watercolor
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Sketching at the lake
A sketch from a peaceful, clear morning by the lake.
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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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Cosmo’s cosmos
A pet portrait painted in jelly gouache on a drink board for a friend’s wedding.
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Outdoor musicians
I was inspired by a friend’s musician-filled sketchbook, and I wanted to practice with this neat mini-palette I picked up recently. Luckily, this very groovy five-piece band was playing right by the square downtown. 🙂 While I was painting, a little girl sitting nearby was fascinated by my portable paints. I gave her mom an…
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Street corner from the coffee shop
It’s amazing how time flies when sketching. This ink-and-watercolor sketch took up the full two hours that I spent with the city’s urban sketching group. Much of the time was spent color-mixing, a skill I’m practicing more thoughtfully lately. Mixing a full array of colors in advance allowed me to avoid color gradients, keeping the…
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View from the watch tower
We spent a night in a nearby city and I found a few opportunities to sketch outside. First, a beautiful vista from the top of a fire watch tower. It was very windy up there, so I rushed to scribble out a memory before I lost my sketchbook or my hat. And later, sitting in…
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Chickadee in a cherry tree
For my future mother-in-law’s birthday this year, I wanted to give her a memento that would suit the colors of her newly decorated home office. For a pink-and-white theme, of course I’ll choose cherry blossoms! There were many, many iterations of composition before I landed on one that felt right. My fiancé helped break me…
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Walking bridge
Despite frigid winds, the quality of light today was too beautiful not to spend some time painting outside. I struggled to hold onto my sketchbook and palette through the wind while painting the walking bridge over the river. But I’m glad I got a snapshot of the beautiful day. One of the qualities I love…
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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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View from an afternoon hike
Every time I walk this trail, I’m enamored by the sudden appearance of the blue ridge in the distance when the trail breaks onto this field. And every time I’m disappointed by the inability of a phone camera to capture anywhere near the beauty of the scene. This time I tried to capture it with…
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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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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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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:
