My Palette

I may be changing my palette.

I love the quinacridone colors, but now that it's summer, I'm not sure that the intense tones of the quin colors are meeting my needs.  My plein air paintings need more subtle color.  I may be adding earth tones to my palette.

I've pulled out the sepias, the raw siennas, the umbers.....and they look very enticing.  I think I'll add them to my summer plein air painting as well as to my studio work.  I've just completed a commission of hydrangeas and I did need some of the earth tones to complete it.  I'll be painting in several plein air competitions and hope to be using some of these warm colors to mix my greens.

I always use a round or square palette that has nice sized indentations on all four sides for holding paint.  I like to arrange my colors in the order of the color wheel.  It's pragmatic.  It's logical.  It makes sense.  When I'm mixing my grays and blacks, I don't even have to think, because my complements are already across from each other.

I'll let you know how adding the earth tones to my palette work....I"m guessing my color mixes will be more subtle and richer.

Wet on Wet: Paint it Fast and Paint it Loose

My final classes before summer of 2013 are coming to an end.

I'm demonstrating some fun, fast and loose wet on wet demonstrations in all classes until the end of May.  It's a great warm up for painting outdoors.  I love wetting the paper, and placing that pigment onto the damp cotton and seeing what will happen.  I love it when the colors fuse together and make something rather unexpected.  I love the soft edges that occur, and then the hard edges that develop as the paper dries.
I enjoy seeing the different values that melt into one another throughout the process.  The speed with which I can paint in the wet on wet technique is a lot of fun, too.

Here's a painting of Cole's Farm....done in about 45 minutes.

Rehoboth Beach Art League and Keeping An Open Mind

I taught a much anticipated Watercolor Bootcamp workshop in Rehoboth, Delaware for the Rehoboth Beach Art League.  I was eager to spend the day before my workshop at the beach, enjoying some sunshine and bathing. Sadly, the weather did not cooperate  .... I brought my swimsuit, but I needed to have packed a coat.  The beach was windy and cold and it wasn't even comfortable to walk along the boardwalk.

I thought I'd be shopping for some photographs of water scenes for future paintings, but I ended up staying indoors more than I had imagined.

But, I had an open mind,  never knowing what I might encounter.


It turns out that the Rehoboth Art League lodges "Artists in Residence" at "The Homestead," which is one of the oldest houses in all of Delaware.  This historic 18c. home  is one of the many beautiful buildings that belong to the Rehoboth Art League.  I thought I would have the opportunity to collect some photographs of beach scenes to paint; instead, I was gifted with moody interior scenes that only a delightful old house can provide.....

These photos will make some dramatic watercolor interiors.  The backyard of "The Homestead"  is graced with a magnificent boxwood garden, along with statuary, elegant specimen trees, fountains, benches and gazebos. I'm still editing through the photographs of the extraoridnary gardens.



An artist should always keep an open mind; we never know what direction we may be"nudged" towards next...