I guess it was inevitable though I didn't see it until last week—we're going to visit Marie Selby Botanical Gardens! These gardens are spectacular and given Florida's mild winter, everything is busting out in glorious colors EVERYWHERE!

Registration for An Imaginary Trip To Selby Gardens will open on Friday, March 24th, as the sign up process will be changing for all of the ImaginaryTrip.com classes.
You will now have the option of taking the class in an interactive environment with a blog and feedback from me and your fellow travelers
OR
you can opt to have the class materials for a year, work at your own pace and not worry about interacting on the blog.

If there is sufficient interest, I may add a third option where you can join the blog AND keep the materials for a year after the interactive portion of the class is complete, but that's down the road a bit!

I think in the long run, this will serve us all much better and eliminate some of the double work I've been doing that slows down making the classes available over at TheImaginaryRealm.com.

As always, please let me know what questions you have!

P.S. If you're going to be in Florida on June 24th, check the sidebar for an exciting workshop opportunity!

P.S.S. Next, we're going somewhere hot, sunny and red! Any guesses!?!

In the first Green Tutorial (HERE), we discussed making friends with those greens on our palette by blending them with other pigments on our palette.
In the second Green Tutorial (HERE), we put what we learned in the first post to work by painting individual leaves.
In part three of this Green Tutorial, we're going to apply what we learned about painting leaves by painting a basket of flowers and last, a charming cottage garden in England!

A Pretty Basket of Flowers
The image at the top of the graphic is from a postcard I started at Selby Gardens but did not get a chance to finish. There were hanging baskets everywhere just brimming with blooms. This one was full of Impatiens. In the first layer, I laid down a scribbled wash of yellows and greens after I completed the pot.

In the second step, I add spots of color to represent the flowers. Again, these are mostly little scribbles of color without any real attempt to look like a certain flower but rather something generic.

In the third step, I started adding in darker greens. I used my base green mixed. This included yellow mixed into my icky palette green to make it more natural. I then added blues and violets to get a variety of darker greens.

In the last step, I went even darker and when I felt I had enough darks built up, I add some "raggedy edges" to the edges of the plant mass to make it read more natural.

Notice the lack of details. There's nothing there but suggested shapes and a variety of colors. I've used my darkest darks to indicate the areas in shadow so that I am suggesting a light source (see the small penciled sun in the left corner just above the border).

When we're out on location doing quick sketches, we don't have a lot of time for details, but we can certainly suggest them to our viewers!

English Cottage Garden
Below is the "inspiration source" I used for an English cottage garden sketch.

Click to enlarge

I gave myself a maximum of 30 minutes to create a sketch based on the image. Knowing my time limit helped me to focus in on what I liked best about the image—the row of trees with the garden and lawn below it. I love the cottage in the background, but with only a half hour, I decided to forego it until I had a bigger window of time to tackle it and do it justice.

In the top image, you see my beginning sketch...just a few outlines to tell me where things belonged. Since I planned on letting the paint do most of the work, I didn't need much. Notice I've used the rule of odds with five trees.

Also, I wasn't shooting for a copy of my photo but rather my interpretation of the garden. 

In the second step, I painted in the lawn using a smooth wash that had a mix of the yellows, oranges and icky green on my palette. Next I mixed blues and yellows with the green to get the tree "balls" with squiggle shapes to suggest trees.

I added the back lawn using more green and less of the yellow and orange.

In third step, I add spots of color to suggest flower shapes and then I added in a very dark background to help establish the middle ground. This also helped to push the foreground closer to the viewer.

Again, this was all done with squiggles except on the left side in the background where I used long strokes to suggest long pieces of grass.

Starting in Step 4, I begin to build the flower garden at the base of the trees. To make sure I was going dark enough with my first layer in this area, I also added in some of the dark, dirt color. If I waited to add the darks until last and my first layer looked too light, I would have to paint yet another layer over the first. Layers take time to dry and are not ideal for location work. It is best to limit them as much as possible by going dark enough on the first layer.

In Step 5, I added more detail in the background, closed up some of the white skips and adjusted some of the background darks.

In Step 6, I've completed the foreground garden and added in a second layer of "squiggles" over the tree balls to give them more of a leafy texture.

I've added in turquoise and Indian yellow which are no where to be seen in the "Inspiration Source" photo.

In the last image, I've added in the sky with some fluffy white clouds meandering by to give the image a more complete look.

This entire sketch was accomplished with a base green and by adding the other pigments on my palette to it.

If the green on your palette is not a natural green found in nature, it helps to go ahead and build a puddle of a base green and working from that. Be sure to use lots of pigment and as little water as possible. It may take yellow, blue or both to make the green look like something you would expect to see outdoors.

The rest of the work was done via texture, shapes, temperature and value.

Texture - the trees, background and part of the flower garden are nothing more than squiggles. The lawns are a smooth wash.
Shapes - the grasses in the background are long lines as are some of the shapes in the front garden.
Temperature - notice the warm yellows and greens that make up the grasses vs. the cool greens that make up the tree balls and the darker areas of the background on the right and directly below the trees.
Values - by using darks, I push the background further into the back. By using lights, I am pulling the trees and the front flower garden towards the viewer into the middle ground. The light value lawn also moves towards the viewer. I also used lights and darks to give the trees roundness and volume as well as to separate them, one from another.

Greens are here to stay and it only makes sense to make friends with them if we're going to find ourselves outside in a England or a Garden (click the words for upcoming workshops!). Just looking out the window can bring greens into your view!

Questions? Questions about greens or another troublesome pigment? Let me know in the comments! 

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

Painting Postcards in The Gardens Workshop

Oh my! We had a super fun time at Selby Botanical Gardens this past Thursday and Friday! I kid you not when I tell you it did not matter what direction you went, there were at least a half dozen views that were sketch-worthy within a dozen steps! Blooms, bees, osprey, boats on the water, butterflies, statues, koi, water fountains, planters brimming with saturated color were everywhere...an artist's paradise! Can you tell I was digging it?!

The weather could not have been any better if we had custom-ordered it. Lots of sunshine with a hint of coolness in the breeze and shade...Florida at its best! The image above is some of the fabulous postcards the group created in just two days! There were more, but I would have had to climb up a ladder to get all of them in.

I think one of the most important things that came out of this workshop was the participants realized how different your mindset has to be when you are working on location vs. working in the studio. You don't have time to capture every detail, every leaf or bloom and there's a bazillion more things calling out to be drawn on the page and painted!

We were out and about in the gardens, sketching on location. We "appropriated" cuttings from some of the work carts to draw back in the classroom before we ventured out to do more sketching.

We worked on using thumbnails to get a page composition we liked, we worked on embellishing our work by adding color and elements that were not there as well as on exaggerating what was already there. We also worked using a template to create title banners and flags as well as date and temperature boxes.

We even shared our kits and inspiration with each other. There is just something about sharing with like-minded people that cannot be beat!

And if you missed this workshop, not to worry! There will be one more class in April. It's a one day class from 9 - 12 on Friday, April 21st. The title of the class is Advanced Painting Postcards in the Gardens, but do not let the "Advanced" deter you. Anyone with a desire to art journal is more than welcome!

To register for the class, please click HERE. (Please sign up soon though as spaces are going quickly.) I hope to see you there!

Keeton's and Flamingos

On Saturday, we painted a fabulous, pink flamingo! I introduced everyone to working on a simplified grid system to be able to quickly get a likeness of their photos down on the page.
We worked on creating broken-color washes and then creating a unifying wash once everything was dry to create the look of feathers without having to render each and every one.
By the time we were done, we had a finely, feathered flock of phenomenally fantastic flamingos! One of the coolest things to me about these classes is how everyone can work from one photo reference and come up with such a diverse crowd of flamingos!

But if you missed this class, not to worry because I have you covered! You can still take the online class. It is available HERE. You'll have the materials for 365 days from the day you signed up and you can watch the videos as frequently as you'd like.

Annnnnnd...we'll be doing it again next month at Keeton's as well! We're going to be creating that big blue Florida sky with gorgeous fluffy clouds and a beach umbrella! Sound interesting? You can call Keeton's at 941.747.2995 to register! Hope to see you there!

Two quick reminders for this week!



An Imaginary Visit To A Tulip Festival will begin this Thursday! We'll be working with all kinds of bright color both close up and at a distance over a field. We'll also play around with all kinds of greens and how to make them interesting. If this sounds like fun to you, come and join me! Please click here or on the class title to sign up!

P.S. As ImaginaryTrips.com will be celebrating six years of creative fun and learning, I am offering this class at a special celebratory price. Check out the link above to find out more!






Next up, if you're anywhere nearby, plan on joining me for a class at Keeton's Office And Art Supply in Bradenton this Saturday, June 25th! We'll be capturing the jeweled wings of the Monarch Butterfly in our sketchbooks! It seems kind of appropriate since today marks the Summer Solstice!

To sign up for this class, please contact Keeton's directly by following the link above!



Hope to see you there or in the Imaginary Realm!

An Imaginary Visit To A Tulip Festival!

One of the coolest things to happen along my artistic path are the connections I've made along the way. It is odd to me that some of my "closest friends" are people who live thousands of miles from me and I only actually see once in a great while, but then to me, that's the real beauty of the world wide web.

One such connection is Claire McFeely who recently sent me a disk full of gorgeous photos from a trip she took with her family to Skagit Valley, Washington, to the annual Tulip Festival—a place I've always wanted to visit!

Undulating waves of colorful blossoms, kites rising gently over the fields, happy shining faces of the visitors, portraits of delicate tulips lifting towards the sun...and an imaginary visit was born!

I had intended to wait until next April to put the class on the ImaginaryTrips.com class schedule as this when the real festival happens, but I decided I didn't want to wait. This unexpected gift was too bright and colorful and fun to be ignored and we all know artists are hard pressed to ignore any new, bright, colorful, fun thing that comes along!

I invite you to come and visit the tulip festival with me. An Imaginary Visit To A Tulip Festival with start on Thursday, June 23rd! To make this even more of an unexpected gift as Imaginary Trips is celebrating six years of travel sketching, I have included a discount on the pricing of the class. Click here or on the class title to find more information!

It's here, it's here! Finally! I've been itching to hang out my fall wreaths and put up so autumn art. Tis my favorite of seasons!

We're not really feeling it yet here in Florida, but they say hope blooms eternal...it was 73º this morning, so yay, weather!

To celebrate the changing seasons...somewhere else...we're going to be having some fun with sunflowers, lettering, border treatments, splatters and complementary colors at Keeton's this coming Saturday, September 26th, in Bradenton.

Did you know that the sunflower is Russia's national flower and they produce more sunflowers than any other country?

Me either! Oddly enough, sunflowers originally came from the United States.

Do you know the difference between a wild sunflower and a domesticated sunflower (and no, this is not a joke!)?


Wild sunflowers have lots of branches and small flowerheads while the domesticated sunflowers tend to be single-stemed with one large flowerhead.

Of course, that one flowerhead thing is a little misleading as the flowerhead actually consists of up to 2000 individual flowers that are attached to a receptacle base.

And last, but not least, there are over 60 different types of sunflowers and the flowers are grown in the United States, Japan, Russia, and Europe.

I hope you'll come and join us! There's something to be said for pretending it's a pleasant 70º degrees outside with a brilliant cerulean blue skies so bright you almost have to wear shades.

Hope to see you Saturday!
_____________________________

Please don't forget to check out the new Independent Learning Classes over at The Imaginary Realm!

Nothing says Spring to me quite the way tulips do and I have been loving all of the pretty flowers I see each time I step into the grocery store. They seem the perfect subject for a page in my sketchbook and I created a quick tutorial so you could join me!

The photo reference below is of some artificial tulips that I use to decorate with each spring:
Following general shapes, I drew individual flowers and leaves starting with the one closest to me and then adding the rest behind the last flower I drew until I had an odd number of blooms arranged on the page. If you follow the number order, you'll see where I started, what I drew first, second and so on:
I splashed paint using yellows, pinks, lavenders and coral for the blooms along with greens, yellows, blues, violets  and teal for the leaves. The stems have yellow and green:
Next, I used a piece of tracing paper to draw a simple outline around the outer-most edge of my tulips before carefully cut out around the shapes to create a mask:
Using a cardboard stencil, I then added the polka dots into the background. You'll note that the header, Happy Spring also shows up in this image—I forgot to take a photo!:
Using a cosmetic sponge, I dabbed paint from the palette to paint the dots. It is very important to use just enough water to get the paint to the sponge. The puddle of color should be mostly pigment. It will have a consistency of heavy cream. If you use too much water and the sponge gets too wet, the color will leak under the stencil and the edges will not be crisp and sharp:
You can either hold the tracing paper mask down or you can tape it down. Position the stencil and begin to dab color into the openings. It may take more than one application of paint to get to the level of color you want. Be careful not to let the sponge get over-saturated. If it becomes too wet, set it aside and grab another one.

Once everything is dry, go back and fix any edges that may not be to your liking and then add your header or text. Consider using a coordinating color like a darker green or pink rather than black.

Last go back and strengthen the outlines around the tulips to give them more energy:
Using broken lines as well as varying the line weight (thick vs. thin) gives the tulips a more dynamic feel than just the simple outline I started out with.

I hope you can join me at Keeton's down in Bradenton for the class on Saturday, April 25 and we'll paint tulips together!

Tribute to a fun day Stillman & Birn Zeta Sketchbook Watercolor and ink

Valentine's Day has always been a minefield for dating couples or those who have just broken up or those who have just gotten together. Add that to the pressures of Madison Avenue to buy bigger, better, sparklier things and it becomes a hated holiday. And that pressure is also felt by those who are alone and would rather not be!

Chris and I don't ignore the holiday as we both feel it's nice to recognize each other, but nor do we get caught in the "Hallmark Trap" of trying to make it picture perfect with just the right card, gift and activities for the day.

As it turned out, this year's Day of Love came about as something a little more special than the usual with a surprise gift (for me, that I adore), a great movie (Kingman: The Secret Service), lunch with friends, discovery of a cool, new shop near the theater with some fun new finds for decorating our home!

Detail of journal page

They were giving out roses at the new store, so another surprise—two white roses. Not only have they opened, but Moby and her holy terror tactical team have left them alone! (UPDATE: I spoke to soon—we awoke this morning to find one of the roses visiting the floor.)

Lastly, we ended our outing at Ruby Tuesday's. We wanted to sit out on the patio because it was jam-packed inside and very, very noisy. After we were seated we heard others complaining about the 45-minute wait. Because we opted for the patio, which we had all to ourselves, we didn't wait at all!

That's when we remembered it was Valentine's Day. Oops. I assure you that had that little piece of info crossed either of our minds, we've gone home and rewarmed the leftover pizza.

Our waitress asked us how long we'd been together and of all the folks she'd served, we had been together the longest (22 years and counting).

I decided to put together a journal spread for the day and it became very busy, very quickly.

To help make the text flow…wait. Stop. Let me back up first.

The first thing I did was kind of a quick pencil layout where I wanted all the items. I then laid down a piece of the drywall patch* that I've seen used by others to help with the journaling.

I'm sad to say, it left a very nasty glue residue all over the page which would not be picked up by a kneaded eraser nor a plastic one. Grrrrrr!

Detail of the page

I decided to keep going, sans drywall patch, and just wing the journaling. To better help the text flow (which really had no flow), I decided to add the arrows in a different ink color.

I added the movie ticket, a logo from a bag from the new store and RT's logo to offset the art and journaling. It was a busy day and I kinda like that the page is busy as well.

After nearly completing the spread, I began to think of a few more things I wanted to capture and added them in yet another ink color.

A fabulous day all the way around!

I hope your Valentine's Day was a special treat as well.

*While the patch did not work out for me this time, I will try it again. If you want to give this a whirl, I STRONGLY suggest you adhere the patch to a piece of fabric (that you don't care about!) several times BEFORE you press it down to your page.

Iced Rose Watercolor and Ink Stillman and Birn Bound Beta Sketchbook 5.5 x 8.5 inches

Be honest…if I had not said this was an iced rose, could you have guessed?

Perhaps you would have said snow?

Either way, it's okay.

I wouldn't have guessed that was ice if I'd seen this out on the internet somewhere.

Simply put, this was a miscalculation on my part.

When I saw the image, I thought, "Oh, I can do that with no problem."

Wrong.

While it does look like a rose, it looks like it's lying in the snow.

It wasn't suppose to!

Nor do I think that looks like a blob of ice.

A blob of something, but not ice.

Still, it was fun. It was a learning experience and I'm not totally dissatisfied with the end piece.

This to me is what art is all about.

Doing. Experimenting. Learning.

Going again until your reach a level of satisfaction you're happy with.

What is your definition?

Snapdragons Watercolor and White Ink Stillman and Birn Bound Beta Sketchbook 5.5 x 8.5 inches (Image Cropped)

With four straight days of rain last week, I found myself in need of something bright and cheerful.

Snapdragon blossoms to the rescue!

It's actually been a mild winter for us so far. (Stop throwing snowballs!! It's not my fault you're having a wicked winter!) And we've been getting a lot of grey days whether we get rain or not.

The image above is a slight departure from my usual work as it's really just suggested shapes. I did a very simplistic pencil sketch to get down the shape of the bottle and placement of stems.

After that, I just let the paint fly without too much concern about bleeds, actual petals or any details.

Of course, being me, I just had to go back in with white pen on the white stem to bring back some of the white highlights I lost.

Then, being me again, I had to futz around with the bottle.

I can't say that I'm satisfied though.

Why?

Because one of the things I'm working on this year with my work is being looser. And when you're driven by and addicted to details, it's damn difficult to let. them. go.

Which brings me around to the question I posed in the title of this post—can we change our style?

At first blush, I would say no. It's hard to escape ourselves.

My husband and I have had this discussion numerous times. He say's no. I used to agree. I think I still do, but...

Now, I believe styles evolve.

Think back to when you first started sketching or painting…do you see a difference in your work today?

Probably. That's evolution. The more we know, the stronger our skills, the more it reflects in our work.

I also think it depends on the direction we push our work as it begins to develops.

However, underneath all the work, all the determination, all the struggle, is my inherent style of being a careful, tight, detail-oriented artist. As I mentioned, it's hard to escape ourselves.

When I was in art school, the instructor believed there were two types of artists—those who could copy another's work exactly and those who could not. I fell into the second category and I've only ever met one person who truly fell into the first—they're rare.

The woman, who had no style of her own, showed me her catalog of work and regardless of the instructor, her work looked exactly like the instructor's! She had taken a lot of classes, too. When I asked what happened when she worked on her own, she said her work was all over the place—it depended on the subject matter and her mood.

But what about those of us who do have styles that were not crazy about? If we don't like our style or we're bored and we want to change it, what can we do? Our we stuck with it no matter what?

Well, I'm going to be exploring those questions in the next few months and I'd love to know your thoughts on styles, whether they can be changed and if you like yours or not. Please share your thoughts in the comments!

California Poppies - Detail Click to Enlarge

If you've been reading Painted Thoughts blog for any time at all, you know that I worship at the altar of details. Love, LOVE, LOVE details! It is in my nature to sit down and paint the finest of details for hours on end.

It's also crazy making.

When I don't have the level of detail I think I "need" in a photo reference or worse, when half way through the painting, I'm done. Finished. O.V.E.R. I.T. And it makes me crazy.

Such gorgeous oranges, yellows and pinks! Click to Enlarge

Then I rush through to the end and invariably regret it afterwords.

One of the things that travel sketching as well as sketching on location has taught me is there is no time for detail-worship. You go for big shapes, smaller shapes in shapes and then a few well chosen details and you're off to the next location.

Yes, at first it bothered me to leave out those scrumptious details.

Until I realized that sometimes less is more. It's kinda fun to paint an image and leave just enough out that the viewer can and does interpret the work differently from me.

So easy to get lost in all that detail! Click to Enlarge

Now, with this said, my default position is to get into the details waaaay too soon in a sketch or painting. I've had to get fairly "inventive" to outsmart my detail-loving-self.

I painted this standing up with the sketchbook turned upside down with a number 10 round with one hand tied behind my back!

....oops, wait, no, just kidding. I didn't tie my hand back.

Once the entire painting was dry, I sat down and painted in a few of the details—still using the #10 brush. I had to restrain myself from putting in every crinkle and wrinkle in those sweet, happy flowers.

And yes, it was hard not to go overboard with the details given to my desire to paint every stamen, shadow, crinkle, and hair.

Full Spread of California Poppies 11 x 8.5 inches Click to Enlarge

I am so glad I didn't. These flowers were so beautiful swaying in the breeze with their bright happy faces lifted to the sun. We saw these all over San Francisco...in gardens, by utility poles, in sidewalk crevices. It didn't matter where they were, they were beautiful.

These are not as loose as some would paint, but for me, given my proclivity for painting every single detail, this is loose! I still fed my desire for detail by including "just enough" detail to balance out the loose. I'm a happy girl!

Join me in my happy dance, won't you?!

Our third day had us exploring the Painted Ladies near Alamo Square. These Victoria beauties simply sparkled in the bright sunshine! It was a brilliant day to be out walking and exploring. So much so that before the day was over, we'd walk over 16,000 steps!! (I worked it out in miles, but I didn't right it down and I don't remember now. I do remember it was a bunch! Maybe KJ will remember?)

No matter where you are in San Francisco, you cannot help but notice all the things green, growing and blooming!
This is one of two cats I managed to photograph during our entire stay. I have 100's of dog photos and two cats—hopefully, all the kitties were just inside, safe and sound, snoozing away.
Something I've recently discovered about myself is that whereas I can paint detailed architectural structures, I don't much like to....I get bored long before I get done! In the future, I will probably pick a doorway, a pretty window, etc. rather than the whole darn thing! This is quite simplified but you probably wouldn't guess it without seeing the photo reference.
You could spend a lifetime painting just flowers and gardens or just houses or just doors or just....you get the idea!

And then, wouldn't you know it, but we stumbled into the cutest little restaurant (11 blocks away from the Painted Ladies, so yes, I do mean stumbled!)....

French made macaroons, no less! These are caramel and they were soooooo good that we had to go back down the block to their bakery to buy a box of these little gems. Now, you know if we had to go back down the block, they were good!
I've even forgotten what kind of coffee we had, but I remember it as being very tasty whatever it was! I will also mention that I had a couple of macaroons from a different bakery—and I was not impressed. In fact, I'm glad I had these first or I probably wouldn't have been tempted to try any others.
 Kay, I think it was you who asked if we found any pralines and/or beignets...at any rate, someone asked, and no, we didn't find any, but we did find these delicious little bites of joy! Soooooo yummy! And trust me when I tell you those will not be my last macaroon.

Lunch revived us so off we went in search of Japantown.....