Hudson Valley Sketches -

Every year, I choose a quote for the year, and write it into my planner. This year, my quote is: A year from now, you'll wish you h...

Pentel Pocket Brush Pen  with Platinum Carbon Black ink If you open up the Roger Tory Peterson Field Guide to the Birds, the first th...

When I want a bright white highlight on a sketch, I often count on white gouache to do the job. All whites are created equal, right? W...

Gouache on black paper Painted from life in Trish's back yard For landscape painters, being able to capture the character of a tr...

In January, 2015, I made swatches of the 48 colors in the Charvin Water Soluble Pastel Painting Sticks set, and cut the strips down the c...

Golden High Flow in an empty Montana marker While many artists are happiest when doodling or playing around with abstract concepts, I ...

One of the challenges of Project Megasketch was finding enough subject matter to sketch from life during the winter months. One great so...

One of the most important goals in my 600-page Project Megasketch was to develop line quality, and move away from chicken-scratchy typ...

If you're an artist who doesn't like winter, maybe this post is for you! I used to hate winter. If you live in a cold climate an...

Well for one thing, you end up with a heck of a lot more time. I logged about a thousand pages of ...

Last week, I had an opportunity to spend a few days at a sketching retreat at the Holy Cross Monastery along the Hudson River. I'd lo...

Sometimes you just have to let go.

Gouache, across a two page spread in a gray-toned sketchbook. My friend Mary came over one day to sketch. We sat on the little dock in...

You know the summer season is winding down when your very last Rose of Sharon bush has nearly finished blooming. I'm trying to make...

Wow, it's been nearly four years since I've posted my sketches! I've been doing a lot of them in the past couple of years, so pe...

Today I did a monochrome tree sketch in acrylic, using the 14x22" spread provided by my Stillman & Birn 11x14" Alpha sketch...

Watercolor in a Stillman & Birn Zeta hardbound book It's that time of year when change happens. The days are getting much shor...

I'm continuing with some palette ideas I started last winter and spring. You can see a couple more of them in this post from May . I&...

I don't always do compositional sketches before embarking on a painting. When working out on location, the time to paint is always to...

  11x17" (across the spread) in a Stillman & Birn Zeta Sketchbook Background monoprinted in several layers with a Gelli Printi...

Every once in awhile, we need to just throw paint. That's what I was in the mood for when I did these two acrylic sketches! They were...

10x8", Noodlers Luxury Blue ink in  my Pescia light blue journal A good friend sent me flowers for my birthday during the time I w...

This is a 10x22" spread across three pages in my blue Pescia journal. You can click on it to enlarge the image. ( Here is a link to...

One of the things I experimented with in this blue Pescia book was silverpoint. Doesn't silverpoint have to be done on a hard sur...

This three page spread is about 10x22". I didn't take photos of the individual pages, but you can click the image to get a much ...

The sketch above is Posie, my studio assistant, rendered directly with blue Big Brush Pitt Pens by Faber-Castell on heavy Pescia 100% rag...

(Click image for a larger, clearer view.) A few days ago, I hiked up to the base of Kaaterskill Falls with some friends for...

I often practice sketching items from photos that I have to be able to pop into plein air paintings quickly. This includes figures, boat...