Meet the Natives Exhibition

Here is the Botanical painting I just completed for an upcoming exhibition. It is a Cucurbita foetidissima, or buffalo gourd. This is a watercolor painting, done in a typical modified wash and dry brush details method.

Civic Center Park Fountain

Here is a portion of the fountain located in Civic Center Park, Denver, CO. This used to be one of the worst areas of the park, but lately it has been well-cared for and the fountain is clean and cheerful. This was a quick watercolor sketch, and I didn't stay in the area for long. Shade is at a premium in this sunny hot corner of the park.

City Park Entrance Fountain

This grand fountain is placed at the entrance to City Park off of 17th Avenue. It is a popular, lovely sight all summer long. A real beauty! This watercolor sketch was one of the first fountains I worked on this summer past.

Denver Plein Air Arts Festival

It was great fun to paint downtown at the week-long Denver Plein Air Arts Festival. About 150 artists participated. This is my third year painting in the festival. Although I painted in oils the previous years, I decided to paint in the watercolors this year since I've been painting out in WC all summer long.

Sculpture Garden, DBG

Here's a finished painting done this summer as a demo for the class I taught at DBG. The class was about structures and landscapes in the Denver Botanic Gardens. In addition to basic landscape skills we studied linear perspective, the history of the architecture, and the landscape designers of DBG. It was a fun summer class!

Garden scenes in watercolor

I'm getting ready to paint numerous garden scenes, such as this one, for an illustration job. Watercolors lend themselves to painting details. Unfortunately, I still haven't mastered the knack for painting very quickly. I've been training myself to do quick, ten-minute sketches this summer, but it has not yet translated to my studio work. Got to speed it up!

Summer sketches

Here are some quick summertime sketches done in the Denver Botanic Gardens. They are done in watercolor and ink pen on some. I ride my bike to Gardens on summer mornings, hang out for a while painting and enjoying the plants. Everything is VERY lush and green this year due to the frequent rains we have been experiencing.

Fresh Palette

I just loaded up a new palette with watercolors. This palette will be used for field sketches, mostly landscapes. It is a thin lightweight palette good for packing for travel sketching, as well. The top row is the double primaries: Hansa yellow, cadmium yellow, cadmium red, quinacridone red, ultramarine, and cerulean.

The bottom row, left, is mixed greens:  bright middle green is hansa and ultramarine, dark blue greenis  hansa and ultramarine, a "grayed-up" green is cad yellow and ultramarine. a "browned-up" green (red-green) is yellow ocher and ultramarine.  Right, is yellow ocher, raw sienna and burnt sienna.

Below is permanent handy mixes: my favorite brown is cad yellow, quinacridone red, ultramarine; and my favorite gray is burnt sienna and ultramarine.

Notice that ultramarine travels through all these pre-mixed colors, creating a nice color harmony.

Farmer's Market

This is a watercolor sketch I did at the Cherry Creek Farmer's Market. It was done quickly, with a simple pen sketch and watercolor washes. While I was working a woman with two Siberian dogs sat down next to me. One of the dogs immediately sprawled across my feet. Good thing I like dogs, because it was hot already and to have a thick-furred Siberian covering my feet just raised the temperature even more!

Eggplant Studies

Here are three versions of eggplant drawings. The first is graphite on Strathmore 500 plate. The second is carbon dust on bristol vellum. The third is carbon dust on Clayboard. This series was really about trying out carbon dust techniques and comparing it to the graphite drawing. I really enjoy working in carbon dust and I have many more drawings planned and started.