For a few years now we’ve talked about having a family get-together of some sort. This year we went ahead and reserved a house in Savannah, Georgia. With a few month’s notice and everyone’s buy-in, the family gathering finally happened. It was certainly nice to get together without the event of a funeral or wedding.
Here are some of the sights from the week: Continue reading Family Vacation in Savannah, GA
Durango sits in a valley, created by the Animas River. So there are magnificent views of the mountains from almost every point in town. This particular view is part of my morning commute into town. I love how the shadows show off the definition of the ridges – but it has to be the right time of day. In the afternoon, everything is flooded by sunlight and is flattened out.
For this morning’s sketch, I sat in the park just a few feet further upstream from the rafting sketches.
While creating the digital print of Daffodils, I also worked with textures to create this drawing of a Blue Heron. There were quite a few herons that lived in the ponds next to the apartments so I had a lot of opportunities to watch them flying by.
Prints and greeting cards available here.
Look deep into nature and then you will understand everything better.
Einstein
After the Isaac Newton quote in a tree, I wanted to try something a bit different. This tree pushes the process much further, creating the entire image organically rather than painting directly and then altering it a bit. Have to say, I like how it turned out.
Prints and other items available here.
Nature is pleased with simplicity. And nature is no dummy.
~ Isaac Newton
This quote by Mr. Newton seemed a perfect fit for a (simple) pine tree.
Prints and more available here.
I’d rather have roses on my table than diamonds on my neck.
~ Emma Goldman
After liking the heart so much and running across this quote in my list, I couldn’t help myself from painting this rose. I love having fresh flowers in the RV – they really brighten up any space!
Prints, notebooks, and more available here.
Playing with my watercolors has been fun, capturing my RV and beloved mountains. I wanted to push a little further, however, to work on a more involved image. What better challenge than one of my most common (and favorite) sights – Ashley riding her bicycle. For the most part, I am quite pleased with the results, though working with a fluid medium in an uncontrolled manner did mean that Ashley appears to be riding with an antenna.
Playing with a new technique, I decided to use the most obvious subject available to me. The first thing that jumped out at me was my RV, parked right in front of me. And so, that’s what I painted. This is the silhouette of the front of my home. Hope you enjoy!
I’ve always loved the intersection of pictures and quotes (the stick figures series is a prime example). So when I stumbled across a new drawing-plus-quotes project while reading a watercolor book, I couldn’t wait to try it!
Not only do I get to peruse my quote collection, but I got to try out a new watercolor technique. Win, win!
The heart and rose are on post-card sized watercolor paper. After finishing the painting I added in the quote with a drawing pen.
Ashley on her bicycle was the first painting that I did in this line. It’s not yet complete, as I haven’t yet added in a fitting quote – though I do have a couple of them picked out. This is a larger work, nearly 8×10″.
Not sure what happened with that “antenna” sprouting up out of Ashley’s head – re-painting the image will give me more practice with the procedure and the materials and hopefully end up more as I intended it. 😀
After leaving Brant’s I headed further west in Texas to visit Big Bend National Park. Even though it was hot (and I’m out of practice with the heat, so it felt pretty miserable) I explored the park for 4 days. Of course, I carried my trusty little moleskine pocket sketchbook everywhere. In addition, on bigger hiking days, I tucked a few sheets of watercolor paper into my daypack and a mini art kit.
On the first day in the park I hiked into the Santa Elena canyon. Tucked in the shade of the cliffs, sitting next to the Rio Grande river, it was nice and cool. I loved taking a few minutes to capture the scene. The cliffs on the right, across the river, are Mexico.
The next day included a hike up to Emory Peak, the highest point in the park. After reaching it and enjoying lunch, I pulled out my watercolors and tried to capture part of the scene before me.
It was hot and humid, so it didn’t take long for my watercolors to dry out. As they did, I pulled out my little sketchbook for this quick render. It’s a zoomed in view of a slightly different angle of the Chisos mountains.
After getting back from the mountains, I zipped around on my motorcycle for a bit more sketching and painting.
The bright buildings in Boquillas, Mexico, really stood out against the natural desert backdrop of the mountains.
I sketched out this fun tunnel that leads down into the Rio Grande Village campground, where we stayed during our visit. Later I’ll go back and add some watercolor to it. On one of the trips out of the valley the timing was perfect and the sunset was highlighted within the tunnel. Of course, that was heading the other way on the road. This direction gives layers of mountains to play with and a big sky above them.
