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

Watercolor Painting by Dennis Pendleton. I just finished this painting in my studio from old photographs and memory and it will be used in the workshop I am preparing on painting aspen trees in all four seasons. Spring is a beautiful time among the aspen trees with wild flowers and new colors among the leaves. When I am trying to capture all of this, it is easy for my painting to get overworked. To prevent this, I keep certain things in mind. For example, if I only define a few of the wild flowers then the others can be simple marks of unpainted white paper or colors like blue, yellow, and vi ..read more

Watercolor Painting by Dennis Pendleton. I recently purchased a Hahnemuhle sketchbook with tan colored toned paper and, for my first painting, I decided to copy this watercolor by Trevor Chamberlain. It is my favorite painting of his of Venice and I was anxious to see how the toned paper affected the watercolors. When used properly, toned paper can give an over all unity much like a toned canvas for oil painting. If I had painted a colored watercolor wash on white paper, it would mix with any colors I painted on top while the toned paper does not. I am delighted with the rich colors, hard and ..read more

Watercolor Painting by Dennis Pendleton. Starting on the 6th of February 2024, I am teaching a four week in-person class at the Art Students League of Denver titled "Landscape With Fence In Watercolor." There is still space available and to can find more information Click Here. This is a plein air painting that I did as a demonstration for a workshop in Louisville, Colorado.   It was a sunny morning and the cast shadows across this white fence, surrounded by flowers with the tree in the foreground, immediately caught my attention. I knew part of the fence would be unpainted white paper a ..read more