1. Essentials (even if you don't end up using them)

2. Hat with brim to keep the sun out of your eyes

3. Water to drink! It is very common to become dehydrated without realizing it.

4. Drawing and/or painting tool

5. Paper

6. Paint (if you plan on painting in addition to or instead of sketching)

Waking up in Maui. I REALLY wish I could sleep on planes. Sketched first in ink with a Kaweco Sport fountain pen followed by watercolor using a waterbrush. Still not out of bed.

Creating the habit of sketching is a wise investment of time. If it were not for my habit (addiction) of sketching...

Happy New Year - 2020!

One of the many highlights of 2019 has been working in my perpetual plant journal, documenting plants in many different parts of the world.  I love that the journal is a snapshot of the seasons as well as the places I've traveled to.  

Since I started Volume...

With Christmas only a few days away I found myself in my kitchen with counters crowded with ingredients I'd just picked up at the equally crowded grocery store. Rather than put everything away, I started cooking. My mind was on food, not the art tools I grabbed to sketch while cooking.

I...

Challenging myself is a habit, a good habit in my mind. There are, however, limitations to self-challenging.  How can I challenge myself with a concept that I'm unaware of or that is so far out of my understanding that I don't know where to go with it? For the past year, I've been excavating...

I had the pleasure of being a passenger on the trip from Mitchell Troy to Gower Peninsula in South Wales. A concertina sketchbook made the night before was perfect for capturing the landscape as it transitioned through rolling hills, cliffs, villages and salt marshes.

When painting...

Absolutely no rules exist when it comes to designing a page in your sketchbook. Sketchbooks provide the opportunity to discover your own personal preferences when it comes to design.  

For me, the design of a page evolves as I add new elements.  I maintain a flexibility when it...

Urban sketching in Crockett, CA (2015)

A quick reminder that I have numerous free art videos on both my YouTube Channel and my Vimeo Channel.  The links are at the bottom of this page among the other social media links. (Scroll ALL the way down to the black bar at the bottom of the page.)...

Having completed Part Three of the Pulling the Puddle Mini-course Series, I rummaged through old sketchbooks looking for a specific botanical illustration to use as one of the examples in Part Four  - Pulling the Puddle in Small Shapes. I didn't find the sketch I was looking for but I did...