Enough said.
“There is a sweetness of May verging on June that no other time can equal.” – Hal Borland Tips and Techniques– I’ve sketched allium for several years now and it’s always a pleasure. Poppies are usually next, with numerous flower heads ready to unfold in a week or so, but I’ll miss them this year while traveling and teaching in Portugal. I look forward to returning with a sketchbook full of new sights. (Sketched in Handbook Journal Co. 140lb watercolor journal, with a Micron 005 pen and QoR watercolors.)
What color is that shadow?
Have you ever looked closely at shadows? As the days grow brighter in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s a great time to notice their patterns and colors. Even if you’re not an artist, take a moment this week to study a few shadows and ask yourself: what color is that? You may be surprised by the answer. Not all shadows are the same. Some are gray, but many carry subtle color influenced by the object, the light, or the surrounding environment. That’s the kind of nuance artists love—and often find elusive to capture…. Read More
More color please!
The reopening of our local farmers market for the season was cause for celebration—along with renewed healthy eating and a bit of indulgence. It’s been a long time since I’ve used this much color in my sketchbook. Let’s have more of it! Tips and Techniques– I almost passed up this sketch because my weekend was packed with travel and activities. But I didn’t want to let the moment go, so I set a timer for 10 minutes, grabbed a size 08 Micron pen, and got to work. I’ve found that using a… Read More
At last!
Finally, it’s warm enough for me to make my way through the woods to the muddy edge of a creek where the skunk cabbage thrives and sketch. For weeks, I’ve gone out scouting good locations, watching the maroon spears push up through frozen earth, watching the ground give up its ice as the spathes open. I’ve been waiting for a day when work, wind or fading daylight wouldn’t keep me indoors with an empty sketchbook…and here it is. You might think forty degrees is awfully cold for sketching outdoors, but with a… Read More
Not Quite Yet
Eventually, our desire for spring will match the reality outside. But not quite yet. I welcome the incremental increase in daylight and the occasional temperature over 40F, but I don’t let a warm day or two fool me. While I await spears of skunk cabbage to emerge from the snowpack, I’m also gearing up for my upcoming online class, Warblers in Watercolor. The class is intended to be a pre‑season warmup for the arrival of these delightful and elusive songbirds come May. Like spring itself, warblers arrive on their own terms. They… Read More
Collecting on Paper 2026
One of my favorite things to do at this time of year is to fill my sketchbook with specimens from a nature center or museum. There are always so many fascinating things to discover, and I enjoy the challenge of arranging them together on a single page. If you’ve followed me for a while, you’ve seen similar pages before. Here’s this year’s collection, plus a few selections from prior years. Tips and Techniques– Sketching in museums and nature centers is a defining part of my work and I can’t recommend it highly… Read More
Unexpected Connections
A sudden flash of white-and-black wings lifts from the roadside and then vanishes just as quickly into the field. Only one bird shows so much white in winter: the snow bunting. In good years, I spot them at the edges of nearby agricultural fields where they forage for seeds. Snow buntings are birds of the high Arctic that come south to the northern U.S. and Canada in winter. After painting these birds, I went looking for images of their eggs to add to the page. I was delighted to discover a nest… Read More
Silver Lining
The silver lining of the past week’s snow and cold is the flock of juncos that are hanging out on our back porch every day. We put up an extra bird feeder there to help them through the freezing weather and heavy snow. Unfortunately, my perch for sketching by our back porch door has proven rather drafty— the birds are surviving the chill far better than I am. Sketched in pencil in a Handbook Journal Co. sketchbook with 140lb cold press watercolor paper, Micron 005 black pen for the text, and watercolors-… Read More
Frozen
With much of the U.S. locked in single‑digit temperatures and snowstorms, it felt like the perfect moment to embrace the cold and venture into the depths of our freezer— which had evolved into a gigantic, cluttered heap of unidentifiable objects. I decided to make the most of this otherwise uninspiring chore by sketching my findings, partly for posterity and partly to prove I survived the expedition. When I unearthed seven bags of peas and corn, I knew I’d made the right call. And so, at the risk of oversharing, here’s the inventory…. Read More
Zooming Out, Looking Ahead
The “research phase” has officially begun for my summer workshop, Drawn to Nature, at Madeline Island School of the Arts on Lake Superior, July 20–24, 2026. I’m starting with the wide view—looking at the Great Lakes as a whole—before narrowing in on Lake Superior and the many things that make Madeline Island so special. Drawing a map always helps me focus. It gives me a sense of the land, water, and geography that shape a place. From there, I begin layering in plant communities, wildlife, and human history—the roots from which cultural… Read More
Drawn In 