1/2″ x 8″, and the paper […]
Sneak Preview! Step-by-Step Watercolor Painting: Terracotta Tile Roofs
In just a few short months I’ll be going back to Italy! I can’t wait to see the Tuscan hills again and enjoy the endless delights of fresh, delicious Italian food. And the gelato…don’t even get me started on that! October 3-10, 2015, will find me teaching a week-long workshop in Sketchbook Journaling at Fattoria […]
Winter Getaway: Sun, Fun, and Painting!
Five days of sunshine, warm breezes, and gorgeous aquamarine water are enough to lift anyone’s spirit. Stepping off of a plane in Florida in January is like emerging from a long, dark, damp, cold tunnel that you thought you’d never see the end of. There were palm trees and flowers and people wearing shorts! What […]
