Blue and White Floral Tiles from Porto, Portugal

I took hundreds of photographs of tiles when I was in Portugal this summer. I was entranced by the variety and color and surprise of them. I hadn’t realized that tiles could be used on the outside of buildings and was fascinated to see that all over Porto and Lisbon. Because they were on the outside of buildings it was much easier to take pictures of the sheer variety. I have begun to draw out some of these tile patterns. I thought it would be interesting to see the black and white drawing of just one tile and then have a group of four of them painted to get an idea of a pattern that can be created with that just one tile rotated.

Gretchen and Wiley - My Latest Commission Completed

These two buddies are Gretchen and Wiley. A pretty happy looking pair! I used ink, watercolor and colored pencil to complete this.

Sketch of Tile Detail and on Location

This is the latest pair of sketches I finished of some tiles that I found when I was visiting the National Tile Museum in Lisbon, Portugal and the detail of those tiles.

The September 2018 Newsletter is Here!

The September 2018 newsletter is now available!

Click here to download the PDF.

Latest sketches from Portugal

I kept a sketchbook on my summer trip to Portugal. Because I was going to the International Urban Sketchers Symposium in Porto, I wanted to have all the sketches in my sketchbook be started on site wherever I was on my trip. However, I let myself finish them up later if need be. 

This is a page that I just completed by adding color to a couple of sketches. I love all the tile, but the paving stones were pretty nice too. These are from the ground at the Sintra train station. The flower is probably nerium oleander that was happily in full bloom next to the bus stop in Lisbon I was waiting and drawing at.

Latest Catalog Out for Cloud 9 Art School

Lucky me that I get to work at Cloud 9 and lucky students that have so many choices of art classes to take from so many talented teaching artists! The newest catalog from Cloud 9 is available here. Check it out or go to the school web site directly.  I will be teaching two six week workshops: in September "Create an Ink and Watercolor Travel Journal" and in October "Playing with Your Food in a Sketchbook." Come join me!

Urban Sketching Workshop in Bothell, WA - Part Three

The second day of the Urban Sketchers Workshop in Bothell was a beautiful sunny one. Great weather for being outside to sketch. Gabi started with watercolor demos in the classroom at Cloud 9 Art School but soon we headed out and stopped at the Clover Leaf Rebekahs No. 54 House. Some worked on the house and others chose the small house next door to draw for this exercise. The point was to take composition, line, and value and put it all together with watercolor for this sketch.

Putting it all together

First try for the day

Walk-by sketch

Playing with values with only watercolor

Next we had a short 10-15 minute stop at the beaver sculptures in front of the Bothell City Hall. Gabi wanted us to draw them using only watercolor and to get a sense of shape using value. I chose the calculating looking beaver sitting up. My version had him looking a bit evil so I tried it again. They looked much better after they dried.

Then it was on to the next stop at McMenamin's Anderson School Hotel. It was a great building but given where we were - very close to it, it was challenging to draw. Finding a good, safe spot to draw was also an issue. There was a throw down but I missed the picture of it. I was impressed how much people got done on this complicated building in such a short period of time.