My husband tossed a key on the kitchen counter and said, “I guess we don’t need this anymore.” It was a key for Summerhill, our hilltop home for the past twenty-two years. I picked it up, and a flood of memories washed over me. Sunrises and sunsets, summer evenings on the porch, birthday parties, Christmas […]
Tag: Lettering
Biding Their Time…
Do you remember the beautiful gardens I had at Summerhill? I do. I’m reminded of them every day when I look out the windows of our new house and see nothing but a sea of mud in every direction. The contrast to the views I had last spring is hard to ignore. I remember the […]
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 […]
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 […]
Three-View Rhododendron Sketch
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
