In my last post, I showed you the floral monograms and cards I made for my sister and mother for Christmas. For the past several days, I’ve been putting together a tutorial for you about the process I used to create the monograms and print the cards at home. I’ve taken pictures, scanned images, edited […]
Category: Sketchbooks
Floral Watercolor Monograms – Part 1
We all know the challenge of trying to find a gift for the person who has everything. How do you find something that’s personal, useful, beautiful, and/or different from anything they already have? Well, here’s a great idea that I came up with for my mother and sister this past Christmas. This project was inspired […]
Step-by-Step Watercolor: Blackwater River Sketch
It was the final afternoon of my painting getaway at Canaan Valley and I had gone for a short hike with my friends Jane and Elaine to stretch our legs and grab one final sketch before the sun set. We found a beautiful spot beside the river, quickly set up our stools, and got out our art gear.
Girlfriend Getaway
Some of my happiest memories are of girlfriend getaways, whether it’s with the girls in my family or a group of sketching buddies. Where women gather, fun happens! It doesn’t matter where you go; it’s being together that makes it special. The pandemic halted all my scheduled art retreats a year and a half ago, […]
Fall Sketches
Autumn is a great time for sketching in western Pennsylvania. Our fall foliage rivals that of New England, and we always enjoy lots of beautiful, clear, sunny days before the dreariness of late November sets in. Would you like to see what I’ve been sketching this fall in our neck of the woods? Our driveway, […]
Sketches from Oak Island
We take a family beach vacation every year, with kids, parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents all sharing a house and spending long days together hanging out at the beach. But this year, for the first time, Fred and I had a chance to spend a second week at Oak Island, NC, later in the year, […]
Sketches from Alpine Lake
The past few weeks have flown by and, with all that’s going on with finishing up our new house, I’m afraid I’ve fallen behind in posting some of the sketches I’ve done recently. So, I thought I’d play catch-up and show you some of what I’ve been up to. I went to Alpine Lake several […]
Sketching at Oglebay
Earlier this week, I had a chance to get together with some of my art friends at beautiful Oglebay Park in Wheeling, WV, for a few hours of sketching (and chatting, of course!) It was a blisteringly hot day, but there were plenty of shady spots where we could settle in to draw. I couldn’t […]
Laurel Hill Sketch
Fred and I went camping last week at Laurel Hill State park. It’s up in the mountains east of Pittsburgh, a great place to get away from it all. (Translation: there was no cell service.) Our campsite at Laurel Hill When I talk about camping, I really mean “glamping” – we aren’t exactly roughing it […]
Rocky Mountain Creek Sketch
Our three-day camping trip earlier this month to Caledonia State Park near Chambersburg, PA, was a spur-of-the-moment getaway. Just finding an open site at any campground is a challenge these days, so we were lucky to find a spot in the heart of central Pennsylvania just a few hours from home. If you’d like to […]