Watercolor Painting by Dennis Pendleton. I am heading down to Taos, New Mexico on the 15th for my annual Taos Watercolor Workshop and this is a painting I did in my sketchbook at one of my previous workshops. We were at a farm just outside of town and the barnyard was full of subjects. Working across two pages gave me a whole new way of looking at things. I just painted whatever interested me and then connected everything with grass and cast shadows. As I look at it now, I probably should have continued the fence behind the tire.   I enjoy working in sketchbooks because I can carry all ..read more

Watercolor Painting by Dennis Pendleton. I am a big fan of Edward Seago's paintings and, after studying his watercolors and reading about his process, I did this painting to see what I could learn. He loved painting the English countryside near where he lived in all the different seasons and weather conditions. Lowering the horizon line so that the sky was more than half of the composition is something he often did and it gave his paintings a sense of depth and atmosphere. I did this in my painting and you can see how it puts an emphasis on the moving clouds as they drop behind the trees. &n ..read more

Watercolor Painting by Dennis Pendleton. I thought it would be interesting to show one of my plein air paintings plus a picture of my subject (see below). This was painted on a sunny day in my Taos Watercolor Workshop and my main interest was capturing the famous Taos sunlight. To accomplish this, I decided to do a high key painting where I only used light and middle values. In the photograph you can see how dark and uninteresting the shadows and cast shadows are while in my painting they are full of color. The camera is a helpful tool but it usually does not record the reflected color tha ..read more

Mixed Media Painting by Dennis Pendleton. I enjoy painting cityscapes especially after it snows. This painting is of downtown Denver with the holiday lights and fresh snow. It is actually a mixed media painting where I started in the print room with oil based printers ink, then worked on it with watercolor, and finally pastel. Working with the three mediums takes some special adjusting and the process always leads to some special surprises which I enjoy. Depending on how the paint is, thick or thin in different areas, when it comes out of the press it often looks quite different. As with man ..read more

Watercolor Painting by Dennis Pendleton. Spring is here and the gardening season is fast approaching. Some of my best childhood memories are of working in our garden and seeing how little seeds grew into things that ended up on our dinner table. Right across from the Art Students League of Denver where I teach watercolor classes is a community garden and all summer I see people experiencing the peace and joy of gardening.   Having done many paintings in places like Denver Botanic Gardens, I thought it would be fun to set up a still life of things associated with gardening. I think of a f ..read more

Watercolor Painting by Dennis Pendleton. Vignette: French word meaning a small illustration or painting which fades into its background without a definite border and also incorporates the beauty of the unpainted paper. As the painting fades into its background, the artist often uses dry brush, spattering and other watercolor techniques to make the transition interesting.   Vignette's are popular for plein air painting because the artist can work faster without being concerned with finishing the painting to the four borders. Just painting without concern for the borders is not enough, the ..read more

Watercolor Painting by Dennis Pendleton. Today is the time change so now we get an extra hour of daylight. Spring is only nine days away and I am already thinking of painting in Denver Botanic Gardens. This is a painting I did there last summer in one of my weekend workshops. The beauty in the gardens can be overwhelming and sometimes it is hard to settle down on one specific spot to paint. After placing my painting supplies on a table or bench I like to walk around, usually with a viewer, in search of possible subjects. This is an interesting time because I usually find more than I could pos ..read more

Watercolor Painting by Dennis Pendleton. One of the unique things about the historic Mabel Dodge Luhan House in Taos, New Mexico are the pigeon condo's that Mabel had built on the property. They are always fun to paint because they add an unusual element to the rambling adobe architecture. There is a stream behind this wall that nourishes giant cottonwoods and runs under the little bridge that leads up to the hotel entrance. As the legendary Taos sunlight changes throughout the day, different subject matter appears and we spend at least one day painting there on my annual Taos in Watercolor W ..read more

Watercolor Painting by Dennis Pendleton. Venice is one of my favorite places on the planet and it seems to be a city created for watercolor painting. If you take a boat from the train station to Saint Marks Square, you pass this facade on the left side of the Grand Canal. One of the things I love about Venice is the different influences in the architecture. Here you can see the Moorish influence in the windows and arched entrance. Buildings like this in Venice are restored every few years, a process that I have witnessed, and when the restoration is finished they look several hundred years ol ..read more

Watercolor Painting by Dennis Pendleton. This is a cityscape I painted of 17th Street in downtown Denver inspired by the watercolors of John Marin. His were of Manhattan and often a little more abstract. I like the way he talked about buildings leaning against each other creating a jumble of shapes. In my painting, it is difficult to understand which are actually buildings and which are reflections on glass buildings thus creating a jumble of my own. I also deliberately painted things out of proportion to create the effect I wanted. For example, the buildings seem to loom over the traffic as ..read more