Plein Air Gouache/Catalina Island

This month I've lived in San Francisco for exactly 18 years! I can hardly believe it's been that long, longer than any other place I've lived. In all that time, I had never visited Catalina Island, 17 miles off the shore of Long Beach, just south of Los Angeles. 

The view from our hotel, especially at sunset, was gorgeous! 

I normally sketch in either pastels or oil, but I didn't want to carry around an easel or heavy materials. Gouache is so easy to pack, light to carry in a backpack, and easy to clean up on site. 

I also started a new sketchbook made of kraft paper. The paper has a nice base tone that I like for gouache, but I don't care for how much it absorbs the pigment. I end up using more paint than I normally would and I never really got clean color in the sky areas. I will continue to fill up this sketchbook, though. I will likely gesso a few pages with a base of casein or acrylic for future sketches. 

Little ticket booth for "submarine" rides out in the bay. I'd love to try it, but we were there to sketch this trip.

The view from the main beach in Avalon. Just a quick sketch before we watched the Kentucky Derby!

The staff told us that on Mondays and Tuesdays cruise ships arrive. There was an uptick in visitors, but even then it wasn't too crowded. 

On our final day, we sat and ate breakfast on the second floor of our hotel, the Vista del Ray. After breakfast, we sat and sketched for awhile. This was our view. I was working pretty quickly on this one, trying to get all the little details recorded.

I hope to come back and do more exploring of the island. It's rather large and apparently there are hiking trails and another small town on the other side. 

Thanks for looking!

Inktober 2017

I'm not really an inking artist, so I thought this year I might try learning. The biggest challenge so far has been getting used to the materials. I've been experimenting with different papers, inks, pens and brushes. 

Also, I wanted to focus on one subject, memento mori. I've lately been looking a lot at medieval art and especially love reliquaries. So beautiful and creepy! 

I usually started with a sketchbook drawing which I then retraced using a lightbox onto new paper (usually using a colerase pencil - my favorite)

I filled in the dark areas with sepia acrylic ink for this one.

But I wanted to see what I could do with the materials, so after I painted the acrylic ink above, I brushed on a thin layer of tan acrylic on top to seal it. I like the way it makes it look more weathered and imperfect. After the acrylic wash was dry, I used pro-white and black gouache to model some tones. 

Not sure I liked the way I drew the drapery on the ghost, BUT I did enjoy this technique a lot.

For this one I was mainly interested in a white shape against a black background. I spattered on some prowhite after it was dry to get a speckled effect in the background. 

Thanks for taking a peek at my inks! Hopefully by next year I'll have learned a few more techniques. I plan to keep trying out various ways to ink throughout 2018. (and continue on a few of my other projects...coming soon!)

Shop Is Officially Open!

Spent some time on Bainbridge Island, Washington, with my dad and step mom. While there I visited Bloedel Nature Reserve almost every day. Brought my pastels with me and did some sketching.

 "Summer Willow Tree, Bloedel Nature Preserve", pastel on paper

"Birch Pines, Bloedel Nature Preserve", pastel on paper

 "Forgotten Voyages", pastel on paper
This old ship is right down the street from my dad's house. I've watched it age over the years. While I was sketching the family that owns it came out and we chatted for a bit. What a great old girl this ship was and still is!

"Japanese Pine, Bloedel Nature Preserve", pastel on paper

Let me just say painting backlighting with pastels is trickly. I felt I could have pushed the contrast more, but the pastels weren't having any of it.

"Morning Willow Tree, Bloedel Nature Preserve", pastel on paper

"Pleasant Beach Afternoon", pastel on paper

"Rich Passage Morning, Bainbridge Island", pastel on paper

My father recently had a few of my paintings framed. I really like the simple mat and framing that his framer recommended. With pastel paintings, the mat needs to be slightly raised off of the surface because of the dust. This looks great and adds some dimension to the piece. I like how the borders of the paintings are exposed although I think they would also look great cropped. Either way - nice job!