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Short Painting Sessions Yield Impactful Results
Don’t let your internal critic, or your busy schedule tell you there’s no time to paint. Pick up a brush and soften some dark-valued watercolor (which can be diluted for lighter values) and make a quick sketch. Focus on the shadow shapes you see, don’t think about anything else. Even if your end result isn’t […]
Mixed Media Portrait on Toned Paper
If you’re going to play around with mixed media I encourage you to seek out toned papers. The strokes and values you achieve on the toned background make a fun departure from white paper. This sketch of an Earth’s World Fairgoer (who was wearing black lipstick) is in a hand bound journal I made with […]
Mixed Media View of the Backyard: Expanding Your Visual Vocabulary
It’s always a great idea to take a moment and look out the window. Our neighbors at the back of our yard have a lush growth of ferns at this time of the year. I turned the page in my journal and sketched on this pre-painted background—the verso page background was in the same vein […]
Mixed Media Portrait Supplies
Sometimes you work in watercolor and you pick up some color pencils too. It’s fun, why not? Especially if you spent your childhood working with color pencils. I started this portrait of a fairgoer from Earth’s World using a black grape Prismacolor pencil. (It’s not black, it’s not overly strident. I enjoy it. I also […]
Painting on Toned Paper Watercolor (Mostly)
You don’t have to work in gouache to paint on toned paper. I’ve written about this before. You can use your watercolor paints with less water and achieve rich, saturated colors that work well on toned paper. If you need a lighter color over a dark base you can of course mix a little bit […]
Mixed Media Experiments Continue
This dog portrait was my warm up sketch to continue my mixed media experiments. I started with a brush pen sketch from a Sktchy muse reference photo. I used leftover gouache and then the dry media you can see listed on the recto page. I then searched for another photo reference on Sktchy and did […]
In Context—Painting Rocks
All my students are groaning right now as they read the title of this post: “In Context—Painting Rocks.” Don’t worry, I’m not going to go on about Ruskin, today. I just wanted to post this rock portrait because April marked a return to painting in color for me, after a long bout of pen and […]
Addendum: International Fake Journal Month Supplies 2026
A question about the supplies I used for my 2026 International Fake Journal Month journal in the comments section of a previous post made me realize I had not included the supply photos. They were supposed to be in a separate post before the main fake journal post! (I simply forgot to post that post! […]
A Short Review of Tonic Watercolors from Federal Color
“Why do you do this to yourself Roz?” you may be wondering? Sometimes I wonder too why I feel so compelled to test watercolor brands. I love my Schmincke Pan watercolors and I love my Daniel Smith Tube watercolors. I hope they never change the formula or quality of those paints. But because change happens […]
The Creature of Chronology Takes a Break
In my March 28, 2026 post “IFJM: Sometimes Projects Creep Up on You,” I discussed, in response to people asking about a public celebration of International Fake Journal Month, why there wouldn’t be one this year. Then I set about thinking how to encourage people who wanted to do one anyway. I ended up setting […]