Currently Browsing: Daniel Smith Watercolors 15 articles
Still Working Out What To Do About Those Eyebrows
Left: Water-soluble color pencil (Faber-Castell Albrecht Dürer) and watercolor on Arches Cold Press Watercolor Board (8 x 10 inch board). Even though International Fake Journal Month is over I'm still working on that Arches Cold Press Watercolor Board with Watercolors. And Dick is still patiently sitting while I sketch him from life. But now I'm shining […]
Observing Nature: Pat Beaubien at the MCBA Visual Journal Collective
See the complete post for details and more images of Pat Beaubien’s work (she doesn’t have a website).
Sketch Night at the Bell in March
See the full post for details.
The Silent Give-Away: Daniel Smith Watercolor Sample Card
see the full post for details.
Last Week’s Sketch Out at the Shepherd’s Harvest Sheep and Wool Festival
Sheep, llamas, and sleet!
More Errands—Baseball Caps Still Frustrate Me
Sketching at the allergist’s.
Sketching Out—Narrowly Missing the Rain
Last night I took a moment after a meeting at MCBA to sketch the Metrodome. You can see the sketch at Urban Sketchers: Twin Cities. I'm fascinated with the way this Twin Cities' landmark changes in the weather conditions. Thanks to the influence of my friend Ken Avidor I am starting to pay more attention […]
Duck with Landscape: What Started as a Thumbnail Sketch…
Left: A duck in a landscape, Daniel Smith watercolors over graphite sketch, 2-7/8 inches x 3-1/2 inches (on a 6 x 8 inch page in my current journal.) The actual image has more yellow in it—especially in the sky and ground. Click on the image to view an enlargement.
Last week I spent some time writing about fast sketches and pushing things past the point where they fall apart. I find I am still in process mode today and wanted to share this sketch of a duck I did with a landscape.
This sketch started as a thumbnail and it may or may not become a finished painting. But here is what happened.
I wanted to do a sketch of a mallard with a landscape behind him. Just a whim really. My bird paintings tend to be very large and the birds, typically just the heads, tend to be a bit "in your face." And I am always looking to improve my landscape painting skills. In the 1990s I did a series of paintings with animals and birds peering out of the frame. I wanted to get back to something a bit more overtly narrative.
Do Something You Like: Sketching at the Bell Museum
Above: Sketch of a Tundra Swan specimen at the Bell Museum of Natural History, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN. This is a pen sketch (Staedtler Pigment Liner) with watercolor washes made using a Niji watercolor brush. The text on the verso page was pre-pasted ("Have you solved what that means too?"). The tab left at […]