Slow Painting
There’s a bias in urban and nature sketching for working quickly. The idea is to get the subject down while on location and to capture the moment, place, or experience. It’s a worthy practice and many people do it well, completing sketchbook pages with lovely drawings and paintings in an hour or two. But there’s also a lot to be said for working slowly. Careful observation and allowing time for a subject to resonate gives you time to figure out how best to approach it on paper. Sometimes I build a painting… Read More
Showstopper
The color of poppies is outrageous—so bright and red you can scarcely believe it. But there it is, once a year, a showstopper in the early June garden. When other flowers are just contemplating what kind of tune they might sing, the poppies belt out their solo. Confidently, they command center stage—knowing, perhaps, that a good rain will soon end their performance. Tips and Techniques– Because I work during the day, I am often snatching time for sketching and painting in the evenings. I made several trips to the garden this week,… Read More
Catch it while you can
Today, the allium. Tomorrow poppies. Coming and going, a garden is ever evolving, never static. A bee, a swallowtail, if I’m lucky, a hummingbird. Even now, one moment makes way for the next. Catching it while you can makes all the difference. Tips and Techniques– Because I was away for much of May, I missed the flowering spring trees, many of the ephemeral wildflowers and bulbs, and the unfurling of ferns here in New York. When I got home the allium were in bloom but starting to fade; I knew I had… Read More
Travels in Italy—Part 1
Buon Giorno…It’s been a while. I didn’t mean to be away so long. But sometimes travel leads to the unexpected. After a lovely week of teaching in Umbria and several days hiking up and down the steep hillsides overlooking the sea in Porto Venere, my trip to Italy took a wrong turn when I tested positive for Covid in Florence and couldn’t come home. You may be thinking that spending an unexpected week in Florence is a dream…but not so much when you have to find a place to stay during the… Read More
Coming Soon
Spring is just about to burst forth here in New York. It’s a time many of us eagerly await; the long winter months nearly behind us. Just a few things are blooming now, but the pace will accelerate in the coming days with a procession of spring ephemerals, migratory birds, flowering trees and shrubs, and colorful bulbs. I went looking for spring yesterday and was pleased to spend time with star magnolia and forsythia before the rain came and temperatures fell from 60-to 40-degrees. Here’s wishing you time to wonder and enjoy… Read More
Time for Spring
March is such a tease. One day it’s 50-F degrees and you’re outside with jacket unbuttoned. The next, there is seven inches of snow on the ground and you’re scraping ice off the windshield…again. Daylight lengthens, blackbirds reappear, but that’s pretty much it for evidence of a changing season. What really shifts in March is the anticipation. You’re closer to spring now. You know that soon salamanders will be moving to breeding ponds, that the woodcock will wing its way to the neighbor’s field, that you’ll find skunk cabbage opening along the… Read More
Fleeting
Just a few quick bird sketches to wish you a good day and thank you for the many kind notes of condolences shared last week. Life is fleeting; capture what you can of it. Tips and Techniques– When sketching birds, start with a line for the angle of the bird’s body and then hang the body shape on it. Do the same for the angle of the bill and head. One you have these lines, shapes, and proportions down check for accuracy and refine your sketch. Don’t add detail until the end…. Read More
The beauty of ordinary things
My father-in-law died this week at the age of 88. A gentleman always and a stalwart family man, Roger lived for the last 10 months in a nursing home following a serious fall and head injury which left him with significant memory loss. On a recent visit, my husband encouraged me to bring along my sketchbook, hoping that it might spark conversation that had nothing to do with the past or the future. Indeed, it turned out to be one of the loveliest visits we shared together. The pages – whether butterflies,… Read More
Butterflies and Chocolate
Stepping from 4֯ F outside into a 75 ֯ F conservatory filled with flowering plants and fluttering butterflies is a wonderful treat on a winter day. I met up with two artist friends at Magic Wings Butterfly Conservatory for an afternoon of sketching, followed by a visit to Richardson’s Candy Kitchen in South Deerfield, Massachusetts. What a winning combination: friends, art, butterflies, and chocolate. Painting in the conservatory was more overwhelming than I had imagined. Butterflies were everywhere, in nearly constant motion, and the place was crowded with visitors. Although the butterflies… Read More
Ice Cold
When temperatures have not climbed out of the single digits for a few days, going outside when it’s 10-degrees seems almost reasonable. And what more appropriate subject to focus on than ice? I walked along a nearby stream, looking at the variety of frozen formations. Though I had my sketchbook, it was too cold to open it, so I snapped a few photos and returned home to paint. How ironic then, when, sitting in my warm home office/studio, a frozen pipe burst upstairs, sending a cascade of water through walls, ceiling, and… Read More
Drawn In 