Seven port views plus a lighthouse
Posted: May 7, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: boats, Chania, Crete, Greece, harbour, plein air painting, watercolour 43 CommentsSometime after my first week of touring in Crete, I gave up on posting remotely. I am just never satisfied with images that are photographed from my iPhone. I much prefer to scan paintings on my trusty Epson Perfection V600 scanner, clean the images up in Photoshop (bring the whites back to white, make sure the colour matches the original, etc.) and then post them. So here I am, one week after returning home, finally over the jet lag and back at my desk scanning paintings and sketches.
In all, I painted 8 views around the Old Venetian Port of Chania, Crete (mostly 16″ x 12″). I originally thought it was seven but then realized that my final painting of the lighthouse is really the entrance to the historic port so I added that to the count. There would have been a ninth view if it hadn’t rained on my last day. Forgive me if you have already seen a few of these but the colour is not accurate in the previous images so here they are again.
I could paint this port for a year or more and never get tired of it. If you look it up on Google maps you’ll see that it has several bays. The one on the western side is lined with shops and restaurants and it has a wide strolling promenade. The eastern side is where you’ll find the docks and the boats — little fishing boats, great white yachts and catamarans, speedboats that you can charter to take you to beaches inaccessible by car, and strangely, a mini red submarine that allows you to have an underwater view if you choose. You’ll also find the remaining Neoria there. These are the old Venetian shipyards with the peaked facades that you can see in the third painting below.
On the outer edges of the port there’s also a long, narrow seawall that takes you to the lighthouse. I painted in a shaded spot along that wall for several of these paintings. In all of these, I tried to convey a sense of architectural history (bits of the remaining Byzantine and Roman walls, the clay-roofed colourful Venetian buildings, the only remaining Ottoman mosque that forms the corner of the Western section of the port) as well as a sense of what the port is like at different times of day. I was there during the period around Easter when it’s quite crowded so I included lots of people, but I imagine that a place as beautiful as this is crowded well into the autumn.
It was wonderful to live a bit like a local for a few weeks in Chania — to set off in the morning with my palette and easel in my backpack, not knowing where in the port I would stop to paint. I don’t think I’ve ever had the luxury of so much painting time in any other place.
In the next post: the sketches from our frequent road trips to different villages in western Crete.
A good Friday for painting
Posted: April 18, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: boats, Chania, Crete, Greece, harbour scene, watercolours 8 CommentsEach day it has been getting a little warmer in Crete, which means that the snow on the White Mountains will soon be gone. I wanted to have those distant peaks in at least one of my paintings so today I walked out to the Old Sea Wall and painted in the shade of the St. Nicholas bastion. From that perfect spot, I had a view of the harbor and the constant stream of pedestrians enjoying the holiday here in Greece. I could just as easily have painted the bastion itself, from a spot on the promenade across the way, but that will be for another day. There’s no shortage of things to paint here. Painted this one on a pad of Arches CP paper, 16” x12”.
Kalimera
Posted: April 14, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Chania, Crete, Greece, harbour scene, watercolours 14 CommentsIt was a good morning at the Old Venetian Harbor in Chania. The sun was hitting the buildings at just the right angle AND I found a shady spot with a clear view across the bay.
I love painting these types of scenes. Lots of complexity, obvious value contrasts and plenty of opportunity for calligraphic brushstrokes.
It’s the start of Easter week holidays in Greece. Whereas last week it was a little quiet in the old part of town, this week the restaurants are filling up, the narrow streets are crowded with people and everyone seems to be strolling along the harbour.
I painted this on a pad of Arches CP paper, 16” x 12”, and I can say with much certainly that I used almost every colour on my palette for this one.
A few from the island
Posted: April 12, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized 27 CommentsSorry for the delay in posting some new drawings here. We were getting ready for the long journey to Crete which became even longer because of a national strike in Greece (including air traffic controllers) that happened to be on the day we were supposed to land in Athens. We rescheduled our flights to arrive a day early but had to backtrack to Toronto first to get to Greece. Now that we are here, though, all of that is forgotten as we enjoy the sun and the endlessly beautiful views of the Old Venetian Harbour in Chania.
This is not a teaching trip. Just a good old holiday with lots of touring and exploring the island. From our rental apartment I can walk down to the harbour every day with my sketchbook and watercolours. My hope is that I can fill it my book with scenes from Chania, as well as surrounding villages. There’s a lot to see in Crete.
Today I started with a few warm-up sketches of the fishermen having a good gab on the dock. From that same spot I sketched a few of the floats and ropes on the side of one of their boats, and my final sketch on that page was of one of the many well-fed stray cats that hang around the harbour. I know the front paw looks like a chicken leg but that’s just my bad drawing. The cat is perfectly fine.
I sat in the shelter of a low wall, fighting the wind to get in another drawing, this time of the lighthouse at the entrance to the harbour. I have a feeling I will paint this many times from different vantage points around the harbour. It’s interesting from every angle, and there are always people on both the upper and lower walls to give it scale.
Alice in blue
Posted: April 3, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Alice sketch, ballpoint pen, dog drawing, ink drawing 24 CommentsMy reward today for finishing up a tedious project was to spend some time sketching Alice. And her gift to me was staying still for the whole time. It’s nearly time for her walk, but she held her pose until I was done, as if she knew how important a bit of drawing time was for me.
When I set out to draw, I wasn’t sure what my subject would be but she was beside me, and thankfully I had a ballpoint pen and a sketchbook right on my desk. Getting up to find drawing tools would have disturbed her and ruined the moment. Now my gift to her will be long walk and maybe a few throws of a tennis ball since the snow is finally starting to disappear.
Late to the game
Posted: March 26, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: ink and watercolour, ink drawing, spring, wheelbarrow 23 CommentsI’m sure that you already know that in Canada we have 11 seasons, but I’m a bit late to the game. I only heard about this last week on the radio. My particular favourites on this list are the ones that occur around this time: fool’s spring, second winter, spring of deception, third winter and mud season. I think we are probably in fool’s spring right now. Which means there’s still time to paint the wheelbarrow with some snow on it.
I haven’t painted my old friend the broken wheelbarrow in many months. It was in a spot in the backyard that I couldn’t see from my window, but I fixed that yesterday. I put on my boots and went out there to move it, carefully, to a new spot. It’s not as good as the old spot in my previous yard because it’s up against a skinny pine, not a grand old oak, but it will do. It’s in a forested corner of my yard which makes a good backdrop and hopefully makes up for the lack of a big tree.
I sketched this on hot press paper using a Lamy pen that’s filled with copper ink, and added watercolour after. If you want to learn a bit about this process, have a look at my newest online course, “Sketching Techniques with Pens and Inks“, on sale this week.
362 ink sketches later
Posted: March 24, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized 11 CommentsThe first sketch I ever posted on this blog was an ink sketch of my living room chair, drawn with a Pilot Fineliner in a 3″ x 5″ Moleskine sketchbook. 2510 blog posts later (!), I am still drawing in ink. Hidden in amongst the watercolours are hundreds of ink sketches and hundreds more in ink and wash. I figured it was time to share my love of ink drawing by creating a course about pens and inks.
Sketching Techniques with Pens & Inks is sort of a two-part course. In the first part we look at lots of the tools that I’ve been drawing with over the past 13 years — pens (both permanent and water-soluble), inks (not only black but interesting colours too) and different pen nibs as well as drawing paper. In the second (and much longer) part, we do a lot of pen drawing, using a variety of pens and inks to draw objects, people, architecture and finally a full street scene. If you love ink drawing or want to do more of it, or are curious about what we’ll do in the course, have a look here.
As always, you can take advantage of my special launch price, valid this week only.
Normally priced at $49 USD or $69 CDN, I’m discounting Sketching Techniques with Pens and Inks to $42 USD or $59 CDN until midnight (ET) on Sunday, March 30, 2025.
Tiny New York City sketches
Posted: March 23, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Essex Market, New York City, Panorama, Rat sketch, Tiny Sketches 26 CommentsLast week we spent a few days in New York City. It was a whirlwind trip, with most of the time spent with family, but I found a few moments to sketch in between our activities.
I brought a tiny sketch kit with me knowing that I wouldn’t have much drawing time — a 3″ x 5″ Moleskine sketchbook, a few pens, my travel palette and a waterbrush. I knew that I would be more apt to sketch if the book was really tiny, and as it turns out I was right. I really enjoyed having the pocket-sized kit with me. I was able to pull it out to draw a few figures while waiting for the subway, and again later in the day to draw a few lines of the Brooklyn bridge while waiting for the ferry in DUMBO.
Before leaving home, I noticed that NYC Urban Sketchers had a meet-up at Essex Market on Saturday morning. I joined them for a few hours, but only had time to do a few quick sketches before heading off to another family event. Even after all these years of being part of the worldwide USk family, it still makes me so happy to travel to another city and hang out with other sketchers.
Since we were staying in Brooklyn, I had the chance to discover some new areas and great sketching spots. There’s a wonderful promenade that runs along the water in Brooklyn Heights, and it has the absolute best view of lower Manhattan. It was misty on the morning that I sketched which made the panorama a little more interesting and atmospheric.
I walked by this dead rat multiple times before I decided to sketch it. I’m not that keen on live rodents in the city but this dead one was perfectly intact and seemed like it would make a good addition to my tiny sketchbook.
An emerald in the woods
Posted: March 10, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized 24 CommentsI’m rushing to get in the last few snow paintings before the white stuff is gone. This green house is on a road not too far from here. No doubt, I would probably not even notice it in summer but on a sunny day in winter — covered in fresh snow and backed by a forest — it was a little jewel in the woods.
I am experimenting with Holbein watercolours this week, but my shadow mix for snow is the same as always — a bit of Cerulean, a bit of Cobalt and a tiny dot of Violet. As for the green, it’s mostly Cobalt Green mixed with a bit of yellow. Painted on a 1/4 sheet of Arches CP paper.
In other news: I am truly honoured that my painting “Southside Harbour” was selected for the Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour 100th Anniversary Exhibition. The show will be on at the prestigious Roberts Gallery in Toronto from March 15-29th. It’s a wonderful show and if you are in the Toronto area, the opening is March 15th from 1 pm to 4 pm. Have a look at all the paintings here.
Yellow plus grey makes green
Posted: March 6, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bouquet, flowers 30 CommentsThis is the Valentine’s Day bouquet that keeps on giving. I received it on February 14th and it’s still beautiful three weeks later. A little shrivelled, I’ll admit, but highly sketchable. The flowers come from a florist — unlike my usual grocery store blooms — which has no doubt contributed to their longevity.
The drooping and curling shapes of this bouquet are still so beautiful. I felt that I couldn’t do them justice with a loose painting. Instead I chose to draw their complex forms on hot press paper using a water-soluble orange marker and then painted with watercolour, using a mix of Payne’s Grey and Lemon Yellow for the fading foliage. I like this mix for grey/greens, and you can get some great darks with it too.
