It’s been a great year for rhododendrons here where I live in western Pennsylvania. FYI – The oranges & grape jelly on the bird feeder post are for the Baltimore orioles These bushes are right outside my kitchen window, so I get to enjoy these glorious blooms over the course of two weeks or so […]
Category: Sketches
Sketching Wildflowers at Enlow Fork
Come along with Leslie and her sketching friends as they walk, sketch, and enjoy a huge variety of spring wildflowers at Enlow Fork nature preserve in western Pennsylvania. (Includes a step-by-step painting tutorial!)
One more thing…
As I was finishing up the final paragraph of my last blog post, I suddenly realized that I had forgotten to include Buckley and Buddy in my sketch. That just wasn’t right! How could I have been so thoughtless? They had waited patiently for me for over an hour as I drew and painted; they certainly deserved a spot on the page. So I managed to squeeze them in – can you find them?
After the Walk: Finishing a Nature Sketch in the Studio
In yesterday’s post, (find it here), I shared how this page began with a walk in the woods and a “5-5-5 Sketch Challenge”, where I walked, drew, and painted one image at a time to create a composite sketch. The plein air sketching session gave me a good start on this page, but it needed […]
A Walk with the Boys
One Sunday in early spring, I decided to do a 5-5-5 Sketch Challenge: I would walk for 5 minutes, draw for 5 minutes, and paint for 5 minutes until I had filled a page (or two) in my sketchbook.
Come along with me and the boys, and see how a blank sketchbook page develops, step-by-step, into a complete sketch!
More Gratitude Sketches
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 […]
Sketchbook Traveling through Tuscany
This is the sketchbook that started it all. My first trip to Italy lit a fire for travel that continues to burn in me today. That trip seven years ago opened my eyes to the wonder and exhilaration of exploring places that are worlds away from my little corner of Pennsylvania. The journal I kept […]
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 […]
Guest Artist: Cathy McCort – 2020 Illustrated!
Get ready to be wowed! My friend Cathy McCort has done it again. She’s completed another year of fun, colorful sketched calendar pages. (See this post for Cathy’s 2019 calendar sketches.) And what a year 2020 turned out to be! Cathy had no idea back in January 2020 that the next twelve months would bring […]
