Spring Blossoms

The other day I decided to so a page of some of the beautiful blooms that are coming up right now. I used a grey page in my toned Stillman & Birn sketchbook doing just a small snippet of what I saw in various local places.

Captree State Park - Part 1

Yesterday was a mild day so I decided to head somewhere near the water and do some "solitary isolation" sketching from my mobile studio. I stuck a Stillman & Birn mixed toned paper sketchbook in my bag. I had used this sketchbook during the Urban Sketching Symposium in Amsterdam for the workshop I took with Pat Southern Pearce. The sketchbook I have has beige, black and gray paper.

I drove over to Captree State Park for inspiration and decided to do a double page spread in the sketchbook. Captree is known for the party fishing boats that leave from there. During the warmer months, there aren't too many of them at the dock because they are all out for the day with the fishermen. Yesterday there were lots of them, but the Island Princess caught my eye. I used watercolors, ink, white gouache, a white Signo gel pen, and a white Posca pen for this on grey paper.

Next I headed to the parking area where the boat launch area is. There was someone pulling their boat out of the water onto their trailer, but it didn't look like he would be there long enough for me to sketch him and his boat...and I was right. He was gone too quickly. So instead I did the water and the marshes in the bay. (This is the same bay where I did the sketches of the oystermen and the oyster dock this fall.)

 I will post more from there tomorrow.

Workshop with Pat Southern-Pearce

Believe it or not, I think I am down to a final post from my trips to Amsterdam and Paris. I am skipping back to Amsterdam for this double-page spread. The first workshop I took in Amsterdam was with Pat Southern-Pearce. She does these wonderful spreads that usually incorporate sketching, lettering, and writing. They are a very unique style and I am not sure how I can incorporate her teachings into my own work, but I am going to attempt it from time to time. One of the important things about Pat's work is that she uses toned paper. For our workshop Stillman & Birn supplied their new 3 toned sketchbooks for us to use...grey, tan and black papers were included in one sketchbook. It was fun to follow along with Pat. She usually begins with a skyline sketch of the area and then includes small sketches (very often in boxes) to show other details of the area. She has a wonderful font of her own that she uses when doing any kind of lettering or writing. I finally finished the spread that I started in her workshop. Yay!!