It’s been a great week of teaching with French Escapade in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. Everything is so green here — Calla lilies, orange poppies and Pride of Madeira flowering everywhere — and we’ve had lots of sunny days, which is a good thing for this winter-weary Montrealer. My first group of sketchers left this morning and another group arrives tonight, and in the middle I thought I’d share a few of the views we had this week. On a sunny morning we set up along the wall at Lover’s Point in Pacific Grove. There were seals and otter not too far off in the water, pelicans flying above us ..read more

I know I haven’t been posting much on my blog lately. I always miss that. But I have a good excuse. I’ve been painting lots of spring flowers, and after being so inspired by all the tulips at Cheekwood Gardens in Nashville, I decided to turn all that intensive flower painting into a new online course: Sketching Spring Flowers. If you’re a long-time reader of this blog, you know that I love to paint spring flowers in my garden. I once even filled an accordion sketchbook with drawings from my garden after I planted 200 bulbs from Costco. This year, alas, I have no spring flowers in my garden, o ..read more

If I can, I usually arrive at least a day early at a new workshop location. I feel more comfortable teaching in a place that’s at least a little bit familiar to me. That was the case last week in Nashville. I arrived on Monday evening so I had Tuesday to drive around with my host and sketch in the Berry Hill neighbourhood of Nashville where Warehouse 521 is located. It’s a great area, and the art studio is surrounded by recording studios, small cafés and restaurants. I sketched Nashville Jam Co, which I thought was a music venue of some sort but it turns out that it’s a brunch place where they ..read more

Happy first day of spring! This morning I had a snowy view outside my window in Montreal, but it certainly was more springlike last week when I was teaching in Nashville. I’ll post my urban sketches later in the week, but here’s one from my last day in Tennessee. On the recommendation of one of my workshop participants, we visited Cheekwood Estate and Gardens, just outside of Nashville in the suburb of Belle Meade. Besides flowering magnolia and cherry trees, there are over 250,000 bulbs in bloom. Daffodils and tulips as far as the eye can see. I sat on a bench in the sun to sketch these pink ..read more

I can’t stop painting these mini-daffodils. This time I painted them in my portrait format sketchbook. When I looked at them up close with all their delicate details, they reminded me of butterflies, so I added a deep sky blue background with some Prussian Blue. It’s not that easy to paint around all these shapes so I wet the paper first, as best I could, around the flowers. In some places I went back with a second wash of paint which ended up a little too dark in spots. Sketched in my Hahnemuhle 100% cotton sketchbook ..read more

Thanks to all of you who wrote encouraging words the other day when I went through a trashing paintings day. It was so comforting to know that we are all in this together, in different ways and on different days. I didn’t save the paintings to analyze what went wrong, but I will consider that for next time. In the meantime, you might enjoy this podcast I just listened to. It’s Kelly Ann Powers interviewing John MacDonald on the Learn to Paint Podcast. She’s a great interviewer and he’s a very articulate painter, and of course I was intrigued because one of the subjects they covered was what to ..read more

Today I ripped up three paintings. I had a bouquet of tulips in a vase in front of me, and no matter which way I tried to paint them (wet-in-wet, wet on dry or direct watercolour), they were just awful. They all went into the blue bin. Some days are like that. One failure after another. When that happens I try to analyze why it didn’t work out. Bad planning is sometimes the answer. Impatience is another reason. Too much water on the brush. Too little water on the brush. Sometimes I even blame the subject — in this case maybe these tulips were just a little too pretty. But I try not to get disc ..read more

It’s been a strange winter here. Not too much snow and wild fluctuations of temperature. There’s definitely more exposed ground than usual, especially in open areas like along the farm road where I go to find inspiration for painting. The patches of snow provide some contrast but they will likely be gone by Wednesday when the mercury will hit 15°C! Not our usual February weather. I was hoping to paint this one from my car but on these country roads that I’ve been exploring near our new neighbourhood, there’s often no shoulder to stop on. Plus I feel a little awkward stopping the car to paint o ..read more

Good advice on where to sketch often comes from other sketchers, so during my recent teaching trip in Arizona, I visited both San José de Tumacácori and San Xavier del Bac, based on recommendations from students. Both were great sketching spots and interesting structures to draw, although very different in character. San Xavier has been maintained and restored, while Tumacácori was abandoned around 1856. The site has since been restored and is now a National Historic Park, and although it’s not as spectacular as San Xavier, it’s still a fascinating place to visit and to draw. Both sites are wi ..read more

I think I bought these tulips about two weeks ago and I’ve been good about changing the water daily. They’re on a kitchen sill where I admire their beauty as I do the dishes. Instead of flopping over and dropping petals, they’ve remained upright, but I’ve been witnessing the slow shrivelling and browning of the leaves and flowers. They’re much more interesting to sketch this way than when they’re fresh out of the cellophane. Sketched in my Hahnemuhle 100% cotton sketchbook, A4 portrait size ..read more