In September 2015, I’ll be teaching a four-day workshop called “Sketchbook Journaling in Nature” at Touchstone Center for Crafts. Touchstone is a residential learning center located in the Appalachian mountains about 60 miles south of Pittsburgh. We’ll be visiting during one of the prettiest times of the year and will have plenty of opportunities to […]
Category: Sketching
Out & About
One of the homework assignments I give my sketchbook journaling students is to paint a variegated wash on a sketchbook page without any thought as to what they might decide to draw later on the page. Then, after the wash dries, they are to begin their sketches, using the earlier wash as a unifying color […]
Blue Hydrangeas
My hydrangeas barely bloomed at all this year. The winter of 2014 was so harsh that every one of my hydrangea bushes died back, and it took all summer for them to recover and reach any size at all. Two of them began to blossom around the end of August and are now covered with […]
Adapting What You See…It’s Your Artistic Prerogative!
This painting of a Tudor house was one of my reserve paintings during the Mount Lebanon Plein Air event. I sketched it on a sunny day last summer, sitting on my little three-legged stool across the street from it, then finished up a lot of the details back home in my studio. But as you’ll […]
Plein Air Painting #3 – “Mount Lebanon Doors”
My favorite painting from my week of painting en plein air is this one, “Mount Lebanon Doors.” 8″ x 10″, ink & watercolor on Canson Montval 140 lb. paper It’s laid out in a gridded design, just like the ones I use on my sketchbook pages. The subjects are four of the prettiest front entries […]
Plein Air Paintings #1 & 2
I survived Mount Lebanon Plein Air 2014! The week was exciting, challenging, and exhausting, but a great experience for me. I made some new friends and was inspired by all the beautiful artwork that was produced. Because I had several prior commitments that week, my painting time was limited, but I completed four plein air […]
Plein Air Mt. Lebanon 2014
I’m keeping my fingers crossed for good weather the next few days, because I’m going to be painting outdoors all week long. Beginning this Sunday, I’ll be participating in Plein Air Mt. Lebanon 2014, a week-long event taking place on the streets of Mt. Lebanon, PA, and in the greater Pittsburgh area. Twenty-five artists from […]
September Garden
With the cooler days we’re having now, I was feeling a little sad to see summer on its way out. I really enjoy all the flowering shrubs and perennials that brighten up our yard in the summertime, and I’m just not ready to say goodbye to them yet. Then I started looking a little closer […]
Mushroom Sleuthing
I was on a quest. A mushroom quest. As I rambled through the woods, I had noticed a few colorful little gems peeking out from under the carpet of dried brown leaves beneath my feet, and that only made me want more. Aquabee Super Delluxe sketchbook, 9″ x 12″, watercolor and Sakura Pigma Micron 01 […]
Step-by-Step Watercolor: Lake Scene
I visited my mother last week at Alpine Lake, West Virginia, and while I was there spent a wonderfully relaxing couple of hours following the walking trail that meanders through the woods along the shoreline. There are so many pretty, sketch-worthy scenes, but I finally chose this one: Stillman & Birn Zeta series sketchbook, 7″ […]
