The World is Full of Greens!

This is the time of year when you might feel inspired to go outdoors to paint.  Once outside, you may wonder, "How do I make all of those greens?!"

Consider creating your own library of greens like the one above.

I have a small palette for outdoor painting adventures.  It contains:

Ultramarine Blue (warm) & Phthalo Blue (cool).

Azo Yellow (warm) & Winsor Lemon Yellow (cool).

Yellow Ochre & Burnt Sienna (warm earth tones).

Look at the wide array of greens above I can make with those colors!

I paired each of my blues with each of my yellows.  I painted a swatch of the blue at one end, and painted the rest of the band in yellow.  Then I made a puddle of the yellow in my mixing tray, and began adding dabs of blue.  After each dab of blue, I swatched the green onto the spectrum, so the greens get progressively more blue going to the right.

I also mixed Phthalo Blue with Burnt Sienna to create a rich, pine green.

Give this a try! You'll end up with a great reference sheet of greens you can mix to paint your next sketch or painting.

Out on Raccoon Creek State Park Lake, painting the morning sun shining through the trees, my experience mixing colors came in handy.

Happy Creating!

If at First You Don't Succeed, Try, Try Again!

It's the season of Plein Air painting, or painting outdoors in the fresh air.

Inspired by this scene on my farm, I set up my watercolor paints & pochade box.

I started with a sketch in pencil, added India ink, and then layered in washes.  

But when the painting was done, I didn't like it! Too many details competed with each other to attract your eye!  The background trees were so detailed, the whole thing looked like camouflage.  I tried to simplify the background by laying in a darker wash, but the result was cartoonish.

Of course, there are parts I love, like the little greenhouse and the dead tree, but as a composition, it just doesn't work.

As hard as that is to accept, there is power in looking critically at your own artwork.  When you see precisely what you don't like -- too many details -- you can create another painting and fix that problem.

Here's the second version of this scene.

I worked quickly, sketching in only the greenhouse angles lightly with pencil.  I abstracted the background trees into light and dark patches, and took out the dead tree because it competed with the greenhouse. 

When you're painting with watercolor, having a plan going in helps tremendously!  And when painting landscapes, the first step is to abstract all of those details, and pick what is most important to you -- what draws your artist's eye?

Allowing yourself several paintings to develop your ideas is freeing.  

Harsh self judgement is a lead weight on our creativity, but looking at our artwork with a discerning eye for what we love and what isn't successful gives us the power to improve.

Remember: Every painting teaches you something.

Do you have a painting that didn't work?  Why not make a plan for how you'd like to fix it? Hard won success feels uplifting and leads to more discoveries.

Happy Creating!

Baltimore Orioles & Mixing Greens in My Nature Journal

A hike down to the state park lake on a quiet Monday afternoon felt magical with the sunlight streaming through the new leaves.  Birdsong everywhere brightened my spirits.

Reaching the lake, I immersed myself in sketching the bushes on the far side of the lake.  The late afternoon sun lit their foliage, picking them out from the shadowy hillside background.

I first drew with a permanent Faber Castell Pitt pen.  When the ink had dried, I painted in washes of sap green and a cooler green made from Hooker's green and French ultramarine blue.  I mixed up a few different greens:

• Yellow Ochre added to the blue green mixture dulled it a bit.
• Winsor lemon mixed with sap green brightened it for the weeds along the shoreline on the right.
• Phthalo blue mixed with burnt Sienna created the deep forest green in the hillside behind the bushes
• I occasionally added some sap green to the phthalo blue-burnt Sienna mix to alter the hue in the background
• The ripples in the water were made with the phthalo blue & burnt Sienna mixture. I used more burnt Sienna to make brown-green lake water.  

After I had finished painting the lake scene, I noticed a male Baltimore Oriole perched in a sapling just 12 feet away! I sketched him in pen as he sat in different positions.

His plumage was so intensely orange, I used a technique called glazing to recreate the glowing orange color of his feathers in the sunshine.  With glazing, you layer in a bright, often light color underneath another wash.  Painting in layers and letting each layer dry, creates a bolder effect than simply mixing all the colors together at once. 

Here, I painted a wash of warm azo yellow and let it dry.  Then I brushed in a mix of azo yellow and warm Pyrrol red. Yellow is often the color I use in glazing beneath other layers for bright leaves, bold birds, or colorful flowers. Yellow adds a sunny effect, and the finished painting seems to glow.

I hope you take some time to play with your art supplies this week and try out these techniques!

Happy Creating!

Spring Sassafras Leaves in Watercolor

Out on a walk around my farm, I was stopped in my tracks by the beauty of sunlight pouring through these sassafras leaves lighting them up like stained glass windows.

Back in my studio, I sketched the leaves in ink, then added color with watercolors. 

 Isn't it beautiful how each of us is attracted to something different to draw or paint out in the world?

What do you love to look at?  That's the thing to draw or paint!

Happy Creating!

Watercolor Sketching in the Flower Garden

The season has begun when we can sit outside by a flower garden and make watercolor sketches. 

The pages above were in my garden at home, and below were from Highland Park in Pittsburgh.

Pick your favorite medium, whatever feels best in your hand, and get outside to explore what nature is doing in the garden!

Remember, you can do anything in a sketchbook.  Have no expectations of making "perfect pictures." You're an explorer, and your pencil, pen or brush is your tool for making discoveries.  

If you decide that a sketch didn't work out, turn the page!  

If you don't have a few pages that look like a total mess, you're not trying hard enough.

Here are a few of my recent messy pages that I chalk up to experience.

Each of these were practice and taught me something. The one above taught me that rainy days can make for low-contrast, dull paintings.

The sketch below reminded me that when I'm in a rush and very excited to see a wild turkey in my yard, I'm not at my best as a sketch artist.

The rest of these are just warm-up practice.

It's a normal part of sketching to make some inelegant drawings.

I find it freeing to accept these messy pages as part of the process and move on.

Happy Creating!

Spring Nature Journal: Hiking in Raccoon Creek State Park

Isn't it a beautiful season to hike the woods and carry along a nature journal?  You never know what you'll find.

Stopping for a water break on a recent hike, I spotted this large and curious looking beetle resting on a stump.

It looked like a giant version of the familiar click beetle, one of those black, flat-ish beetles that flip into the air and make an audible click to escape when caught. 

An internet search showed that indeed it was an Eastern Eyed Click Beetle, and that its young eat an abundance of the wood-boring insects that damage hardwood trees. 

In my eyes, that makes this beautiful beetle is a hero!

We also found loads of Great White Trilliums blooming in the woods along the trail, and watched as a Scarlet Tanager warbled just 13' away from us in a sapling.  I didn't dare reach for my nature journal. I didn't want to scare away this magical bird.  

I've been keeping a nature journal for over 25 years, and it's still exciting to sketch and write about nature in my journal.

Would you like to learn more about keeping a nature journal?  I invite you to join me for a Nature Journaling class at the Community College of Beaver County in July.  You can read about and register for the class here:

https://ccbc.coursestorm.com/course/nature-journaling-washington-county2

Happy Creating! 

New Watercolor Techniques Video!

 

I'm looking forward to teaching a Nature in Watercolor Workshop for Beginners for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.  In preparation for the workshop, I created a short video on exploring watercolor techniques.  

The workshop registration is currently full, but the video is publicly available on my YouTube channel.  I hope you'll check it out, and paint along with me!

If you'd like to join Osher at Carnegie Mellon University to have access to a wide variety of wonderful classes, you can follow this link:

https://www.cmu.edu/osher/about/index.html

Happy Creating!

Nature Journaling Class at Raccoon Creek State Park

At the end of April, I led a class in Nature Journaling for Beginners at the Wildflower Reserve at Raccoon Creek State Park.  We had a wonderful day -- sunny and warm with loads of wildflowers blooming.

When I arrived at the Wildflower Reserve before class, I warmed up with a quick sketch of Virginia Bluebells, and even watched a hummingbird hawkmoth -- a moth that looks and moves like a hummingbird --  drink nectar from the flowers while I drew!

It was so quick, and I was a bit flummoxed, but here are my quick sketches of this amazing moth.

During class, we found tons of different plants in bloom in the wooded outdoor classroom behind the nature center.

I also found a blister beetle, a large and beautifully iridescent beetle slowly crawling through a rotting log on the forest floor. When picked up, these beetles exude an oily substance that causes blisters.

After class, I walked through the floodplain area and found more gorgeous wildflowers like this Toadshade Trillium and some Jack-in-the-Pulpit.

What a magical day to find so much beauty!

If you'd like to take a Nature Journaling class with me, I'll be leading one at the Community College of Beaver County in July.  You can read more about it and register for class here:

https://ccbc.coursestorm.com/course/nature-journaling-washington-county2

Here are a few photos I snapped.  I hope they'll inspire you to make sketches!

And I hope you get a chance to take your art supplies outside to create in nature.

Happy Creating! 

Line & Wash: Apple Blossoms

Spring has been springing abundantly around here!  My favorite apple tree bloomed recently, and I snapped this photo with a Sony RX-10 IV.

I created this watercolor sketch from the photo above.

And finished up by adding textural lines and definition with a Faber Castell Pitt pen.  Sometimes when I create with the line & wash technique, I draw with the permanent pen first, then add splashes of color.  

If you feel inspired by the photo above, I hope you'll use it to create a drawing or painting!

Happy Creating!

Spring Details in my Nature Journal

I love to hike and pick up natural treasures along the way, then sketch them in my nature journal. I find that it's the details in the landscape, like those above, that appeal to my artist's eye and tell the story of what's happening.

I sketched with my Lamy Safari fountain pen, then added watercolors from my travel kit.

What stories is the land telling you right now?

I hope you get a chance to record them in your nature journal!

Happy Creating! 

New Watercolor Swatching Video

I'm looking forward to teaching a Nature in Watercolor Workshop for Beginners for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.  In preparation for the workshop, I created a short video on getting to know your watercolors and brushes through swatching. 

The workshop registration is currently full, but the video is publicly available on my YouTube channel.  I hope you'll check it out, and paint along with me.

If you'd like to join Osher at Carnegie Mellon University to have access to a wide variety of wonderful classes, you can follow this link:

https://www.cmu.edu/osher/about/index.html

Happy Creating!

Watercolor Sketching in my Nature Journal

I have an artist friend who says of the mid-summer greenery, "It's all the same green."

That's not our situation now, with spring dawning, and the tree canopy changing daily!

I've been trying to capture this process in my nature journal with watercolor sketches. After the winter, it's endlessly fascinating to me to sketch spring progressing in the natural world.

What's developing in your world right now?  Can you track its progress in your nature journal with a sketch every day or two?  A progressive study of something you're fascinated with builds your sketching skills and helps to establish a flow in your creative life.

Do you ever feel like creating but lack a direction?  Finding some natural process -- seasons changing, seedlings growing, flowers blooming, birds raising their young, tadpoles developing -- can help set a creative course for you to relax into.  You learn more about what interests you, and generate more ideas about what to focus on with your artwork.

In sunlight, you can see the texture in the Canson XL 140# watercolor paper.  Because the paper in my nature journal is made for dry media only, I cut watercolor paper to fit my nature journal and tuck a small stack in my book.  I can clip a piece of paper on the front of my journal and paint, then tape it into the journal with masking tape.

Happy Creating!