No, this isn’t a self-portrait either. It’s a page I did yesterday in my workbook, trying to find a way to “rescue” the bad paper as I finished it off. I was considering painting it with white acrylic as a ground, and then I thought of painting it with gesso instead. After that I […]

A watercolor sketch of the teahouse at Descanso Gardens. Kind of. Sort of. I took a lot of liberties with it, as I understand a painter has a right, maybe even an obligation to do.
I might make a painting of this someday. For now, it’s just a study for practice. Did you know that […]

A quickie watercolor sketch portrait in the old “blue coptic” journal , done from photo ref, which I made a few years ago. The paper is awful - coarse, too absorbent, and you can’t push paint around when you apply it; it sinks in immediately. But I’m too stubborn to just put it away with […]

I went to Descanso yesterday to do some nature drawing, and I was rewarded with several different opportunities to draw people, plants and landscapes. But the highlight came as I stopped in the gift shop on the way out and saw a small coptic bound journal with creamy smooth paper inside. And it looked heavy […]

A Tale of Two Doorknobs - an EDM challenge
First there was the watercolor doorkknob which became the first known mud doorknob. It will not make a featured appearance here. From that experience I learned at least one way to NOT paint molded glass. If you want to see it purely for a good […]

The ranunculus is a member of the buttercup family, and this garden perennial is also known as Persian buttercup, a flower favorite of our family. When our daughter, Labelle Kel, was very small, I would take her around the garden teaching her the names of all the plants. I think she particularly liked the sound […]

My workbook is evolving, and so am I. Sometimes the mood strikes me to do compositional and value sketches; other times I might be captivated by the texture of a rock, carefully observing the nature of reflections. On Saturday, while hiding out from the sprinkling of rain under the teahouse roof, I settled in to […]

Saturday, four hardy artists braved the cold temperatures and sallied forth to Descanso Gardens for a sketchcrawl. Because it was sprinkling, our first stop was the Japanese teahouse with its sheltering roof, which protected us from the morning drizzle. We sketched there for an hour or more and then, seeing that the sun was peeking […]