A Spotlight on Nature Workshop in Seattle with Virginia Hein and Gail L. Wong

In celebration of our new book, Virginia Hein and Gail Wong will be giving a workshop focusing on some of the concepts and techniques presented in this new Urban Sketching Handbook.  Come join us for a weekend workshop July 29-31,  2022.  

Friday evening will be a meet and greet event, introducing the ideas we will be exploring over the weekend.  Saturday we will be sketching at the Seattle Chinese Garden in West Seattle.

Sunday we will be sketching at the Ballard Locks and working on visual story telling in a concertina format.  

If you are interested email Gail Wong.  See flyer for email address.

SNEAK PEEK AT THE URBAN SKETCHING HANDBOOK: SPOTLIGHT ON NATURE

 

Outside cover and inside liner cover art work.   

Table of Contents

Page from the first chapter key.

Discussion on Color and location.

Just a few pages from our new book coming out at the end of May 2022.  Hopefully this will entice you to purchase the book.  We have some great information about drawing and painting nature and things to consider when sketching out doors.  

Take advantage of our Preorder Campaign which is running through March 31st, 2022.  If you preorder,  submit your confirmation number and required information you will be part of the gift give away drawing with the potential to win 1 of 10 gift packets.  

Go to  https://quarto.com/campaign/Spotlight-on-Nature-Preorder   for more information and links to book dealers who are selling the books.  

Accordion Style Sketchbook

These were dramatic sky paintings done both during and after taking Cynthia Armstrong's Experimental Landscape class.  I created an accordion style book using the painted watercolors as interior pages and made a hard cover using museum mat board with an abstract painting as cover art.  I used the palette colors that were left on my palette to create the cover art.  I will work up a blog post about how to do this, soon I promise.

 

Experimental Landscapes: Abstraction, Playing with Multimedia

The third week of the watercolor class through Winslow Art Center and taught by Cynthia Armstrong was about playing with multi media, watercolor, resists, using granulating mediums and ink as well as playing with different mark making tools.

Here I used a candle to create a resist and then applied water wash before adding watercolor.  The credit card is dipped in pigment and used to make marks on the page. 

Just playing with mark making using a wax candle.  The base was a wash of clear water and Brusho crystals sprinkled on the water wash.  Then watercolor applied on top with a brush as well as credit card.

Granulating medium used as a base,  then wet watercolor washes or brush strokes applied.  Stroke of the brush dipped into the granulation medium can be seen as white blooms.

Granulation medium as a base, ink, watercolor, graphite pencil,  rubber palette mark making tool.

Preorder-Sale 25% off on SpotLight on Nature until January 1/27/2022 through Barnes & Noble

Preorder sale of Spotlight On Nature ends 1/28/2022.  Unfortunately we just found out about this today.  So if you see this order now you will get a 25% discount on the book if you use the code PREORDER25.

Experimental Landscapes: Sunsets and Skies

This week we focused on dynamic skies that can be seen just at the perfect time.  So we painted from southwest sunset images.  The challenge for me was painting on a hot press paper.  If you work over it too much, the surface of the painting starts to get muddied and pilled.  So the trick is to know what you want to do and the sequence in which you want to lay down your paint.  This will allow you to get nice blending of color and keep the watercolor looking fresh.

My son had taken a beautiful photo while on a fishing trip on the Olympic Peninsula.  It was a challenge to get the variation of the sky and cloud colors so I ended up painting the scene twice.  The second version was closer to the color of the sky.  Testing out your colors and selecting a palette of colors is always a good idea if you are trying to color match.  

In the first painting the blue color of the sky was too cool although I preferred the way I handled the clouds in this version.  The second version was closer to the true color of the sky and I was more successful in creating the sense of depth with the mountains.

Coming out soon! The Urban Sketching Handbook:Spotlight on Nature

 

I am excited to announce that in May 2022,  The Urban Sketching Handbook: Spotlight on Nature will be coming out.  I co-wrote this book with my friend Virginia Hein.  We were collaborating from her studio in Los Angeles and my office in Seattle.  This occurred last winter during the pandemic so everything was done via Zoom meetings and using a MIRO board.  It was a fun project to work on and we had contributions from many artists around the world to illustrate their urban sketching work with a focus on how they paint nature on location. 

Here is the link to information about the book.

Currently the book can be pre-ordered on line through many bookstores and retailers. You can enter in a gift give away if you pre-order by March 31, 2022.  There will be 10 packages given away.   Each gift will include a packet of note cards with watercolor images of my work.  And one large print from Virginia's watercolor works.  

To be considered for the gift give away, fill out the following form with  your preorder confirmation number showing purchase from any retailer.  https://quarto.com/campaign/Spotlight-on-Nature-Preorder  

Experimental Landscape Class: Snow Scenes

 

For the last two weeks I have been taking a painting class from Winslow Art Center.  It is an online class given by Cynthia Armstrong.  We are using a wet into wet technique and using cut credit cards as well as brushes to make marks.  Here are two homework assignments done on that first week.

The second week we were to learn how to populate the foreground elements.  So here I show before and after images of two that I have done.

This first image was done the first week of class in class.  The trees added were done in a second pass.  I use the credit card, brush and tooth brush as tools.  

The second set added foreground using a credit card, spray bottle and small brush:

First Urban Sketch for 2022!

 This is my first urbansketch for the year.  Although I have been painting, I haven't really sketched in a while.    This was done on Sunday with the Seattle Urban Sketchers.  It was done while on a zoom meeting with about 20 or more Seattle Sketchers and some people sketching from out of town.  Sketchers who had moved away from Seattle or were out of town.  

Now that I am retired from UW and finished my final term as Urban Sketchers Treasurer, I will start posting work on this blog again since I have more time to dedicate to it.  Hopefully some people will see it, the blog has be dormant for a while.  

Happy Sketching 2022!