Category: Mixed Media

World Watercolor Month

World Watercolor Month is in the can! It’s done, finished…over…

Crape Myrtle

As I mentioned back in July in my article Quantity-Quality-Or Both, participating in challenges such as World Watercolor Month gives me an opportunity to produce a number of watercolor sketches—quantity. As I reviewed them this weekend I noticed that, as I thought, some were higher quality than others.

I also noticed that as I got closer to finishing the month, quality seemed to go down…until that LAST painting. My first painting last month for World Watercolor Month was the Crape Myrtle on the left.

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Sky Studies

One of Two-Wet on Wet vs Wet on Dry

This week I spent some time working on sky studies. Clouds and sunsets, colors and techniques to improve my landscapes.

Prompted by World Watercolor Month for clouds last week, I decided to spend more time getting to know skies a bit more. After all, I’ve spent a lot of time up there and I certainly have seen some beautiful skies.

Two of two Wet-on-Dry

Steve Mitchell, The Mind of Watercolor, had a good tutorial on clouds the other day working in both wet-on-wet and wet-on-dry techniques. As you can see in these to photographs each has its own merits depending upon the affect I’m trying to achieve. Naturally I didn’t want to waste the paint and time so what do we to with two cloud/sky studies? We add a landscape of course!

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A Peek Behind the Curtain

First layer…somewhat loose

I thought I’d give everyone a bit of a peek behind the curtain this week when it comes to my paintings and sketches.

On the right is my first layer of a painting I did for #worldwatercolormonth sponsored by www.doodlewash.com, whose daily prompt was “Blossoming”. As this is a “loose” painting, meaning I’m not trying to make it a photo-quality work, I used a large quill brush on 300# cotton paper. The idea is to just get a rough outline of the subject.

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Of Pen & Ink

Pink Crape Myrtle

I like to experiment with different techniques of pen & ink. Recently I bought a dip pen with several nibs and went to work on a couple of botanical studies.

On the Pink Crape Myrtle painting to the left I penciled in the overall outline before going to the pen & ink. Usually when I’m using a fountain pen I tend to just draw out the sketch without first penciling in the outlines.  Freely inking the sketch forces me to concentrate more as I draw my subject. Continue reading Of Pen & Ink

Arizona Landscapes

Our visit to Bryce Arboretum last month included some stunning landscapes.

I decided to experiment a bit and went larger than I usually paint; this time 8×10 rather than 5×7. The combination of mountains in the background, trees and bushes in the mid-ground  and yucca trees/plants in the foreground gave me a chance apply wash first rather than adding wash after the pen & ink. Continue reading Arizona Landscapes

A Walk Through the Arboretum

Last month Ilene and I got up early the day after attending our niece’s wedding and drove out to Bryce Arboretum our way into Phoenix.

What a joy to walk through this island in the desert filled with plants able to live in the harsh Sonora-Arizona Desert. We spent about three hours wandering the paths taking photos of plants, trees, and landscapes.

I also spent at least two hours cursing myself for not bringing my sketchbook and paints with me…argh! Oh well, at least we have photos.

This painting is of one of the red agave plants that had bloomed and was beginning to lose the rich red flowers it bears at the height of the bloom.  The original of this work is 5 x 7 on Arches paper and is for sale for $49.99 or if you’d like a print please contact me by leaving a comment below.

Thanks for visiting! Now go make some art!