Pigeon Cove and some new paper
Posted: July 23, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: cape ann, millford paper, pigeon cove, st cuthberts mill, watercolour 5 CommentsEach time I go to Cape Ann, I return to my favourite painting spots. I don’t always have time to sketch but I take lots of photos so that I can continue painting when I get home. This time, besides returning to Pigeon Cove, I also returned home with some new paper: a block of Millford watercolour paper from St. Cuthberts Mill.
I’ve been reading about this paper and seen a few people using it online. One of my favourite watercolour sheets is Saunders Waterford paper, and this one is from the same mill. What makes it a little different from their other papers is that it is hard-sized, meaning it is made to stay wet for longer. It’s a block of paper so I couldn’t wet the paper on both sides but it seems to perform as advertised: both the initial sky wash and the first glaze on the foreground rocks stayed moist and glistening for a longer time than I am used to. This test was done in the controlled environment of my studio. It will be interesting to take it outside where wind and heat usually dry the paper too quickly.
Motif #1 and #2
Posted: July 21, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: cape ann, motif #1, rockport, travel sketching 18 CommentsGo ahead and type “Motif #1 painting” in your search engine. You’ll find hundreds of paintings and sketches of this iconic red Rockport fishing shack. I’ve painted it many times myself, from different viewpoints. Last week, during my warm-up sketching days before my workshops at Slow River Studio in Topsfield, I sketched it from the left side — an angle that was new to me. I drew first with my Lamy pen that’s filled with water-soluble copper ink and then added some light washes on top. This ink dissolves almost completely into the watercolour but if you’re painting a red building, it sort of works in your favour by melting into the red/brown washes.
Later in the week, it was also the subject of one of my workshop demos, although this time we sketched it from the front. If you are sitting on the end of the town wharf, the morning light on the building is ideal. As for what red to choose for this, I used a combination of Alizarin Crimson and Burnt Sienna, adding a little Violet to the mix for the shadows. The actual paint on the building is a flat reddish brown, more like Indian Red, but I don’t have that on my palette (too opaque!) so this was my solution.
Here and there in the neighbourhood
Posted: July 9, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: geese, pencil sketch, planters, urban sketchers Montreal, watercolour sketch 5 CommentsIt’s great to be doing errands in my neighbourhood, stopping here and there to sketch outside. That’s what the summer is all about, right? Yesterday my errand was in Hudson, so I took the time to sit outside with an iced coffee and paint the beautiful planters at Mikko Coffee Roasters. What you don’t see is the row of cars behind the planters because I chose to leave them out and focus instead on the foliage, the flowers, the pots and their long shadows.
I also joined Urban Sketchers Montreal and Urban Sketchers Ottawa at Stewart Hall on Sunday. It was a scorcher of a day, and with the humidity it felt like 40C. I found a spot in the shade and sketched the geese who were pecking around near my chair. There was one aggressive one in the group but luckily it was another goose he was after and not the sketcher under the tree.
What have you sketched this week? Hopefully you’ll find a bit of time too!
In my garden today
Posted: July 5, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized 20 CommentsWhen we moved into this house about a year and half ago, it was almost winter and the garden had already been put to bed. Last year was a summer of waiting to see what would come up. I discovered lots of greenery (ferns, hosta, perennial grasses) and some nice hydrangea. But not many flowers. To remedy the situation, I started by adding a few along a fence last year, and a few more this year, in spaces that needed filling in. Today I actually have a colourful border that I can sketch, and it includes a few surprises like orange echinacea which I thought would be purple, and enough Shasta daisies to cut and bring indoors.
From Alison’s garden
Posted: July 1, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bouquet, coloured pencil, flowers, neocolor 12 CommentsHappy Canada Day! I usually choose some red flowers to paint on July 1, but this bouquet from Alison’s garden was just too beautiful to pass up. I can’t name everything that’s in here but it’s exactly the kind of arrangement I love — a little wild looking and different from every angle. Thank you for thinking of me, Alison.
Since I haven’t even unpacked my watercolours yet (lots of garden projects to catch up on at my house), I decided to work in water-soluble pencils. I drew on a sheet of HP paper with a green pencil and then filled in with both coloured pencils and NeoColor sticks from Caran D’Ache. At the end I touched the wet brush to a few areas but mostly it’s just pencil scribbles. And if I have time before the bouquet fades, I may just unpack my palette and try it in watercolour.
Vignettes from Megève
Posted: June 25, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized 20 CommentsThe dictionary app on my laptop gives me these definitions for a vignette:
vignette | vinˈyet |
Noun
1: a brief evocative description, account, or episode
2: a small illustration or portrait photograph which fades into its background without a definite border.
3: a small ornamental design filling a space in a book or carving, typically based on foliage.
I hope that the vignette pages in my sketchbook (in this case of Megève) are a combination of definitions 1 and 2. Yes, they are small illustrations (in some instances with definite borders) that cover the page, but, seen all together, my aim is for them to create a brief evocative description of a place.
Recently I spent two days with my students in the cobblestone medieval centre of this beautiful town in the French Alps. In winter this is a posh ski resort with an interesting history. But in the middle of June, it’s a sleepy village with lots of interesting details and corners to sketch. We set up in the shade in front of Saint Jean Baptiste Church, facing La Chapelle Sainte Anne and just a stone’s throw from the main square and all the narrow pedestrian lanes.
The chapel made its way into most of our sketchbooks in some form or another, either in full or in vignettes of its wonderful details, both inside and out.
A highlight for me was when one of my students spotted a hummingbird moth on the red Valerian. If you have never seen these before, look them up. Of course they move too fast to draw them, so I found a photo later and added it to my sketchbook, to mark the first time I had seen one of these.
If you look down the narrow streets of Megève you’ll often see a lush green backdrop of alpine meadows and hills. I also loved little details of chimneys, shutters, doorways, window boxes and signs that make this a real Savoyarde village.
As always, when I teach I rarely get to finish the vignette pages but I took lots of photos and hope to add a bit more lettering from signage soon.
A few from Geneva
Posted: June 22, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Geneva, sketchbook, Switzerland, watercolour 15 CommentsI am still unpacking art supplies from my recent teaching trip in the French Alps, but my sketchbook is sitting on my desk and I’ve dusted off my scanner to begin the process of scanning all the sketches from the two weeks.
These first two are from the only full day we had in Geneva before heading to our workshop location. Drawing is always a great way to knock the jet lag out of your head, and fortunately Geneva is a beautiful and sketchable city.
Place du Bourg-de-Four is a cobblestone square lined with restaurants and cafés, as well as some good benches for tired travellers. It’s also just steps from the Caran D’Ache store, if you are interested in really beautifully presented art supplies.
My friend Evelyn and I also attempted to capture the famous Jet d’Eau de Genève, that giant fountain that throws water 140 meters above Lake Geneva. It’s not an easy thing to sketch, especially in watercolour. I used a bit of Schminke masking fluid in a handy dispenser bottle that I had just bought on a whim earlier in the day, and it was pretty useful for creating a white line for the centre of the fountain. The final sketch falls into the category of “been there, sketched that”, but that’s ok. It’s a lovely spot to sit and watch the boats on the lake as evening sets in.
Lino’s lilacs and a few tips to help you get started
Posted: May 26, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized 18 CommentsI don’t have a lilac bush (yet) in my garden but my neighbour does. I think this is the perfect week for lilac blooms, so I asked permission to cut a few stalks so that I could sketch them. But I hadn’t sketched in over a week, and it’s always hard to get started after a break. Here are a few tips that help me when I am feeling a bit rusty. Maybe these can help you too.
1: I clean my workspace. If the surface of my drawing table is clean then my head is clear too and I’m ready for a fresh start.
2: My palettes are freshly filled and the mixing wells are clean AND my brushes are clean and organized. I try to do that when I finish a painting session so that I’m ready for the next time.
3: I have pre-cut sheets of paper. Since I buy full sheets of watercolour paper but work on 1/2 or 1/4 sheets, it really helps to have a pile of paper that I can just grab when I am ready to paint. I spent several hours on a recent rainy weekend cutting up paper. I had full sheets of Arches Rough and CP, Fabriano, Strathmore Gemini and Saunders Waterford in a drawer but now they are all cut, stacked and labelled in my print drawers. Ready for studio or outdoor work.
4: I set time aside at the beginning of the day. If I don’t do that, other chores take over. But if I plan on one hour that is just for me, I can usually get something done. And I have to admit that if I get an hour of painting in first, the chores that I do have to do (like weeding my garden) are so much less onerous.
Anyway, I hope you get a bit of time to paint today too! I’m off to weed now!!
A few days of summer
Posted: May 21, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: boat sketch, hahnemuhle book, Lintner palette, Pointe Claire Village, Pointe Claire Yacht Club 26 CommentsLast week we enjoyed some glorious days of summer. The thermometer went up into the twenties (in Celsius, of course) and stayed and stayed and stayed. This week we are back to spring in Montreal, but that’s ok because I enjoyed the foretaste of summer while it was here.
Fortunately those days coincided with a visit from a friend, and I was able to tour her around the city and stop at my favourite sketching spots. She’s a sketcher too, so we made the most of the blue skies and spectacular weather. One of our stops was in Pointe Claire Village, where we bought some sandwiches, had a picnic by the lake, and sketched the just-launched boats at the yacht club. We were sitting in the blazing sun (who wants to sit in the shade on the first hot day??) so I sketched very quickly, but it gave me a good chance to try out my new Lintner palette too.
You can see the palette below. It’s a pretty cool setup but I’ve only tried it once, so I can’t it give a full write-up until I’ve used it a few more times. In the meantime, I filled the 8 full-pan wells with a split triad (a warm and a cool of each of the primary colours) plus Raw Sienna and Burnt Sienna. That seemed to work well for most of the sketch but I had to dip into my friend’s palette for a few dots of turquoise that I needed for the sail covers. What I can say about the palette is that I appreciate having the full size pans for the colours I use most often AND the palette has deep mixing areas which makes me very happy since I often use very juicy washes when I’m sketching in my A4 Hahnemuhle sketchbook. More to come on this!
A few in blue
Posted: May 9, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Chania, Crete, flower pots, flowers, Greece, plein air watercolour, pots, watercolour 19 CommentsIf you read the last issue of my newsletter “The Wheelbarrow“, you’ve probably already seen this little blue wheelbarrow. It’s one that my husband spotted tucked away in a corner of the Botanical Park and Gardens of Crete. It was so perfectly rusty and of course so perfectly blue, that I had to sketch it and add it to my collection of wheelbarrow sketches. A few people asked what blue I used to paint this. It was definitely a Holbein pigment because during this trip I was testing out that brand in my two palettes, but it wasn’t one single colour. I likely used a combination of Turquoise, Horizon Blue and Cerulean Blue, mixed in with a little bit of Burnt Sienna, of course.
I was fascinated by the rows of potted plants that people place outside their doors in the narrow streets of Chania, and of course by the shadow patterns their shapes create. On many occasions I saw these pots, as well as many others, being lovingly tended by their owners. This particular road was not much wider than the width of one car, but I set up my stool against the opposite wall and managed to wedge my easel in there too. Not long after I started to paint, a white van pulled into that narrow space, totally blocking my view and almost knocking over my easel. I was ready to pack up my gear and finish my painting indoors when a woman emerged from a door next to me. I understand a few words of Greek but language was not necessary in this instance. I understood from her gestures that she was telling the driver to move his van so that I could paint. With smiles of appreciation and my best efcharistó to both the driver and the woman, I happily finished my painting and moved on.
