birds with John Muir Laws

Sketchbook pages from a 2-hour online class with John Muir Laws. Lots of great tips for drawing birds fast.

You can get a recording of the class, and others, at Wild Wonder Foundation; the classes are pay-what-you-can, which is a beautiful thing.

assateague ponies

                              8x10

Made my reservation to camp at Assateague National Seashore in October. My brother and had camped there every October for about 5 years; had to cancel for one reason or another the last two years! Hoping we make it back this year.

classwork

                                 9x12

Tonight's class with SaltyWater Art. I need the wet in wet practice!

Now that I've painted it, I should paint it again-- faster, looser.

Below, practice paintings to try out color.

sketchbook pages

classwork

                       9x12

This is the 3rd go: all wet in wet and without "correcting."

Here's the 1st try, top, somewhat overworked, and the 2nd, unfinished!

And below is a copy of a painting by Catherine Gill in her great book, Powerful Watercolor Landscapes. I love her paintings and I'm going to try to copy a few more and hopefully learn something from them!

classwork

I missed class with SaltyWaterArt last week so I'm trying to catch up. It was the first week and I'm already a week behind!

I put the first one at the bottom ...First one is overworked: the first strokes were not bad but then I tried to "correct"!

The 2nd is weak: not enough paint. Also true of the 3rd, but I could add to it.

Last is 1st because it turned out best, imo: I used more paint.

seascapes

                       4x6

                       9x12

More painting along with Birgit O'Connor's class on seascapes.

values/shapes

More value/shape studies. Paths to the beach.

These are fun to do; surprisingly relaxing.

cropping

                      cropped

                     original,  5x8

Had some paint left on my palette and some space on my paper and no pencil to hand, and I decided to paint these two gulls from a photo I took without any drawing.

I like the way it turned out, a little wonky....  I will have to try to summon these conditions again.

And here's a crop by my friend Gina, which has a more modern feel to it.

studies

Very loose value studies of a couple of photos I took at Keurners farm in PA last May. In these studies im basically trying to connect shapes by painting the midtones, as recommended by Andy Evansen.

I then added slightly darker washes just for a bit of clarification. 

I like these just the way they are-- they remind me of the paintings of Megan Marsden, with whom ill be taking a class next month.

Below is a little exercise from a different Andy Evansen class I bought through Artefacto.

waves

Catching up on a Birgit O'Connor class I bought awhile back, Expressive Seascapes.

daffodils

And a page of sketches from a London Drawing Group class on Gabrielle Munter.

plein air!

A scene near my home, painted in my sketchbook.

Below: a copy of a Ron Ransen painting. I'm rediscovering Ranson and reslly liking how he simplifies the landscape.

spring blooms!

Feeling the pressure of the spring blooms! Daffodils and tulips in the yard, then I went out and got an Easter Lily!

And the bluebells are coming up!

Tulips painted in my sketchbook while on a zoom call.

daffodils

Feel like I'm not really hitting my stride with the daffodils this year ... maybe I'm putting too much pressure on myself: the daffodils are always highly anticipated!

I hope this week to set up a still life or two featuring daffodils, to paint and to photograph for later painting.

Just bought an Easter Lily so I've gotta get busy on that too!

happy no kings day!

A little playing around before heading out on this cold sunny day. I guess it's a good thing I still have my pussy hat ... though I wish I would have never needed it again.

lemon wreath

                       6x8

                        8x8
A couple of wreaths painted in a zoom class with Megan Swoyer. Always fun and relaxing to paint with Megan.