Descanso Roses

Today we're at Descanso Gardens in Pasadena, where the roses are in full bloom. 

This gouache study takes about 45 minutes. I start with a yellow-ochre underpainting and knock in the darks. Then I paint the cool shadow whites and sunlit whites opaquely. 

The petals have the slightest tinge of yellow, which is multiplied in the interstices as the transmitted light finds its way deep into the flower. 

Old Town, San Diego

This isn't really a classic Old Town view; it's just a corner of the parking lot, with a passthrough to a walled-off area where they keep the dumpsters. But I thought the palm trees, the tile roof, and the warm, hazy light were so characteristic of southern California.

I did this gouache in the company of about 800 painters at the Plein Air Convention and Expo. And I filmed the making of it as a collab video with fellow YouTuber Stan Proko. I'll share that video in a couple weeks.

Stewart White Demo

Stewart White did a watercolor demo yesterday at the Plein Air Painting Conference and Expo in San Diego.

I did this live portrait as he painted. I was working in rather dim light with the book in my lap, so I used fairly dense mixtures of color and strong contrasts. 

Stewart, who hails from Baltimore, is renowned as both an architectural illustrator and an outdoor painter.  He'll be leading a workshop to Granada, Spain this October, which promises inspiring instruction, delicious food, and unforgettable camaraderie.

More about Homemade Easels Coming Soon

The ideal easel rig should meet these six objectives:

1. Get the brushes and the paint palette as close as possible to the painting.

2. Get the painting as close as possible to the line of sight. 

3. Make the height and slopes of both surfaces fully adjustable without having to mess with tricky knobs or screws.

4. Free up my left hand so that it's not always holding brushes, towels, or other gear.

5. Accommodate a diffuser and other accessories.

6. It should work on uneven ground and should stand up to any amount of wind.

7. It should be buildable out of inexpensive materials using ordinary workshop tools.

Many of the innovations of my system have developed from the contributions of you, the amazing blog community. I'm trying to keep this design open-source and collaborative so that we can share ideas and mutually benefit. 

My plan is to do some blog posts and free YouTube videos in a month or so about our homemade easel rigs. I'll share my latest round of innovations, and invite you to share yours. 

UPDATE: I have released a video showing how to make the sketch easel plus four different diffuser designs. It explains what tools and materials you'll need, and demonstrates all the steps.
The HD download of "How to Make a Sketch Easel" is more than an hour long and costs only $14.95.

It's available now from Gumroad and Sellfy. The DVD version is available for $24.50, and it includes a slide show. The DVD is also available on Amazon.

There is also a Facebook group called "Sketch Easel Builders" where you can share your build or ask questions of fellow builders. It's free to join.

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Previously: Lightweight Sketch Easel

Your DIY Sketch Easel Designs

Art Rules

Yesterday I listened to a lecture where a professional artist said "You can't paint a landscape without showing the horizon or the sky. Any painting without at least some sky will be oppressive. Stay away from it."



That made me want to go outside and try an experiment to see if I could create a feeling of openness and freedom without showing the horizon or the sky.

I also thought of Sargent's famous Alps paintings, which often don't have any sky. Have you questioned any art rules that you were taught and found them to be untrue for you.?

Gumball machines in a laundromat

Heres a page from my sketchbook yesterday—some gumball machines in a San Diego laundromat.

I showed the owner a few pages from my sketchbook and she loaned me a stool to sit on. Her daughter is a budding artist and she watched with great interest and then did a drawing of her own. 

I'm using casein as a base layer and then finishing up with Royal Talens gouache, which I'm trying out for the first time. The gouache is very rich in pigment saturation with very interesting thixotropic working properties due to the dextrin binder. More on that in future posts. 

(link to video on Facebook) I'm at the Plein Air Convention and Expo in San Diego. Very inspiring to be among over a thousand outdoor painters.

Dinosaurs on the March

We've arrived in San Diego. Not much wi-fi where we are, but we'll try to keep up. 

This Ankylosaurus is from Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara.

Seven Minute Silhouettes

At Spectrum Fantastic Art Live here in Kansas City, we had a fun time talking about portable sketching setups. 

Then I did a quick demo of a quick paint-sketch technique, thanks to two volunteers who stood looking at their cellphones.

We set the timer for 7 minutes, and I limited my gouache palette to yellow ochre, perylene maroon, and ultramarine blue, plus white. I quickly sketched in the figure with a watercolor pencil. Then, using a synthetic round brush, I painted the silhouette as directly as possible.

Seven minutes were up in no time at all, but that's pretty much all the time you'd get in a real-world situation.

Mark English at the Marriott Lounge

I'm in Kansas City for Spectrum Fantastic Art Live. The artists are all hanging out in the lounge eating tacos and sipping beer. 

It's fun talking shop with some of the legends of the business, such as Mark English (born 1933), who helped define the world of contemporary illustration that I entered when I started out. 

Mark is still painting, mainly for galleries now. He says he still has his gouache paints, but he's using house paint lately. And he's not the only one. If you're painting large and you want a very opaque paint that's not expensive, house paint has wonderful working properties. And you can get any colors you want. 

Marriott Lounge, gouache, 5 x 8 inches

What attracted me to this scene was the cool light coming from the lighted panels behind the bar, contrasted with the warm light bouncing up off the floor. 

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My bestselling video tutorial is Gouache in the Wild

Take a tour of my sketchbooks on my new app Metro North—three versions to suit your device:

iOS from the App Store, Android from Google Play, and a "PDF+ Edition for laptops" 

Weird limited palette

I love weird limited palettes. This one is purple, cad yellow deep, raw sienna, and white. (Link to FB vid) From the Metro North app.