This past August I took a short, lovely trip to Quebec City. It's a place full of hills and vistas, and exquisite old buildings with more turrets than a Disney castle. In other words, a perfect place for sketching.

I was traveling solo and wanted to round up some sketching buddies to share my adventures with. So I did a search on the Urban Sketchers website for the Quebec City chapter. I thought surely there must one, since it's such a charming, sketchable city. But I was wrong. Hmmmm. So I searched for artist meet-ups instead, and this time I struck gold. Turns out that artist Denise Bujold runs a wonderful series of events called "Artistes dans le Parcs". Each month artists meet at the parks in Quebec City for sketching, painting and companionship. And I couldn't wait to meet them!

They did not disappoint. There was a friendly crowd at the Parc Nautique de Cap-Rouge on the day I joined them. Denise and the other artists welcomed me warmly even though my French is horrible. Fortunately their English is a thousand times better than my French!

At the park I painted a watercolor on the bank of the St. Lawrence River. It was a challenge to catch it before the ebbing tide turned the bank back into a flowering marsh. 

Larry Marshall and Yvan Breton were also at the event, and graciously invited me to go out sketching with them the next day. How wonderful it was to be with two inspiring local artists who knew their way around and could point out great places to sketch. It began to rain just as we settled down to draw at the old lower city, or Basse-Ville, but Yvan knew about a covered entrance to a building where we could draw the picturesque Université Laval while we waited it out. 

Eventually it came time to say good bye to my new friends. But being with them and seeing their wonderful sketches renewed my interest in drawing. And so I continued to sketch on my own in their beautiful city. 

Spring at last! On the way home from the Frida Kahlo exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum I took a detour through Prospect Park to look for blossom trees. My handy watercolor kit came with me on the chance there'd be enough sun and warmth for a quick sketch. I was lucky for an hour or so, but just as I was finishing up there was a sudden downpour. Only a few raindrops fell on my work, so fortunately it didn't get  ruined.  Phew, thank goodness for small favors. Spring weather is so unpredictable!

What to do when you're learning how to paint watercolor portraits, but there's no model around? Actually there's always a model handy if you've got a mirror. And that's how the Self Portrait Project was born.

I bought an inexpensive 60 page sketchbook and dedicated it to painting self portraits. The only way to become really good at something is to practice. Like all the time. So I've decided to paint one a day, or as often as life permits. 

To me self portraits are more challenging than painting someone else, because it's hard to hold the pose and concentrate on painting at the same time. It's easy to get mixed up, so that your nose is pointing one way and your chin is pointing in the other. And as much as I admire Picasso, I'm not trying to paint like him.

Anyway, I love a challenge, so here goes. At the end of this project maybe painting portraits will be a piece of cake. These are my first four efforts in the sketch book, in reverse chronological order. I'm beginning to get more comfortable with the process, and that gives me hope. 

Our Thanksgiving turkey was browning in the oven, and the guests were getting hungry. So I placed an appetizer on the table, and my sister said "Wow, that's beautiful, you should paint that!" 

She was right, of course. So when I got the chance I created a similar set up in my studio. I love the sweet/salty aromas and tastes that the subject evokes. And all the gorgeous colors and textures, and the beautiful cast shadow under the plate. It really was a delicious composition to paint!

Do you know that feeling, when it's summer time and you're learning to watercolor, and you're itching to go outside and paint? But it's raining! And raining and raining and raining ... Well, I do. Here are a couple of indoor watercolor efforts from those countless soggy summer days. 

Most likely I'll be painting more interiors as we plod along into winter. ​Maybe you know of a cool, colorful and laid back venue in New York City. Where they wouldn't mind an artist hanging out with watercolors for an hour or two. If you do please let me know!

This was a complicated subject and frankly I was a little intimidated by it. Since I'm relatively new to watercolor, I wondered how I could possibly preserve the tiny white flowers in the planter and the skinny little sprays of water in the fountain ... when there was a whole forest of trees standing right behind them. Well, the answer is: I didn't.

Actually I take that back, I did, a little. With negative painting. That is, instead of painting the sprays of water directly I painted everything around them and left the paper white where the sprays went. After everything dried I used a wee bit of white gouache* on top for extra oomph. However, I didn't have the patience to paint around every single itty-bitty white flower in the planter. So first I painted the foliage and let it dry. Then I laid in the flowers with gouache right on top. I even used gouache to lighten up some of the foliage in front. Hey, Homer and Sargent did this all the time. So I guess it's all right!

*(Gouache is an opaque water-based paint, so it can be used to paint light colors over dark. Unlike watercolor, which is transparent.)

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Just when I was beginning to wonder if there'd ever be another lovely, sunny day in New York City again, there were two ... in a row! Of course it's raining again. But at least there's the sweet memory of a wonderful day in Central Park with my sketching buddies. 

If you follow my blog you may already know that during my art school days I studied the figure, still life and landscape using oil paints. But I like to challenge myself and learn new things. So lately I've been reading up on watercolor techniques and trying them out.

Many old school watercolor books I've found are written by purists who use transparent watercolors only, and look down their noses on any use of opaque media. I get why they love the fresh, luminous look of transparent paint. But coming from oil painting makes staying in the transparent zone easier said than done. I'm used to the option of painting light over dark. And you can't do that using transparent paint. Light colors just won't show up over dark.

Nevertheless I persist. I continue practicing transparent techniques to get better. But sometimes, after I've already tried and failed, it's time to save my work ... by any means necessary! And why not. It's kind of liberating, actually. Besides, after a recent trip to the Metropolitan Museum I couldn't help noticing that many of the modern and old masters made drawings and paintings in mixed media. Watercolor with charcoal, watercolor with pastel, watercolor with opaque white, watercolor with ... you get the idea. I'm by no means a watercolor historian so I'm not sure when the cool kids got so pure. But I'll look into it and get back to you. 

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