Sketching outdoors with lots of sunshine and young artists

The weather has finally started warming up and last week I was able to take my younger students outdoors for a sketching adventure. An hour sketching in the sun with ducks, roosters, ponds, flowers and each other was magical.

The young artists were so enthusiastic and started asking me for recommendations on putting together a little sketching kit that they can easily take with them. I am thrilled to see their response to this experience. Developing a habit of visually documenting one's life can be an extremely rewarding, life long habit. 

I believe that through art and play adults and children alike are able to understand their world and to establish connections to different areas in their life. Through art we are better able to understand and appreciate the world around us. 

Below is a list of sketching supplies that I love and recommend for young sketchers. You can click on any item listed to go to a link on Amazon.com.

Sketchbooks

I have really fallen in love with the Stillman & Birn sketchbooks. They come in various categories and sizes. I prefer the:

Alpha (which contains mixed media paper)

I like this larger format (about 8.25 x 11.75) but if you prefer a smaller sketchbook, get that instead! 

Pens

Waterproof ink pens in black ink, in various sizes. Many brands claim to be waterproof but end up smearing and ghosting ink when we paint over them so I prefer the  Black, Pigma Micron Pens which are truly waterproof. It's good to have a variety of pen sizes for various weights of line. I like the:

Black, Pigma Micron Pen 05/.45mm

Black, Pigma Micron Pen 08/.50mm

Watercolor travel palette

I recommend Winsor & Newton Cotman Sketchers' Pocket Box 12-color Half Pan as a starter set. If you are not sure how much you will enjoy sketch booking and don't want to spend much, this set is one of the best for a student level watercolor set.

These travel palettes are small and perfect for sketch booking. 

Watercolor Brushes

I recommend having at least three travel brushes of various sizes. It’s important that they are travel brushes (they will have caps on them so that they don’t get ruined when you put them in your bag).

An affordable and convenient option is the Pentel Arts Aquash Water Brush Assorted Tips, Pack of 3. These brushes can be filled with water and are really convenient. 

Other incidentals for a good sketchbook set are:

A water container (like an empty yogurt container or something more artsy like this Art Advantage Double Water Cup With Lid.

Paper towels

Mechanical pencil (so you don't have to worry about a sharpener)

White Eraser

A little bag to keep all your pens, pencil, erasers and ruler in. I love these little beauties because you can open them and stand up the bag like a cup to hold everything upright while you sketch.

And that's a list of my favorites. Enjoy!

You're invited!

I'm honored to be part of this exhibit and I hope you can stop by and see it. Join me for the Gala opening?!

EXHIBITION:    Women Painters of Washington - In the Neighborhood

LOCATION:      University House Issaquah, 22975 Black Nugget Road, Issaquah, WA 98029

DATES:             May 22nd 2017 - September 24th  

OPENING:        Wednesday  May 24th 5:00 – 7:00pm Gala opening reception with wonderful food, wine, live music, and painting demo!

Upcoming photography exhibit! Iron Horses

I have always had a romance with trains, signs, things that develop a beauty all of their own as they age and wear. The beauty of hard work and purpose. I hope to have captured that beauty in this collection of photographs I took of old trains. Below are a few of the images from my Iron Horses collection.

Iron Horses was exhibited for over a year in a one-person show at the Dayton Historic Depot in Dayton, Washington and for three months as the first ever exhibit to be presented in Seattle's historic Union Station. This series of photographs won a 4Culture grant and will now be on exhibit at my favorite cafe, The Practical Sparrow!

April 23 - May 21, 2017
Practical Sparrow at Country Village (720 238th St SE Suite A, Bothell, WA  98021)

Their hours are:
Monday - Saturday 9am - 4pm
Sunday 10am - 4pm

Please stop by and enjoy the art, the food and the lovely cafe!

“It was totally enjoyable going through your portfolio. You take some very lovely and poetic shots.”            

Suzi Andiman, Editor, www.GreatAmericanStations.com

“Stations, airports, seaports and various locations of transition are wonderful points of personal reflection. 

"Where am I going in life?" "Where did I get off track?" "What do I really want?"

Questions of this sort lead us to search.  This search becomes aspiration if we are surrounded with suggestive beauty.  

And then, one looks up and there is your exhibit.”

Richard Collins, Art Collector, inLingua, Verona, Italy

On my nightstand: Powerful Watercolor Landscapes: Tools for Painting with Impact

I recently read and studied Catherine Gill's Powerful Watercolor Landscapes: Tools for Painting with Impact. This book stands tall above so many instructional art books for so many reasons. It's well written, the explanations are thorough and the examples of Cathe's work showcasing the principles are gorgeous.

I'm actually not much of a landscape painter (although this book has me rethinking that) but the lessons she explains so beautifully apply to all visual arts. She covers principles of simplification, good design, color, and creating with joy.

It's a real thinking artist's book and I loved it.

While reading her book, I kept a sketchbook of notes and exercises I did following along with the book. You can see my sketchbook by clicking here.

Thank you Cathe!

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I send out a newsletter four times a year, to celebrate each season, announce upcoming art news, showcase my favorite projects, supplies, art finds and to let you know about my upcoming classes.

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New course: Watercolors for Beginners!

I’ve been asked by quite a few of you about offering a watercolors workshop for beginners, so here it is!

Watercolors for Beginners 9 Week Workshop for Adults
Wednesdays 10am - 12:30pm  May 3 - June 28, 2017

Discover the magic of watercolor painting! Learn about watercolor paper, paints, brushes, and how to paint in a fun, nurturing atmosphere. Learn to see like an artist, develop basic drawing and brushstroke skills. Discover the value of light and shadow and give your paintings some wow!  

Each of the lessons of our workshop will introduce new ideas and exercises, and techniques.  You will get a creative workout, but in a relaxed, supportive setting, where experimentation and play are encouraged while techniques and observation are emphasized. 

For suggested art supplies, click here. 

These are suggestions and you do not need all of these supplies. For our first class, feel free to bring any watercolor supplies you already have on hand and we will take it from there.

Register by clicking here.

Come learn, explore, and create!

Visit to Catherine Gill's Studio

Today about a dozen of my students and I headed into Ballard to meet Catherine Gill and tour her studio. What a joy! A large space filled with natural daylight, art supplies, art work (some finished, some not), two presses, and shelves of art books!

Cathe is a well known and loved artist, teacher and author of one of the best art books I've studied: Powerful Watercolor Landscapes: 37 tools for painting with impact.

She welcomed us into her studio, told us about her art, the artistic neighborhood and her art process. Cathe autographed our books, let us snoop through her piles of supplies and paintings, and then demonstrated her process of working with watercolors and soft pastels, a process she has named oozing. 

Cathe invited us to come up and give her oozing a try.

Cathe is also well known for her passion for painting on location, regardless of snow, heat, or long hikes. 

Working on location has a real depth of experience that expands my skills and my mind. My outdoor studio ranges from the park near my house, to the industrial area of Seattle where my studio is located, to the Cascade Mountains, which are less than an hour drive from my home. It also extends to China, Montana, Portland, Oregon and Italy. But it could also be out the car window. 

I enjoy working on location. I like what happens with the ideas that are generated when I am out there. New shapes and marks and ideas develop. I might start in the fall standing in front of a forest and painting orange trees, but wind up realizing it is a refuge, that the small animals are starting to hunker down to survive, and the painting then becomes about safe places in hard times.  - Catherine Gill

There is something magical about artists sharing their space, their art, and their supplies with other artists. Thank you Cathe for an inspiring studio visit. It was a joy to spend the afternoon with you.

Art Models 10

There is no subject more challenging nor more rewarding for artists than the human body and face. No art practice will improve an artist's skills more than the practice of observing and capturing human beings.

But setting up a studio and lights, finding models, understanding poses... it's a lot of prep work to get to the part we want to get to: the drawing and painting part. So imagine my excitement when I recently came across Art Models 10  a book filled with beautiful photographs by Douglas Johnson. Douglas launched the Art Models series, full of perfectly lit models in both artistic poses and action poses, with a variety of attitudes and movements.  

It's an inspiration for students, professionals and every artist inbetween.  There are also close ups of facial expressions, model diversity, and  tips for drawing from the reference. And finished artwork created from these images is royalty free!

Here are some sample pages. Then go get your copy!

The best tribute ever to Bob Ross

Robert Norman Ross (October 29, 1942 – July 4, 1995) was an American painter and art instructor, widely known as the creator and host of The Joy of Painting, an instructional television program that aired on PBS from 1983 to 1994 in the United States, Canada, Latin America and Europe. With a soft voice and a permed afro, Ross urged viewers to paint happy clouds and happy trees. 

This little video is a delightful tribute to Bob Ross. And to dogs. Happiness everywhere. 

Dog bless. 

Traveling with a sketchbook

I am often asked, what is the big difference between photographing a trip and sketching it. Carrying my camera comes naturally to me and I’ve taken thousands of travel photos throughout the years. 

Taking photographs literally places the camera between us and what we are experiencing. Taking a photograph takes but a second. We rarely slow down to really look at what is around us when we capture our travels with a camera. We figure, we will look more closely later, when we look through our photos. So we shoot and move on and come home with hundreds of photographs. 

I would return from trips with 100s of photographs but not a lot of vivid memories of what was actually going on when I was taking those photos. I came home with a blur of images and a blur of memories. 

In 2004 I decided to leave my camera at home and travel with a set of art supplies instead. I found that I collected napkins, museum tickets, names of streets, and all manner of details along the way to include in my sketchbook. Details I had not paid much attention to on previous trips. 

At first I worried that I would be slowing down my traveling companions with my collecting and observing and sketching. But pretty soon, family and friends joined in on this new way of exploring what was around us. We started to pay much more attention to everything: the receipts left on tables, train schedules, windows, sounds, people. The textures of traveling. 

Each page I create allows me to live the experiences I have all over again. Whenever I look back through these sketch books, even years later, I am transported back to the ordinary and the exquisite moments of my journeys. This business of sketching gives me a slowed down experience with a deeper sense of place. 

Sketching forces us to sit down and take in a scene. Through sketching, our memories get recorded in a significant way on the page. When I go back through my travel sketchbooks, even many years later, each page brings back lively memories of who was with me, what we were doing, even what we were talking about or listening to at that time.

Keeping a visual travel journal enhances your trip and opens your mind. Even sitting on a plane for hours or waiting in line to get into a museum transforms a tedious event into an enjoyable one if you are sketching.

With a sketchbook in hand, all of a sudden I am inspired to slow down, drink in what’s around me, experience things in a deeper way. It refreshes my eyes and my thinking. I start to see the uniqueness of things, it fills my travels with discovery and wonder. 

Sketching fixes my experiences in my mind. 

So to me the difference between photographing a trip and sketching it is that drawing pushes me to notice details and understand more deeply. Sketching reveals a lot of things I wouldn’t notice with a simple glance or with a snapshot. 

After several trips with my sketchbook, I began taking groups of students on sketchbook workshops around the world. Some of the people who join me are completely new to sketching, while others are professional artists who want to travel with other artists or who want to learn to travel with a sketchbook. 

My hope for participants in my travel workshops is that sketching becomes an exciting way to record their experiences.  A sketchbook can have many roles in an artist’s practice but in traveling, it becomes a great place to observe, annotate, explore, and reflect. 

Most of all I hope it becomes a joyful way to record one’s world. 

My artist retreat at Seaside

I have just returned from what I consider to be a dream week - an artist retreat all to myself. Through a series of events, on Tuesday I found myself on the road, with the blessing of my husband, Dave, friends and family, headed to Seaside, Oregon. 

I had five days to myself, which I spent painting, sketching, journaling, photographing, reading, walking on the beach, and sipping wine in front of a fireplace. 

While it was indulgent, it was also super productive. And relaxing. Full of inspiration, insights, and naps. It was also something I've dreamed about doing for quite a long time. And now that it's done, I wonder "Why did I put it off for so long?"

If you are as fortunate as I have been to have such an opportunity peek at you, stare right back. Say yes! Go!

I'm back home now, with a painting finished, two books read, many pages of a travel sketchbook painted, photos to inspire paintings to come,  and joy in my heart. That's a lot to get out of five days. 

“A ship is always safe at the shore - but that is NOT what it is built for.” ― Albert Einstein

Sketchbook tour: Courses I've Taken & Courses I've Taught

Here is the most recent sketchbook I've completed: 2016, Volume 7. (If you've missed my other sketchbook tours, I posted them in previous blog posts.)

This sketchbook is full of sketches I did in both courses I've taken and courses I've taught in the past few months. 

I hope you enjoy flipping through my sketchbooks. And if you have any comments or questions, don't be shy. For as much as I love painting big watercolor paintings, traveling & sketchbooks are my real source of daily creativity, my inspiration, my joy. I hope you enjoy!

On my nightstand: Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?

I fell in love with a memoir by cartoonist Roz Chast entitled Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? - A Memoir. 

Roz Chast brings wit and total honesty to the topic of aging parents. The memoir spans the last several years of their lives. She tells her story with cartoons, family photos, and a narrative filled with laughs and tears. It is appalling, comforting, and hilarious. 

It is an amazing portrait of two lives at their end and an only child coping as best she can. Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant has a place in my heart.

And if that doesn't convince you, it was a #1 New York Times Bestseller, a 2014 National Book Award Finalist, Winner of the inaugural 2014 Kirkus Prize in nonfiction, Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award , Winner of the 2014 Books for a Better Life Award, and Winner of the 2015 Reuben Award from the National Cartoonists Society.

There are a lot of inspiring stories out there. Go find some. And then share them! We are all interconnected.

Inspirational Books

Looking for a little bit of art inspiration? Here is a list of my favorites to date. If you have other suggestions, let me know!

This list includes books that are inspiring to the creative soul. For a complete list of my favorite art related books (instructional and inspirational), click here.

        The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron

        Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert

        Every Day Matters by Danny Gregory

        Andrea's Book by Andrea Joseph

       Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant?: A Memoir Paperback by Roz Chast  

        The Colors of Us by Karen Katz

        Art & Fear: Observations On the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles  and Ted Orland  

       Shut Your Monkey, How to Control Your Inner Critic and Get More Done by Danny Gregory

My sketchbook addiction

I’ve been painting and photographing for what seems like all my life but the most transformative creative habit I've developed is traveling with a sketchbook.

Back in the '80s when I was getting my degree in Fine Arts, the only use for sketchbooks that I was exposed to was as a work horse for our real artwork, for the artwork with a capital A. I used sketchbooks as a place to better understand my materials, sketch art ideas, or learn techniques by copying the masters.

Over the years I became increasingly intrigued by historical sketchbooks, such as Lewis and Clark’s, or those of naturalists and botanical artists. But it wasn’t until I came across a small book by Danny Gregory entitled Every Day Matters, that I understood the use of sketchbooks as a visual journal of one’s life. In this book Danny Gregory explores his life, the big and the small details of it.

I liked the idea of keeping my own visual journal so I bought a sketchbook, a few pens and a watercolor kit. I carried it with me everywhere, hopeful that I would start to be one of those people who sketches regularly. 

It was about a year before I did my first sketch. 

I was at a restaurant by myself and as I was waiting for my lunch I considered taking outmy supplies and sketching. I noticed no one was paying attention to me. I sketched the salt and pepper shakers and the chips and salsa on the table. And that’s all it took. I’ve been sketching ever since. 

I began to sketch every day moments from my life almost daily. And I began to share my passion about sketching in the watercolor classes and drawing classes I was already teaching. Pretty soon, I started teaching workshops focused on keeping sketchbooks. These are popular classes as people recognize that it is a way to be creative on a regular basis without the pressure of creating “Art.” And that it is a unique way of recording our day to day world.

Sketching everyday moments transforms your relationship with your own life. My kitchen, the waiting room at the doctor's, my sleeping dog, it all becomes beautiful when you slow down to sketch it, or if not beautiful, at the very least, really interesting.

Everything is a discovery when I am drawing it. And I have to be fully present to draw something.

I connect to my life in the  moment I am living it.

And that is really the addiction of keeping a sketchbook of our life.

On my nightstand: Painting Life with Life by Bev Jozwiak

I have just finished reading Bev Jozwiak's Painting Life with Life in Watercolor and do recommend it to anyone interested in adding spontaneity, color, and design improvements to their watercolors of people and animals (and how doesn't want that?).

This is not a book full of step by step lessons but it is full of great advice, examples from Bev's own work, and loads of inspiration. 

I didn't just read this book, I studied it and brought along a dozen students of mine too! We discovered the joy of painting more simple shapes, looser backgrounds, and so much liveliness. 

Below are some of the studies I created following Bev's book. To see a little video I put together of the sketchbook I filled while studying her book, click here.

A-Z!

I made a sketchbook, A - Z Sketchbook, which is the first book I had printed. 

The A-Z Sketchbook, celebrates my love for art, and sketching and watercolors in particular, one letter at a time. Highlighting favorite artists, art history, and personal inspirations, each beautiful page urges us to embrace our own creativity.

You can watch a little video of it by clicking on any of these images! I hope you enjoy.

A copy of this soft cover, 7 x 7 book is available for purchase on my website by clicking here.

Enjoy!

Interview with Chris Beck

A few years ago I had the privilege of interviewing some of my favorite watercolor artists, including the charming Chris Beck! I love the playful story telling and bold colors of her watercolor paintings.

I shared these interviews in the Northwest Watercolor Society newsletters over the years. Now I'm dusting them off and sharing them again, with all of you. These featured artists are some of the rock stars of the contemporary watercolor scene. I hope you find inspiration in these interviews.

For the complete article, just click on the image of the first page of the interview below. Enjoy!

Portrait of Danny

Today I finished my first watercolor painting of 2017, a portrait of our oldest, Danny. What a beauty. And painting this was a joyful way to spend the weekend too. Some paintings are hard. This one just dripped off my brush and onto the paper!

Upcoming art show!

My favorite cafe, The Practical Sparrow, is hosting a solo exhibit of my watercolors!

February 8 - March 10, 2017
Practical Sparrow at Country Village (720 238th St SE Suite A, Bothell, WA  98021)

Their hours are:
Monday - Saturday 9am - 4pm
Sunday 10am - 4pm

Please stop by and enjoy the art, the food and the lovely cafe!