Does Art Follow Life or Does Life Follow Art?

Have you heard this question before? If so, what was your answer? I believe art follows life.

Last week, a new dog found me after my 12 year old beagle passed suddenly. She found us by putting an ad on Adopt A Pet’s website and we responded. After this new beagle had done extensive background checks on me and my family, she agreed to come live with us.

Once the beagle whose name is now Maple, settled in, I attempted a small painting of her. So, to sum up; we got the beagle and then I painted her, so this must be proof that art follows life, at least in my case.

Why is there a Stack of Sketchbooks on the Home Page of this Website?

These days, I spend most of my time painting on the pages of my homemade sketchbooks rather than painting on large sheets of watercolor paper. I like painting in the sketchbook because I can paint what I see indoors or out quickly on the smaller sketchbook pages.

When I made a stack of my sketchbooks recently, I was surprised by how many sketchbooks I had completed. I even have more then you see in the stack in the photo below. Since I want my website to encourage you to paint and drawi, I thought I would share with you the work I do in my sketchbooks and expain about the process, What do you think? Let me know in the comment section below or email me.

Painting After You Return Home From A Trip

Often I hear from someone who hoped to do some painting while they were traveling and are disappointed because they never found the time to paint. When you are traveling there are many reasons why you don’t get around to painting; you could be traveling for a very short time and not have enough time to sit and paint, you could be embarrassed to have people see your work in public, you could be too tired to paint, you could be traveling with non painting friends who don’t wait for you to paint….whatever the reason, all is not lost. You can come home and paint from your travel photos which is an enjoyable way to continue to enjoy your trip after its over.

I finished this painting last week from a photo I took on the Isle of Arann. We had only a short time on this Isle and I had to also visit a standing stone, admire some sheep, shop for shoes and savour a scone so there was no time to paint.

Sugar Induced Painting

I drew this painting a few weeks ago, when I was trying to think like a child. Actually, I was trying to think like a child in a hospital because I was designing this painting to submit to a children’s hospital.

I remembered a picture book I had loved as a child that was about a boy and a lolly pop garden. I remembered how much I loved that book and it’s pictures of lolly pop trees. I thought that kids still like candy, so they might to look at a candy house and garden while they are recovering from whatever problem sent them to the hospital.

Hospital Paintings

Today I received photos of all of the 28 paintings I completed to hang on the walls of the newly built Kaiser Hospital in San Marcos, California. The folks at Kaiser wanted watercolor paintings of the local landscape in and around northern San Diego and San Marcos. It was an experience to paint 28 large paintings that had to be finished by specific deadlines. It is quite amazing to see them on the walls of the hospital.

I hope you stay well and don’t need to go to the hospital, so I will give you a peek at my paintings on this blog. The hospital will open this August.

Having the Right Art Supplies for Your Destination

Do you have a ton of art supplies? When packing for a trip or an outdoor painting excursion, are you confused about what to bring?

The truth is you never know what art supplies will work well for you until you get out and try to paint with what you brought.

However,

you can use these questions to help you narrow down your choice of supplies to bring;

How much time will you have to paint? If you have a short time, bring a pocket size sketchbook. More time? Bring bigger paper or a larger journal or sketchbook.

Will you have a desk to set your paints up on? If you don’t have access to a desk, bring a cigar box to learn your sketchbook on and hold your water and supplies.

Will you have access to water? If not, bring a waterbrush

Where will you be painting? You’ll need to tailor your supplies to the location. If you find yourself in a fancy hotel, don’t reach for your watercolors, use your watercolor pencils, you will have less chance of dripping on the fancy furniture.

What medium do you use that is portable? I am enthusiastic about using watercolor paints when I go out and paint, because they are easy to carry, don’t require toxic mediums and are washable.

Are you filled with anxiety at the thought of painting outside? Just try it for a few minutes and don’t expect a perfect painting, you are only recording a memory or practicing.

How will you carry your art supplies? A portable, washable bag or basket is best. I prefer my thrift shop Elmo messenger bag or a basket. If traveling, bring a bag that zips shut.

Do you need a chair and a sun umbrella for your location? Yes, when its sunny outside and when you need a chair to get the view of your painting subject that you want.

Explore& Paint with Me in Glasgow, Arran Isle, Kirkcudbright and Edinburgh April 19-29, 2023

After venturing out of the house to tour and paint in Tuscany in October, I feel like we can be safe and comfortable traveling once again. So, why not come along with me and a group of like minded travelers to wander and paint in Scotland next April?

We will begin our tour in Glasgow and spend time visiting the museums, touring the city and seeing the creative architecture of Charles Rennie MacIntosh. We’ll even have tea in the Willow tea room, the restaurant MacIntosh designed.

You’ll also visit the Isle of Arran and spend a day and a night exploring there. From the Arran Isle you take off in your chauffeured mini van to see the Artist town of Kirkcudbright. Then you’ll explore the borders area and take some sips of Scottish whiskey ( optional ) on your whiskey distillery tour. You’ll end your tour with either 4 additional days of painting in Edinburgh or fly home or elsewhere from Edinburgh.

I hope you might join me on this tour, we haven’t explored these places in depth on our previous Scotland tours and this area offers delicious food (we especially like the pubs), endless scenery to paint, quaint shoppes and wonderful Scottish people to get to know.

Click on my watercolor tours button in the menu above to learn more info and pricing for this trip. If you’re interested, contact me asap to insure your spot on the trip, since deposits are needed right away.

Come to Cambria to Sketch and Paint with Me

If you are feel like going on a short road trip to one of the prettiest areas on the central California coast, then think about signing on for my Watercolor Workshop in Cambria California, November 6-10. ( 4 nights)

We will stay in a cozy b&b in the center of town and enjoy daily painting sessions and lessons. This area is chock full of paintable scenes, from Victorian style buildings to elephant seals.

We will have the entire b&b to ourselves and everyone who attends must be vaccinated and boosted💉

$850 for a shared room and $1150 for a single price includes daily cocktail hours and ome cooked breakfasts

Email Barbara anywhereart4u@gmail.com to register or ask questions

Reduce Your Stress with Watercolor

You can do a lot more with watercolor then paint pretty pictures. Although there is nothing wrong with painting pretty pictures I have discovered how to use watercolor painting to reduce your stress. Of the several factors involved in my stress reduction paintings, the important thingsto keep in mind are that your painting is for painted just for you. You won’t be graded on it, you don’t have to show it to anyone, you won’t get a grade on it, it won’t hang on your wall (unless you want it to) and you are the boss of your painting.

What does you are the boss of your painting actually mean? It means that you choose the colors, you choose the subject, the style, the message and the techniques. Making your own choices gives you more control and all of the experts say if we feel more in control, it reduces our stress.

This week I taught a class about how to paint colorful expressive faces. It only involved drawing an egg shape for a face and some simple features to give your face the expression of your choice. I made a Youtube video about it that you can watch. I recommended looking in a mirror or having someone model a mood or feeling like boredom or anger and then studying and drawing how the features look with each different mood.

You can also refer to the charts below that show how the features change with different moods. The top chart is from a wonderful book by Andrew Loomis called Figure Drawing For What It’s Worth.

Shopping for Watercolor Paper

Watercolor paper is a touchy subject to discuss but it is the most important art supply for watercolor painting. Even at the beginning of your watercolor endeavors, painting on good quality paper will make learning painting less frustrating and give you better results.
Shopping for watercolor paper is confusing! There are a zillion brands of watercolor paper for sale in a wide variety of prices and forms. To simplify your paper shopping DO NOT buy the cheapest paper. Please buy the best paper you can afford. Canson and Strathmore make some decent inexpensive watercolor paper pads. If you can buy your paper at an art supply store online You’ll probably get a better price then at one of the big box retail stores that offer coupons and sales and blow up the price of the supplies so they can offer you a coupon discount.

After 25 years of watercolor painting and teaching I have found Arches Watercolor paper to be the best. Specifically I use 140 lb. Cold Pressed Arches paper. It is sometimes called NOT Pressed. I buy my paper in 22” x 30” sheets then cut it down to whatever size I want. You can find this paper sold in smaller pads and blocks as well.
If you hang out with other watercolor painters or are in a class you could purchase the sheets in bundles of 5, 10 or 20 sheets and divide it up.
I buy my paper online from Jackson’s Art Supplies in London! The prices are good even with the shipping from Europe and the paper arrives in 2 days! Here is a link to their website: https://www.jacksonsart.com/en-us/arches-aquarelle-140lb-300gsm-22x30in-56x76cm-5-sheets-not?___store=jacksonsart_us&acc=31839b036f63806cba3f47b93af8ccb5
While you are perusing Jackson’s site, check out their selection of Pro-Arte watercolor paint brushes, I use those and like them a lot.

Even if you are nervous about shopping in London and shipping charges, Jacksons will give you. 10% discount on your first order.

Painting and Paella

You may be wondering what painting and paella have in common other than they both start with p. I traveled to Barcelona, Spain in March 2019 with artists to travel paint. While we were in Barcelona we dined on the most delicious paellas. Paella is a combination of rice, seafood, vegetables, sausage, chicken and spices all mixed up with a tomato based sauce. Recently I decided to learn to cook paella.

My learning to cook paella journey has had its ups and downs. Thank you to all the friends I invited to dinner to eat my cooking experiments. Over the course of several months of paella making, my skills improved. I learned the basics, then began to improvise. Now I can humblely say, I can cook a very good paella.

The paella and painting point is that both painting and paella take practice, skills, supplies and techniques.

I use this paella/painting analogy to help reassure you that you will have progress is your painting abilities if you look at painting as something that can be learned, not as something you can only do if you have some magic talent.

Happy Holidays to All

Best wishes for a healthy, happy, colorful holiday!

I would love it if you would share your ideas for a street name to print in the empty street sign. Email me or leave a comment with your street name suggestion.

Free WednesdayWatercolor Class

This Wednesday, Aug. 4th from 9-10 am I’ll be teaching a free class on how to paint the French interior farmhouse scene. Email me to register at anywhereart4u@gmail.com and I will send you the drawing to copy onto your watercolor paper before class as well as the Zoom invite.

Are You Re-Entering Life?

So tell me what you’ve been up to during this period when the world seems to be returning to some sort of normal after our time of Covid-19 sequesturing. Are you racing out of your house every morning because you can? Are you over-hugging all your friends and relatives because you can now? Are you flying and driving here, there and everywhere?

Or are you still feeling cautious? Carefully stepping out of your house looking this way and that and over your shoulder for some germs that might still be germinating some how around you?

I must admit that I am somewhere in the middle between the two states I described above. I am going here and there but not ranging too far from home. I am still spending a lot of time outside painting (because I decided I really, really like to paint outside ) and not a lot of time inside shopping. It has been wonderful to have friends over for dinner and serve them in my dining room instead of on the patio. I am still taking the time to cook healthy food slowly because I discovered it tastes much better then thrown together or overly processed stuff.

I am best friends with my beagle and may possibly be over bonded with him but nobody is coming out of this strange period without emotional baggage. At least that’s what I think. What do you think?

Now more then ever we need to add more laughter and joy to our lives and one way to accomplish this goal is through our artwork!

CAT Painting Zoom Class

Cats are a wonderful subject and not difficult to draw and paint! In this coming Wednesday’s Zoom class ( June 16, 9-11 am. I will explain my simple method for drawing cats and explain how to modify the basic cat drawing to look like your favorite cat(s).

Since cats come in many different colors and sizes I will show you how to mix the correct colors for a variety of cat breeds as well as which brush stroke techniques to use for cat stripes and cat hair. You’ll also learn how to paint cat’s eyes and how to perch a cat on a window sill in your next painting!

Sign up and email me a picture of your favorite cat and I’ll include how to paint its colors in our Wed. Class.

Class fee is $30. Email me to register at anywhereart4u@gmail.com

Still Zooming Classes! Paint a French Village Scene with Me, Wed. June 2.

I was a little nervous that interest in Zoom watercolor classes would fade with the pandemic restrictions letting up. This hasn’t been the case. While attendence in my bi-monthly Wednesday Zoom class has been reduced a bit, people are still signing up and attending my Zoom classes. I am very thankful the restrictions have lifted and we are able to have more mobility and get back to our activities. I am also very thankful people are still virtually attending my Zoom classes.

This week’s Zoom class topic is painting a scene from a French village in the countryside. While on a workshop teaching trip, myself and the group were lucky enough to visit this village. I have to ask Eileen the name of the village. She keeps a spreadsheet on all villages visited. They were having a small faire in the village the day we stopped by. There were lots of displays of flowers and delicious foods to eat. If you are not to busy reconstructing your life, come along with me tomorrow and we’ll visit this village through the process of painting it.

Email me at anywhereart4u@gmail.com to register for the class. The class fee is $30 and you can pay me with Paypal or mail me a check by snail mail.

Possible Art Kerfuffle on My Desk….

Did someone say, “A clean desk reflects an organized artist?” Please tell me if you know the source of this quote. It could have been a relative…

Exactly what is a kerfuffle? Kerfuffle means a commotion or fuss and fuffle comes from the Scots fuffle which means to disorder and that is exactly what is happening on my desk. I am attempting to paint in the studio as well as out of doors with 3 kinds of paint: watercolor, gouache and oil, as well as create more Youtube Videos and write some instructional books.

Painting at the Old Ranch

I’ve probably talked about my weekly painting outings to Leo Carrillo’s ranch in Carlsbad. Ever since May 2020 a few of us have been painting at the ranch at least once a week. Going to Leo ‘s ( as we refer to it in our texts) has been a life saver for our mental health during the Pandemic. We got to sit in a beautiful spot ( socially distanced) and paint the old California style ranch buildings as the terrain. Plus we got to talk about everything, from painting to partner problems.

i plan to continue to paint at the ranch weekly. I will not get tired of the scenery or the conversation or the nice docents and gardeners who work hard to keep the ranch in ship shape.

Painting of the road to the Wash House at Leo Carrillo’s ranch

Zoom Paint Tuscan Laundry

Since we can’t go to Tuscany to paint due to Covid, let’s visit Tuscany through painting. This coming Wednesday, April 21, from 9-11 am we will paint from a photo I snapped in a tiny hilltop town in the heart of Tuscany. Class fee is $30 and includes drawings, a chart and a shading values guide. You can trace my drawing for a low stress morning of painting.

Email me to register and pay at anywhereart4u@gmail.com

Want to Attend a Watercolor Picnic?

This coming week’s Zoom class will teach you how to paint a picnic scene. You’ll learn all about which colors to use, how to mix them, how to place bright colors next to subdued colors and why. In this class I am also going to share with you how to paint the textures of: glass (as in wine glass, but you can fill it with anything you desire), wicker ( as in picnic basket), and bread ( as in a long loaf of French bread, but you can change the bread to any type or style you desire). I will also show you how to use your imagination to add personalized images to the composition ( as in a birthday cake, a pair of poodles, or anything you can dream up).

Once you register for this class I send you the drawing and any other hand-outs that pertain to painting this subject successfully. You can copy, trace or draw your own picnic onto watercolor paper and have it ready before our class begins on Wednesday morning, April 7th at 9am.

The fee for this class is $30. You can email me at anywhereart4u@gmail.com to register and pay with either Paypal or a personal check sent to me. Please register by 8 pm Tuesday night, April 6th, so I have enough time to get the materials and Zoom invite sent to you.