Here’s another behind the scenes peek at one of the water themed oils in progress. I took a series of photos downtown at the Greenbelt park back in the spring, and they’ve been continuing to call to me. I was happy to get going on this. I shared some later on photos of this recently, but sometimes it’s fun to see the start.

I've got so many paintings in my head right now that I'm just pouring them roughly out onto canvas without taking a lot of time to fiddle with the details, though I've spent a couple of days on this one and still have a bit of work to do. It's from a sunset down on Mud Island a few months ago, just before I left town. I've kept thinking about this image and wanting to get back to it. I'm really enjoying the idea of painting water, though it's been harder in this one than previous paintings in this series. You can see at the bottom where I started. The first image is where the painting stands now.

I've really enjoyed having this month challenge of doing direct watercolors. It's expanding my watercolor skills and making me think about using the paint differently. I've also learned some other techniques from the book Direct Watercolor by Marc Taro Holmes. I did several more over the weekend, and the one just above is my favorite so far. It's a view I'd been looking at and meaning to paint for a year now, so I also had it firmly in my mind. It was great to get to finally have a go at it. 

Below is a front porch sketch. I love sitting and sketching from a front porch. These are alder trees at the place I was house sitting over the weekend. 

I had people waiting on me for the next two. They were nicely patient, but that's always a distracting force fighting inside my mind with the work I'm trying to do. I end up self editing, even if it's not being asked of me. So these were quicker (and also a simpler subject matter). Two views of the same bay from the same pebble beach. The first one is Chuckanut Mountain, whose shape I had also been looking at as I drive around the region and wanting to paint. I'm hoping to get downriver and take another swing at it at some point. 

There's a challenge this month to paint "direct watercolor" (no or minimal lines first, just paint) from one of my favorite urban sketchers whose painting I admire, Marc Taro Holmes. I've got his book Direct Watercolor, and I've learned a lot from it. So I'm working on stretching my technique. Last night I took a gentle walk under a gorgeously dramatic sky with Mr. Darcy. I had tucked my small sketch journal in the pocket of my rain coat, but I was longing for real watercolor paper. I did my best with what I had, and I also took a quick snapshot (below), and this morning I decided to use real brushes instead of the handy but less fine brush pen and more absorbent paper and give this scene a second shot. It's such fun playing with clouds. 

I've been doing some sketches along in my journal, but I'm behind scanning them in, so here are a bunch of recent sketches. Above is the view from the table in the window of my favorite diner. Below is the view from the front porch (looking over the houses opposite, anyway).

There's a 30 day "direct watercolor" challenge online right now, and I'm mostly playing along, trying to do watercolors with little to no line drawing first. These are a couple of larger journal sketches as practice. 

I came west fully intending to use the time here for illustration and for watercolor immersion. Then I kept stepping outside and looking at the trees, and suddenly I have a flood of prints in my head. Since I'm more or less on vacation and don't have any particular deadlines, I'm free to do the work that is calling to me most insistently at the moment, so I've been doing prints the last week. I've done two tiny ones, since I don't have big supplies out here, but I'm also laying out several larger ones and waiting for big linoleum to arrive in the mail for me. Above is one of the little 5x7" two block prints. I've been testing it in different colors, but the deep blue/purple of the sky is what I saw when I stepped outside with Mr. Darcy at bedtime and is what inspired the print. 

The other small print is from our near daily walk on the Cascade Trail. It's an old railway bed that is now a gravel trail for walkers, cyclists, and horses. I love how quiet it is, with no traffic to contend with (once we cross the highway to get on it, anyway). The trees often form an archway over it (another forthcoming print) but at the open end near home, you get a stunning view of Sauk Mountain. I'm color testing this one as well, but in a more subtle way. I think I like the gradated sky instead of the solid one. 

I originally planned the mountain to be solid blue, which is how it seemed the day this view really spoke to me. Since you can't put anything back once you carve it away, I've been leaving some green in it, just to see if I want the depth, but it's too messy looking, and I think I'm just going to clear it out of there and let the mountain recede into blue distance. 

These blocks are new for me since I'm not keeping the full frame around them but simply carving more organic shapes. That makes them harder to print, since the edges want to catch some ink even when they're cut down, and I don't have a press out here, so I'm back to my wooden spoon, and things can move a little more that way. It's fun to play, but I mostly prefer keeping my prints with a frame for both visual reasons and for practicality. The bigger ones I'm starting will be a little more traditional, but I must say I'm pleased with how these two are turning out if I can get clean prints from them. 

I've got a new green ink that I'm in love with. So many of them are harsh and cool and unnatural (rather like a lot of the new light bulbs), and they don't fit the landscape drawings I do. This ink is light for writing, but it's warm and leafy feeling and perfect to go with watercolors. I've so enjoyed drawing with it and having just a hint of the green line work show through in the finished sketch. 

I'm having such a good time that I even did a page in my sketchbook about it. It's an ink made by Parker but with an Asian name. There are a lot of colors, and given the richness and subtlety of this one, I want to try one of their grays next. 

Here are a couple of other recent watercolors I used it with. 

I came out having just gotten a book called Direct Watercolor by Marc Taro Holmes, an urban sketcher from Canada whose work I admire. I am self taught in watercolor, and he's got several techniques I really admire and want to spend some time practicing. The hardest for me is remembering to leave some chinks of paper as highlights. I tend to grab a brush and start too enthusiastically, so it's a strong mental exercise for me to try to be more restrained. Marc also talks about edges, and where you want them to bleed and where you want them to be crisp. He also talks about three passes with your painting -- a light "tea" layer first, a medium "milk" layer for more depth, and a final pass of "honey" for thick darks only. I'm impatient about letting the piece dry between layers, so that's another place for me to practice patience. I've layered more in the last few years, but this is a nicely ordered and intentional way of thinking about it. 

So I went out to Rasar State Park, my favorite spot to paint here, to practice. I love the brain fizz of trying new things, and I was really pleased with my first day's work (though I also always see the things I wish I could fix). I'm looking forward this year to having more time to paint in this beautiful part of the country. I still want to do some book work (Mr. Darcy's Odyssey is waiting), but it's nice to take a little time and just do what feels good after all the deadlines of shows. 

I've been hanging my show and doing all the scrambling around with that, so I'm behind scanning and putting up my sketches. Here are a pair I did in Overton Park. I've got a new green ink I'm excited about. It's not that cool, unnatural road sign ink. It's warmer and more like foliage, so I wanted to test it out in the forest. I've really been enjoying sketching with fountain pens lately. This is a nice addition to my kit.

I’ve been working for two days on stuff to be published (a cover for my Mr. Darcy book plus an album cover, my first ever), so I don’t have a lot to post. But I did do one double page in my sketchbook over the last few days. It just kind of happened that way, but cupcakes and my favorite tree together make up one exceedingly happy journal page.

I also realized that I hadn’t posted a couple of sketches from my last trip to Concrete. The feather and penny were both found on one of my walks, and I ended up really liking that sketch. The other is my Coronation teacup. I had seen it over the summer, but it was pricey. Then when I was there after Christmas, the antique mall was closing down and having a major sale. I went in to see if it was, by any chance, still there. I was so delighted that it was. I’ve been thoroughly enjoying The Crown, and it’s fun to have a teacup from the actual celebration.