I was on Salt Spring last weekend for art group meetings and friendship connections. I had also planned to go out painting en plein air with my Mum and Dad. But the weather was against us – the skies opened and we were stuck inside. So then what to do? We dithered about and in the
If you’ve followed me for some time, you know how I encourage (demand?!) the creation and use of thumbnail sketches. These small notations of composition and value are the roadmap I use while working. And they’re especially valuable for keeping you on track in the changing light when working en plein air. You may ask,
I was asked a couple weeks ago by a subscriber what colour schemes I use for soft pastel paintings. My response was that I didn’t use colour schemes. Instead, I look closely at my subject and plan my colours more in terms of what I’m seeing. From that observation, using a limited palette I build
I just finished teaching a five-day plein air workshop at MISSA (Metchosin International Summer School of Arts). I had amazing students who painted diligently every day. One of their challenges was painting summer greens! Snuggled into a corner of the Pacific Northwest, the location of this art retreat is top heavy with trees both evergreen
Finally the temperatures are warming up! Add that to the fact that I’m heading to the Metchosin International Summer School of the Arts (MISSA) to teach a plein painting workshop next week, and you have me outside painting. Yesterday, even though I’d planned to paint by the sea, it was sooooo windy that I thought,
When you receive this, I will have finished participating in the ICAN Pastel Conference Paint-Around! As I write this, however, the event is still in the future. In preparation, I needed to decide on an image and to help with this decision, I turned to creating thumbnails of a number of photos. Two things I needed
Although painting an overcast day is not something I generally do (I definitely have a preference for sunny days!), while in Spain teaching a plein air workshop at the beginning of May, the weather was more often overcast than sunny. So what could we do except go with what we had? Painting an overcast day
I often hear, “How can I make my work more colourful?” One way is to create a colourful underpainting. I recently did a demo/class about this very topic. I have a couple of the demos to share with you and also added another to help get the point across. I think you can always start with
Painting the unfamiliar – what do I mean by that? Let me give you a bit of backstory first. I’ve been working really hard on preparing my newest online course. It was supposed to be ready for this week but tech glitches and miscommunications with my tech person meant a delay. Sooooo disappointing! I felt
Recently I was asked about cropping – why do it, how to do it, when to do it. Indeed, the question was: Is there a ‘formula’ for cropping? I’ve written a previous post on using a viewfinder to help you crop your reference photo to get the best view to paint. (A reminder – try
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