I’ve been working hard to finish up some of the unpainted sketches I brought home from my Italy trip last fall. Here’s a composite page I did the day we visited the medieval hilltop village of Certaldo alto… Since I taught two week-long workshops at Fattoria Bacio this past year, I had two visits to […]
Category: Sketching
Fun in the Mountains – Our Winter Painting Retreat in WV
Our winter painting getaway at Stonewall Resort in West Virginia was a huge success! Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at our time together… Stonewall Resort, Roanoke, WV Eighteen of us gathered to paint and relax for three days with nothing more to worry about than what to order for lunch. We had a cozy meeting room […]
Chapel Sketch + GIVEAWAY
This is one of my favorite sketches so far in my 2016 Tuscany travel journal… 10″ x 7″, ink & watercolor in a Handbook Field Watercolor Journal I had pre-painted the page earlier with watery washes of blue, yellow, and burnt sienna and let it dry thoroughly. I did a little bit of planning for […]
Best Friends Sketch + GIVEAWAY
There is plenty to smile about when staying at Fattoria Bacio, where my workshop was held last September and October. There are the incomparable views, of course… and the historic buildings… the vineyards… the olive groves… the pool… the chapel… and the sketch-worthy scenes everywhere you look… But the one thing that not only made […]
Tuscan Hills Sketch + GIVEAWAY
It felt good to finally arrive at Fattoria Bacio and have a chance to settle in for two full weeks. Home Sweet Home…temporarily We made it! It was as beautiful as ever… And there were just as many cats as last year, if not more. Kitties routinely get dropped off at Fattoria Bacio, and the […]
“Too Much Luggage” Sketch + Paintbrush and Holder GIVEAWAY
After a day and a half of traveling to Italy from the US, and two and a half days in Cinque Terre, it was finally time to move on to Florence and then to Fattoria Bacio, in Certaldo, where I would teach two week-long sketching workshops. My friends Cindy and Carol watch the scenery going […]
Manarola Sunset Sketch + GIVEAWAY
I’m glad I took the time to journal on this trip to Italy. It does take some effort to make time to write things down each day, but it’s amazing how quickly we forget the details if we don’t record them in some way. Each day blurs into the next and you can’t rmember where […]
Vernazza Sketch + GIVEAWAY
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 […]
Manarola Harbor Sketch + GIVEAWAY!
I have a week’s worth of Italy sketches to share with you, but rather than post them all at once, I thought it might be fun to spread them out over the next seven days and give you seven chances to win some brand spankin’ new art supplies for yourself. I’ll tell you all about […]
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 […]
