Watercolor Sketches on a Lake

Over the weekend, my husband and I rented a pontoon boat at the Raccoon Creek State Park Boat Rental.  The weather was gorgeous and sunny.  

As we motored slowly around the lake, I made slapdash sketches of the scenery.  Above is the boat rental seen from the water, with colorful kayaks stacked up along the shore.

The sunlight and cloud shadows created beautiful effects on the trees and forests surrounding the lake.  The distant hillside was in a cloud shadow, while sunlight shot through the near trees on the left.  Days when the lighting is dramatic like this, I love to create art that zooms in on these high contrast areas.  

In artworks, areas of contrast attract the viewer's eye and create visual interest.  You can capture boldly contrasting values and colors to create a more dramatic composition.  

For instance, greens and yellows dominate this painting of the boat rental.  The red & blue-violet kayaks along the shore catch the eye because they contrast with the colors around them.

When I started painting these two scenes, my only goal was to play with my paints for the joy of it. I simply was present in the moment, exploring with my brush.

Trusting the process and going out to sketch, you make discoveries, try experiments, and find new ideas to explore.

As messy as these sketches are, I love them.  They represent a snapshot of the afternoon -- an escape to the lake with David on a gorgeous afternoon.

 Sketching in this way can foil the inner critic's voice -- you know, that voice within us that demands we make masterpieces.  

Our job in sketching is simply to "take notes" on the scene before us.  We are focusing on ways to represent what we find fascinating in the world.  We are not bound by reality.   As artists, we are not cameras!  We can omit parts of the scene, change colors, remove trees, or whatever we want!

Remember: When you are sketching, your job is to explore what you find fascinating.  If you do that, you have succeeded, no matter what your sketchbook looks like to anyone else.  

I hope you'll take lots of opportunities to make sketches this autumn!

Happy Creating!

Nature Treasures and a Nature Journaling Class!

My studio is chock-full of twigs, feathers, acorns and other natural treasures picked up on walks.  Eventually, these bits get dusty & crumbly, so I return everything to the wild.  

When I collect drawings of these treasures, I get to keep them tucked away in my nature journal in their fresh, dust-free state.

I also get the experience of slowing down, immersing myself in nature, and drawing in my nature journal.

I made this sketch on a recent hike in Raccoon Creek State Park.  It's lovely to open my nature journal and bring back memories of that day and of making discoveries in the woods.

Would you like some inspiration and instruction on nature journaling?

I hope you'll join me for an in-person Nature Journaling class at the Raccoon Creek State Park Wildflower Reserve on Sunday, April 12th, 2026, from 1-4 PM. Cost is $15.

You can register here:

https://events.dcnr.pa.gov/event/nature-journaling-3974

The Love of Tiny Things in Nature

I find myself drawn to the tiny things in nature like small flowers, acorns, insects, & fungi. 

I spotted these beautiful shelf fungi on a recent walk through the Widlflower Reserve at Raccoon Creek State Park and snapped photos with my phone.

Back in the studio, I made a light pencil sketch on a piece of watercolor paper, using the photo above for a reference.  I added layers of washes.  After the first washes were dry, I added some pen and ink marks with my fountain pen

I added more watercolor details using a small round brush.  And, I used a bit of white gouache for highlights here and there.

I finished the 5"x 7" painting with a few colored pencil details.

Realizing that tiny things inspire me helps me to focus my art on the things I love.  

I enjoy hiking in the park, snapping reference photos.  The paintings I make back at home feel like a celebration of my time in nature.  They capture a memory of a place I love.

What do you love?  What inspires you? 

I hope you paint or sketch it to deepen your enjoyment of it.

Happy Creating!

Bluebird Nature Journal Update: Autumn Colors

Here's a glimpse of my day off to hike the woods and sketch.  I traveled in my EV Bluebird to Raccoon Creek State Park, where I added another entry into my Bluebird Nature Journal.  You can read the backstory to this journal in this post: 

https://betsyblissart.blogspot.com/2024/11/turning-my-art-into-stickers.html

Above is the accordion fold journal, now halfway filled, and below is the scene I painted.

You can see that I intensified the colors a bit in my painting.  Remember that as an artist, you are not a camera! You may omit parts of the scene, simplify it, or even change the colors as you choose. Let your intuition guide you.

I started with a quick pencil sketch, then splashed in the overcast sky and the colorful foliage around the cabin.  When that dried a bit, I painted the little cabin using a mixture of burnt sienna and ultramarine blue.  Touching in a bit of sap green to the roof expressed the moss. 

I used the same blue-brown mixture to paint in the tree trunks.  You can add more burnt sienna to make the mixture more brown, or use more ultramarine to get a steely blue-gray.  It's a very useful combination!

You can create your own journals by cutting a large sheet of paper into long horizontal segments, then folding them to make the page size you like. Large pieces of 140# watercolor paper work well for this. 

I used a 12" x 18" sheet of 140# Canson XL watercolor paper to make the Bluebird Nature Journal, cutting it in half lengthwise to make two elongated strips.  I folded each strip in half, then into quarters and glued two ends of the accordion folded strips together to make it extra long. I made covers out of blue mat board and glued them to each end.

I hope you give this journal-making technique a try and fill it with your creative explorations!

Happy Creating!

Photo Nature Walk in Raccoon Creek State Park

I took a nature walk in Raccoon Creek State Park last Saturday morning with my Sony RX 10 mark 4 camera.  It was exciting to see nature up close, and I thought you might like to make sketches, paintings or other art from these photographs.  Here are my favorites from the day.

An Ebony Jewelwing Damselfly perched on a leaf down by the creek.

A Sphinx Moth found nectar on a bergamot blossom.

Butterfly weed attracted a bunch of different pollinators.

Maidenhair ferns caught a sunbeam in the shadowy woods.

A woodland spiderweb in the morning sunshine.

A dead tree still provides homes for wildlife, and for moss and lichens.

I hope you have fun creating from these photos!

Happy Creating!

Nature in Watercolor Workshop for Beginners!

On Friday, May 30th, I led a Nature in Watercolor Workshop for Beginners for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.  We met at Raccoon Creek State Park, and began the day with an introduction to what watercolors do -- how they flow and spread on paper.

We tested out our brushes, paints and paper.

We shared our favorite supplies.

We explored how to mix greens to match the world outside.

The best way to learn how to paint with watercolors is to experiment with them -- mixing colors, splashing down water & paint, and testing the effects of different brushes.

I loved the way everyone was supportive of each other.

We went outdoors to find subjects to paint and sketch.

What a wonderful feeling to sit in the peace of nature and create!

Everyone found their quiet nook to sketch in.

We returned to the Recreation Hall to share our sketches.

Everyone encouraged their classmates.

  Seeing others' artwork inspired the rest of us.

After lunch, we talked about simplifying the landscape, then played with our paints some more.

I demonstrated how to clean watercolor brushes,

 and we had a final sharing session to admire each others' work.

Many thanks to -- 

the ladies who took part in the session, 

Osher for organizing the class, &

David for his help setting up, schlepping stuff, and being our photographer!

If this looks interesting to you, I hope you'll join me for an art class in the future.

In July, I'm teaching a Monday night Nature Journaling class at the Community College of Beaver County starting July 7th.  You can register and find out more here:

https://ccbc.coursestorm.com/category/arts

Scroll down to Nature Journaling or click here:

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

Happy Creating!

New Mini Nature Journal

I've begun a new concertina nature journal made out of 300 lb cold press Stonehenge watercolor paper.

On a cold afternoon in late November, David took his camera bag and I grabbed my mini nature journaling kit, and we popped out to the state park for some creative time.  Being out in the 20-degree weather forced me to draw quickly and finish my art back in the warmth of my studio.

Above is the reference photo I used to help me flesh out my drawing, and below is my mini watercolor kit.

I started with a wet-in-wet wash of ultramarine blue for the sky, then added in tree shapes with ultramarine blue mixed with burnt umber.  Yellow ochre created the general rock color.  You can see where my impatience in not waiting to let the sky dry before I worked in the trees caused some of the colors to bloom into each other.  I decided to leave it that way and not scrub out the "mistake."

I added some roots with a light gray Caran D'Ache Neocolor II crayon.  I like the way those crayons work right over top of darker values, and you can move the pigment with water if you like.

A final wash of burnt umber and ultramarine blue mixed to make a chocolate brown bark color to darken the main tree trunk.  I used a very dark mixture of the two to create the grooves in the bark.

Working small and quickly creates a magic of its own, allowing you to focus in on one small portion of the larger scene.  

I hope you give mini journals a try!

Happy Creating

Paddle, Picnic and Paint

David & I capitalized on a beautiful late summer day to take our inflatable paddle boards out to the state park lake.  We packed in lunch and my travel art supplies.  

As we drifted on the lake, I found the gorgeous Sugar Maple leaf on the left. After we ate lunch, I sketched the contours of the leaf with my Lamy fountain pen.

I began to lay in watercolors with a layer of warm and cool yellows (Winsor Yellow and Cadmium Yellow Hue).  

After that dried, I began adding in cool reds (bottom left of the leaf) mixed with Alizarin Crimson and Burnt Sienna.  On the right and upper parts of the leaf, I mixed warmer reds with Cadmium Red Hue and Cadmium Yellow Hue.  

The few touches of green were created by mixing Winsor Yellow and Ultramarine Blue. A mix of Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Sienna made the shadows.

Spending time outdoors in a peaceful natural place just to take in the scene instills calm and serenity for me.  I notice that adding the layer of drawing and painting to my nature time slows me down as I focus on one facet of the scene.  The meditative stillness magnifies the benefits of nature for me.

I hope you get some time out in nature to make art and connect with nature.  

Happy Creating!