When I visited Italy in September, I only had two full days to explore the towns of Cinque Terre, but we managed to see four of the five villages, and that was without rushing around too much. We had leisurely lunches and hours of meandering, plus time spent sketching. One of my favorite experiences was […]
Category: Sketchbooks
Step-by-Step Watercolor: Olive Sketch
The olive oil from Fattoria Bacio (the estate that hosts my workshop in Italy) is the best I’ve ever tasted! During our week at the villa, the students and I sloshed it over just about everything at dinner each night: bread, pasta, salad, meat, and vegetables. And by the end of the week, we all […]
Road Trip Sketches
When I taught my Maine workshop a few weeks ago, I had to do all the driving to Maine and back – 16 hours each way. I generally don’t enjoy driving on a long trip. It’s boring, exhausting, and sometimes frustrating, like the time I blindly followed my GPS into a traffic jam in the […]
Sarasota Farmer’s Market
One last sketch from Florida… 5-1/2″ x 8-1/2″, ink & watercolor in a Stillman and Birn Alpha series sketchbook It was too windy to sketch outside on the day I visited the Sarasota Farmer’s market with my sketching buddies, so we snapped pictures and headed for a warm, cozy Starbucks nearby. There, we spread out […]
Thumbnail Sketches – All Dressed Up!
One of the lessons I taught my students while in Tuscany was about using thumbnail sketches to zero in on a scene and test out various compositional options. I suggested using a separate sketchbook page for the thumbnails and later turning that page, with its accumulation of tiny scenes, into a dynamic page in its […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
It’s Here! Grab a Copy of “Sketchbook Journeys: Italy”
Ever since I finished my Italy travel journal, I’ve been wanting to publish it as a Blurb book, just like I did with my Ireland sketchbook back in 2011. But it’s been over a year since I put the final brushstroke on that last sketch of Pisa, and this project just kept getting pushed to […]
