Technique

Video demo with tips and techniques.

I made a video demonstration with tips for filling palette pans.

A palette filled with 14 of my favorite paints.

Video demo for creating simple, layered landscapes.

Development of a painting, from field sketch to gallery wall!

A demonstration featuring my favorite techniques and a time-lapse video.

Tips and resources for exploring the world through art.

Tips and techniques for winter sketching.

I’ve prepped my palettes with fresh colors for an adventure to Vancouver Island.

Try creating a small series of thumbnail sketches.

Inspiration for gesture sketching from a recent workshop.

My techniques for working with tracing paper.

How I flatten my watercolor paintings before framing.

Behind the scenes of a new iceberg painting.

I’m experimenting with travel brushes in my art kit.

Check out my video on sketching in the North Cascades!

A look at my favorite waterproof pens and some recent sketches.

Learn about my upcoming exhibit and see the process behind a new painting.

These are my solutions for storing my Art Toolkit field sketches.

Suggestions and examples for painting with limited palettes.

Practice painting value sketches to build awareness of light and dark.

Here’s my technique for tearing watercolor paper.

How I prep for large scale watercolors including a studio timelapse.

A look at my process developing studio paintings from my fieldwork.

An example of my process developing studies for a painting.

I attended a presentation and manufacturing tour by the owner and chief chemist of Daniel Smith.

Color is a personal choice and everyone I know has their favorite pigments, brands and go-to mixes.

This is the first in a series of paintings exploring Arctic Terns’ movement.

My sketch of our first hummingbird visitor and the techniques I used.

See and learn about the process and behind my new painting, “Storm Front”.

Technique and time-lapse video for painting three Aspen watercolors.

Detailed technique and process for my “Spring Green” painting.

Exploring color with palette and landscape studies.

Featuring my new “Blocky Berg” iceberg painting.

Experimenting with warm and cool glazes of color.

Illustrated explanation of how I use Bento 3 to manage my business and three new bird studies.

Illustrated demonstration of painting a mountain watercolor from thumbnail sketches to final painting.

This Springtime I completed my largest watercolor yet, which was a wonderful commission for an avid kayaker in the Boston area. The vision for this painting, kayaking on the Alaskan coast with an expanse of glaciated mountains, felt right up my alley and I was delighted to accept the project. (Learn more about commissioning work

I’m working on a series of watercolors for a lovely woman who traveled to Antarctica with Quark Expeditions in March- the same company I’ve traveled with as artist-in-residence. The paintings are fun to develop and I’d like to share a few here along with my process of creating them. To begin, I cropped and tweaked

When out in the field, I think about building my “palette of place”: my vocabulary of color, climate, and stories. People often ask if I work from photos and I do, but field work is integral to my process. Sketching and painting outdoors allows me to look at my surroundings closely and from different perspectives.

I recently bought a large roll of Arches 140lb cold press watercolor paper and for the first time, am stretching my paper. Typically, I purchase 22″ x 30″ sheets which are packaged flat and may be simply taped down and minimally buckle (a side note here- I iron my paintings before I flatten them before

This week I’ve been working on my new not-quite-released website (almost there! Thank you steller designer and sweetheart Darin Reid…) and coming across my older fieldwork. One style has particular captured my attention as one I’d like to use more: walnut ink. When working with walnut ink, I often use a toned paper (such as

I’m developing a new series of Antarctic watercolors and am enamored with my memories, field sketches and photographs of vast skies and luminous light. I’m planning to work fairly large (30″ x 15″) to help capture the sense of scale I felt down south. Last week I completed one painting, using multiple glazes and masking

Ice is a recurring theme for me. Someone asked me a few months ago, “do you always paint ice?” Well, no. Sometimes I paint mountains and rocks and clouds… I just feel there’s so much I still want to express and explore about the subject. One of these days perhaps I’ll start a tropical project

I worked this morning on a painting of Mt. Daniel in the North Cascades. The process of this painting began with my field work in 2007 when I hiked to Mt. Daniel with the North Cascades Glacier Research Project to survey the Ice Worm, Mt. Daniels, and Lynch glaciers. Camped just below the small Ice

It’s been a busy couple weeks with post-opening catch up (for everything I put on hold during my framing work), the holidays, and being knocked out by a cold which forced me to take real weekend (a restful one- I felt like I went into hibernation). Anyways, I’m feeling better and coming out of my den

I joined scientist Mauri Pelto on Mt. Baker in August of 2007 to monitor a number of glaciers. We were traversing from the Sholes Glacier to the Rainbow and paused for lunch in the Portals Pass. I sketched and noticed the strong shapes and shadows. This year as I’m processing my North Cascades fieldwork, I

My art kit is modified every time I head into the field. I thought I’d share some of the variations I’ve used and experimented with. This kit was the one I used around the world. It’s a durable tacklebox that my mother bought me at Fred Meyer, and carries my paint brushes, watercolor palette, water

Our friends have two beautiful labrador dogs (well, one is still very much a puppy) and I’m sketching out ideas for a painting of them. I’ve used a number of my favorite techniques with this sketch. The drawing is done with my Staedtler 0.18 marsmatic pen- a fussy implement (it doesn’t like altitude or temperature changes

I rode my bike over to Bainbridge Island today (with the help of the ferry) to teach an ink and watercolor field sketching workshop with Bainbridge Arts and Crafts Gallery. We went down to water to sit in the shade and sketch and this is a value study I did with my chopstick, paint brush,

Slow Sunday today… laundry, gardening (I’ve got a late start this year but hope something grows!), prepping painting surfaces (my crackle paste boards are looking promising!), and this conté crayon mixed media painting. Conté crayon is funny- just thinking about using it dry it literally gives me goosebumps in that sort of nails-on-chalkboard sort of

I had a lovely day today at the Bellevue Daniel Smith where I gave two workshops on ink and watercolor field sketching. Both were full houses! I was delighted to share my work with everyone and enjoyed meeting new faces. I look forward to more collaborations with Daniel Smith- in fact this fall I will

This morning I set aside one hour to make my “painting of day.” I decided to experiment with sepia conté crayons- the lovely warm tones of which I’ve always loved. Playing around on a 300 lb Arches water color paper, I used my waterbrushes to make washes and layered on brown, sepia, and white crayon.