Water-soluble ink experiments

Posted: August 17, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , | 11 Comments

I appreciate having time at home to experiment with materials. For the past week or two, I’ve been drawing with an assortment of red and yellow inks, and then adding watercolour to them. This is a follow-up to the echinacea that I painted last week.

On Thursday I met my friend Susanne Strater for a sketching session at Greenwood Centre in Hudson. She worked in pastel and I drew with my Lamy pen that was filled with Ancient Copper ink. If you happen to be in Hudson, Greenwood is a very welcoming place to sketch, and the hydrangeas are at their peak right now.

On the weekend we visited friends at their camp in the Northern Adirondacks. My favourite time of day to sketch when we visit is in the early morning when the water is very calm. The only company I have then — besides Alice — is the loons, the ducks, and the occasional high-flying eagle. I used Noodler’s Apache Sunset ink (now called Southwest Sunset) and dip pen for this drawing, and added watercolour on top of that.

This morning I was back in Hudson, sitting on a bench and drawing a view of Main Road. I used a Stabilo Point 88 fineliner in Sanguine for my initial drawing. It’s a water-based ink but it releases less pigment than the two previous inks.

August Echinacea

Posted: August 10, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , | 20 Comments

Like everything else that I’ve done this summer, I’m a little late in getting out to paint in my garden. That’s why in this week’s bouquet, the blooms are all a little past their prime. But that makes them so much more interesting to paint. I get droopy petals, curled leaves and darks where there should be brights. My drawing was done with water-soluble ink and watercolour was added on top of that. Here’s another bouquet that I painted the same way.

Late to the game

Posted: March 26, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , | 23 Comments

I’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.

Sketching Retreat: a free 6-day online event

Posted: October 5, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , | 4 Comments

When I was teaching in the UK last month, I stopped in my tracks when I saw Gurney’s Fish Shop. Not because of the Thai fishcakes or the kippers or the fresh crab, although I’m sure they were delicious. I just loved all the chalkboard signs out front! I drew it with my group on our last day in Burnham Market, and then when I was invited to be part of a new virtual event, I also recorded it as a video demo because it was so much fun to draw.

Sketching Retreat is a FREE 6-day online event with 50+ workshops (mine included!) all about architectural sketching & drawing – both analog and digital techniques.

I’m excited to be one of the 50+ instructors in the event. In my online workshop, I’ll be sharing Inside and Out: A Shop Facade in Ink and Watercolour. The event is free and the instructors include some amazing sketcher friends like Stephanie Bower, Marek Badzynski, Paul Wang and Simone Ridyard, plus many more I’m excited to discover. The dates for the event are October 22-27, 2024, but registration is open and you can sign up now.

A few favourites from Provence and a new YouTube video

Posted: July 17, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , | 11 Comments

I’ve slowly been scanning sketches from my recent teaching trip in Provence and I’ll be posting more of them soon. Here are a few from my favourite spots.

ST PAUL DE MAUSOLE: I visited St. Paul de Mausole for the first time in 2018, when I was teaching my very first workshop with French Escapade. I remember how moving it was to enter the room where Van Gogh spent a year of confinement, look out at the garden from his bedroom window, see the olive trees that he painted, and be surrounded by the landscapes that inspired “Starry Night“, “The Irises“, “Olive Trees in a Mountainous Landscape” and many other paintings.

On this visit, we all did a series of small sketches that represented the place for us. I sketched the lavender fields and the monastery building where the hospital was located, a few of the Romanesque arches in the cloister, some iris leaves (even though they had finished blooming) and a few coquelicots in the garden. It was a very hot day when we visited, and there wasn’t much shade, but everyone sketched something interesting that morning, despite the heat. To note: the gardens — both outside and in the cloister — are much less well tended than they were six years ago. I’m not sure why that is. A lack of staff due to the pandemic, perhaps?

FONTAINE DE VAUCLUSE: On my day off between two teaching weeks, I had a bit of time to sketch on my own. I sat on a bench near the river and sketched the bridge, the waterwheel and the narrow village buildings. At one point, when I looked up from my sketchbook, there were two fisherman in hip waders standing on the landing near the Sorgue river. I was hoping to capture both of them but by the time I started to draw the first one, they were gone. Sketching in that spot by the river is always a pleasure. There’s a bench in the shade and a fountain so I can fill my painting cup. The temperature in the village is always cooler than the surrounding towns because of that cold spring water, and the river is an unearthly green due to the clear spring water and the bright water parsnip that grows in it. If you want to see how I painted this scene, have a look at my YouTube channel. I just posted a video of it there.