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Adding Color Pencil to the Sketchbook
This month I am taking a dive into color pencils. I recently started a class with Cynthia Armstrong where we are learning the techniques of color pencil and the use of color pencil on various types of paper. The art color pencil was invented in 1924 by Faber Castell and Caren d’Ache. It is known…
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Color of Bird Feathers
As I continue lessons in watercolor painting of Shorebirds with Ian de Hoog, our bird subjects these past weeks brings color of feathers to mind. The colors in the feathers of a bird are formed in two different ways, from either pigments or from light refraction caused by the structure of the feather. www.allaboutbirds.org Of…
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Birds Eye
I am back in class with Ian de Hoog painting birds, specifically Shore Birds. I have found that Ian’s unrelenting focus in his bird painting process – on the bird head and specifically the birds ‘eye’ makes this class a wonderful learning platform for watercolor techniques.
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More Landscape Color
Progress has been made in my understanding of successful watercolor landscape. Sarah Hansen has kept us on track in learning techniques for sky, mid-ground, fore-ground and today total composition. Included are
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Landscape Color
Is watercolor landscape really that difficult? … YES! I am taking a class with Sarah Hansen- Watercolor Landscapes Deconstructed online via Winslow Art Center. Check our Sarah’s work here or Instagram here. My comment after the first session on clouds was that it’s going to take 1000 hours of practice to achieve that fresh painterly…
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Vegetable Color Wheel
This week’s watercolor sketching subjects quickly became a healthy meal. Before becoming a meal, the vegetables were a great way to revisit basic color mixing and elementary, easily overlooked watercolor practices – Keep your water clean. Keep your colors clean. Keep your highlights. The veggie motivation came courtesy of a Jean Mackay class via Winslow…
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The Color of Maps
The next few posts are going to include how color was introduced to the genre of maps and charts. The earliest maps were used for storytelling and wayfinding on land and at sea. Military planning and plant hunting were specialized areas using early colored maps. In the 1780s the profession of ‘topographic artist’ was introduced.…
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Getting Started
When starting the watercolor sketch for this post it was to explore the three watercolors that made it onto my palette when I first started watercolor. The plant I chose to sketch is – Akebia quinata or 5-Leaf Vine. Synchronicity set in … it was 5 years ago that I took my first ‘encore’ /…
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Around The Table
The Art of Painting Food is a class I recently completed with Jane Barton. Barton took us through sketchbook exercises to examine our food likes/dislikes, a favorite memory of food and we took a dive into food archeology. Great class with fellow food sketchers!
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Something Different
Introducing a new way to look at getting an artistic idea on to the page is my message this week. My preference is watercolor and pen but occasionally I step boldly into trying new techniques and media to see what happens and what I can learn [and remember]. Two classes have helped me try Something…
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Lettering Lesson
Adding words to a sketch is a good practice to understand so Jean Mackay provided us with a few tips for hand-lettering during the Nature Sketching workshop in Italy. I am not much for adding phrases into my work but some simple steps for making lettering look polished were welcome. We spent about 20 minutes…
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Lessons Learned
After a week of staying at a stunning castle in Italy with the camaraderie of a dozen like minded watercolor sketchers now is a good time to reflect on lessons learned… and to imprint those lessons into my daily sketch routine. This was a Winslow Arts Center workshop; Nature Sketching in Italy with Jean Mackay.…
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