Paintings
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Race weekend 4
Another race weekend, with another good batch of lessons learned about watercolor gouache painting. I’ve abandoned my pencil in favor of underpainting, which is allowing me more flexibility with shapes, as well as more speed. The yellow of my underpainting shows through on the clouds here, but I kind of like the effect. I didn’t…
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Race weekend 3
Plein-air lessons learned while painting from the top of a fire-watch tower.
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Race weekend 2
Another race weekend, another chance to practice watercolor gouache for a few hours 🙂 From my paddock spot, I couldn’t see much other than trees. But it was a good opportunity for practicing green color-mixing. I picked a couple trees with subtle hue differences, and I practiced pushing their hues further from each other, to…
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Race weekend 1
A plein-air painting in watercolor gouache for the first race event of the year.
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Camp Hill Plein Air 2025
My favorite yearly plein air event has come and gone again! This is the first year that I’ve been able to paint from the park that’s central to the event (previous years I’ve been chased under businesses’ awnings by the rain). It’s a beautiful neighborhood, and so many of the gardens and architecture beg to…
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Half-dome
An ink illustration of Yosemite’s Half-Dome, completed for my sister on her birthday. I’m having lots of fun with grayscale ink-washes lately. This sketch of a local bookstore was almost a practice run for inking Half-Dome. Returning to my ink pot and dip pens was also a refreshing change of pace after many recent outings…
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Hand with gold ring and peach
For a friend’s birthday. Painted in jelly gouache on Arches hot-pressed watercolor paper while watching a long-play of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. This took longer (6-ish hours) than most of my gouache paintings of the same size, because it took many iterations to nail the proportions of the hand.
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Autocross in the rain
Painted while watching my fiancé drive an amateur autocross course in the rain. Jelly gouache on Arches hot-pressed watercolor paper.
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Tan dog
Painted with jelly gouache on Arches hot-pressed watercolor paper, for a Christmas card for a pet owner.
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Chambersburg Plein Air 2024
Painted for a local plein-air competition, completed in 4 hours. Jelly gouache on Arches hot-pressed watercolor paper.
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Blue hydrangeas
This started as a small sketch to test out Copic alcohol markers. But they were so fun to use that I couldn’t stop 🙂
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Hyacinths in a green vase
Painted on a whim during the pandemic after a day of gardening. Acrylic on canvas.
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Blue flag irises
Illustrated for my mom’s birthday years ago, based on a photo of blue flag irises from a neighbor’s yard. Lines are sumi (charcoal) ink applied with dip pen. Colors are Copic alcohol markers.
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Camp Hill Plein Air 2024
Painted with jelly gouache “en plein-air” on a gray, rainy day for a local plein-air painting competition.
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Tree-lined country road
One of my first plein-air paintings, in pallet watercolors on Arches hot-pressed watercolor paper. A windy day made this on-site painting a struggle.
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Chihuahua
Painting in jelly gouache, for a Christmas card for a pet owner. My reference photo had fairly stark lighting, which made this subject more fun.
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Daffodils and ladybug
Lines are sumi (charcoal) ink, applied with a dip pen on Bristol board. Colors are Copic alcohol markers. Illustrated for my grandmothers’s 80th birthday.
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D.Gray-man page redraw
A redraw of page 27 of the first volume of the manga series D.Gray-man, which I completed as part of a 20th anniversary fan-led redraw project. The original page on which I based my new layout can be seen below. You can read the full zine here (pages turn in right-to-left manga format). The password…
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Cemetery light
Gouache practice again! This time I tried starting with a very limited palette. It seemed to actually make color-matching easier? I aimed for a palette with the following hues:
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Rail bridge in summer
I’m learning to paint with gouache in the hopes of improving my eye for color, and my color-mixing ability. Today’s piece didn’t hit quite all the shades of brown I was aiming for, but I learned a good bit and had some good discussions with friends along the way. 🙂
