Whenever I get into a discussion about color, the perennial favorite pigment to dislike, or downright hate, is almost always green!

It's a mean one, that green (and no, I do not think it's an accident that the Grinch is green!)...

Or is it?

Yes, green can be challenging, it can quickly "kill" a painting if we use the wrong green or a green that looks nothing like what you see expect to see in nature, and it can make avoiding its use seem like the best possible way of handling green.

Making Friends With Green
Have you ever slowed down to try and learn more about the color outside of working on a piece of artwork? If you haven't, then you've learned first hand how ornery green can be!

Depending on the palette of watercolors you are using, it can be even more frustrating because you may not have a "natural-looking" green on your palette. Meet Viridian Green:
Viridian looks like crushed emeralds and when used alone, it is a very obnoxious color that screams, "Hey, look at me!" There are few places in the world where viridian appears in nature but, when we mix it with yellows, ochres and blues on our palette, the color becomes useable, appealing and more natural.

Viridian is an inexpensive pigment so it is most likely to show up on travel palettes that offer 18 or 24 colors for the cost of one tube of watercolor paint.

Green Isn't The Enemy, It's Just Misunderstood!
Not to make light...well, wait a minute...yes, to make light of green being a cantankerous color to use, it really isn't the enemy and it's often misunderstood. A few of the misconceptions about green are:

• We think there's a lot of green in most landscapes (Hint: It really doesn't take as much green as you might think it would!)
• Convenience greens are easier to deal with than greens mixed on the palette (Hint: not always!)
• Green is comes from mixing any yellow and blue (Hint: Yeah, no.)
• Green is tricky to work with (Hint: It's really not!)

Taking time to learn more about the green(s) on our palettes can help us start to create artwork with the color green that we actually love rather than just tolerate.

Convenience Greens
Many artists resort to "convenience greens" as a way to have a decent, dependable green on their palettes for those occasional spots of unavoidable green. Convenience greens are the paint manufacturers' answer to the struggling artists' woes with green. Most of the single pigment greens on the market either are strong and/or the color is not attractive by itself.

Convenience mixes are a quick way to get a repeatable green that works in small amounts. The trouble comes when you want to create a landscape or your need more than one green. It pays to know what pigments make up each convenience mix so you know what you can add to get the color you want without making mud.

Last But Certainly Not Least
Temperature (warm or cool), value (light or dark) and chroma (bright or dull) all play a big roll in our success with working with green.

If you're interested in learning more about the pigment, green, and making friends with it, join me for An Imaginary Trip to The Classroom: Working With Green! To learn more about the class, please click here. Class starts on Thursday, February 20th.

More Resources
If you would like to learn more about green, the articles below can get you started: 
Part 1: Frustrated Or Fearful Of the Lovely Green Pigment On Your Palette?
Part 2: Frustrated To Fabulous Green Pigments
Part 3: Another Green Tutorial

Whichever way you choose to learn, I do hope you'll work with the green pigments on your palette outside of a piece of artwork so you can develop a level of comfort and excitement when working with green!

Octobers always seem so busy and often filled with great plans that interfere with all the wonderful things we'd like to do! If that statement describes you and why you are not able to join me for a week-long workshop on Jekyll Island this October, worry not!

Announcing "An Imaginary Trip To Jekyll Island Online Class!" Registration is now open!

Imagine wading in the lapping waters of the Atlantic Ocean or sitting and sketching the otherworldly shapes of driftwood. Maybe you like the shore-life of wading birds and fiddler crabs.

There's something for everyone!

If you are not able to join me for the workshop the week of October 21st, I hope you'll be able to join me online. Class starts on Thursday, October 31st and will have four assignments to show you the gorgeous beauty of this barrier island.

I hope to see you on the island!

I've always heard about the gorgeous light in Paris, but I never imagined that all of France (well, the parts I visited anyway) would have that same light! At times, it seemed pearlescent or iridescent...and so very clear.

It was a delight to walk around medieval towns and villages to sketch and paint (and take photos) because of that light. But I would be remiss if I didn't also mention the subject matter of said sketches and photos...delight visits to so many small towns, parks, rivers, castles, gardens, and cities made this trip worthy of being made into an ImaginaryTrips.com' online class!

I hope you'll join me for the Imaginary Trip To Southwest France and Le Vieux Couvent! We'll explore the lovely convent and its gardens, where we stayed as well as some of the most intriguing small villages (Saint Cirq Lapopie and Beynec), larger cities (Sarlat) and some off the beaten path destinations (Castelfranc).

There is something for everyone! I will be sharing my sketchbook and the pages I created while in France and I'll also show how I create a more finished look once I'm home.

Class starts on April 18th and will feature four assignments. There is an interactive class as well as self-study class option available.

To join in and get registered today, please click here for more information!


I am going back to LVC in September this year and would love to have you join me for the 10-day travel and art workshop! It's not to be missed! The convent was originally built in the 1600's and has been lovingly refurbished into an art retreat complete with secret gardens, a koi pond and lovely courtyard. The classroom and art library are both huge and available 24/7.

This is a true immersion experience as we will get out to explore, sketch and paint the Dordogne and Lot Regions each day! We'll make use of the classroom to finish our pages in the evenings and during any inclement days.

And I have to say, the people of LVC make this place truly magical! From the wonderful meals they create from local sources to the care they show in everything they do, this is one of those rare workshop opportunities that transcends the words, "travel art workshop!"

I hope you can join me for this awesome experience!

To learn more and get registered, please click here!

I hope to see you in France!

The Paris Workshop in October was sooooooooo much fun and we just barely managed to scrape the "tip of the tower" as the city was jam-packed with places to see and visit and absorb and feel and taste and, and, and...

So I'm going back via an Imaginary Trip! This time around I'll be using my own photographs and I'll be showing you how I take a half finished sketchbook and begin to fill in the missing pieces, finish up pages that still need some polish and shine as well as capture some thoughts about what a magnificent place this was to visit!

An Imaginary Trip To Paris, Part 2 will launch on February 7th! It will contain four assignments along with lots of peeks into my sketchbook. I'll be working on adding more sketches as well as finishing you many of the pages I started and filling up some of the blank pages I left.

If you'd like to join in the fun, please click HERE to learn all of the details of the online class. 

Actually, I think it's time for two BRAND NEW Imaginary Trips To Paris!


As most of you know, I'll be getting on a plane to Paris in a little over two months...squeeee! I am so excited and I want to share my excitement with all of you as well. (There's still time and a few spaces if you want to come to Paris, too! Click here to get the details.)

To make the trip last longer and so you can come and play too, I've put together two trips—one before I go and the other after I return!

In the first Imaginary Trip To Paris!, we'll be visiting some of the city's famous iconic sites. We'll delve into the rich lives of Parisians along with how they travel in style as well as the cuisine. This class starts on Thursday, August 23rd! To learn more and sign up for special savings, please click here. 

Sunnies? Check. Beach chair? Check. Sunscreen? Double check! Sketchbook and paint? Yep!

I'm packed and ready—how about you?

The Imaginary Visit To The Beach class starts this Thursday, February 15th. To learn more and register, please click HERE.

Concept Art for 'Tis The Season

Have you ever noticed that the less time you have, the more inspired you are or is that just me?

Every year, when the temperatures begin to drop, the leaves begin to change, and the decorations start to show up and I find myself ridiculously inspired—I cannot wait to get into the studio to start creating. I have all kinds of art ideas dancing in my head!

Except...the hours in which to create are usual nowhere to be found.

With all the extra activities going on in November and December, finding or making time to create can get tricky. I find myself up at some absurd hour in the morning or burning too much midnight oil in the hopes of getting something finished in time to use it for this year's holiday season. Sound familiar?

And every year as I scramble to get together an idea for a card to send to family and friends, I vow this is the last time I'm going to do this. Instead, I set a goal that I'll create a piece of holiday art every month so I won't be scrambling in December. Inevitably, or so it seems, as the year steams into the last few months of the year I realize that once again, I've not followed through on my plan and I'm scrambling to come up with some holiday art.

However...this year is going to be very different! Because you and I are going to be making holiday art ALL YEAR LONG! 

Introducing 'Tis The Season, An Online Holiday Class!

Here's the super cool thing about this class—the lessons will come out once a month for the year and there are three different class options that allow you to choose what works best with you. You'll also have a minimum of a year with the materials and depending on the class option, up to two years! If you're traveling when the lesson drops, don't worry. It will be there waiting on you when you're reading to start creating.

In addition, these classes are all about the studio and taking our time. There will be an art element as well as a lettering element to each class. The classes will be posted on the first Wednesday of each month and there's even a bonus class available! There will also be email reminders to let you know when the next lesson is available and to help keep you on track.

Come this time next year, you'll have a year's worth of artwork to choose from for your holiday card and gifts! Sound like a plan? Then come sign up!

You can get the details here. 

I look forward to creating with you all year long!

Blue skies, blue water, and green gardens with every possible color under the rainbow! Sound like a great sketching opportunity to you?

Then come and join me at Selby Gardens! Florida has had an extremely mild winter and everything is bloom in wild abandon. There are so many wonderful features at Selby besides just what's blooming—statues, topiaries, special garden areas, green houses, and a Marc Chagall exhibit!

The koi pond, the bay just beyond the gardens, and the lavender garden are not to missed either. It won't take long to fill our sketchbooks in a place like this!

If you're in the area, I hope you will join me for a one-day class on April 21st, Painting Postcards In The Gardens! (They called it Advanced but it's not. It was just a way to differentiate between the first workshop and this class.) We'll be splitting our time between the classroom and the gardens and hopefully, most of it will be outside! To register for this class, please click this link.

If you're not in the area, you can still join me in the gardens! Introducing "An Imaginary Trip To Selby Gardens!" I'm doing an online class with lots of demos that will focus on using color harmonies, suggesting detail and texture by using broken color washes as well as how to focus in on what really matters to you most so you can get it on the page.

There are now three different class formats that offer something for everyone! To learn more about the class and the new formats, please click here.

Have questions? Shoot me a message via the Blogger contact form over in the righthand sidebar.

I hope you can join me and help me to usher in Spring in all her glorious color!

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!?!

Oh, my goodness, I have so much to tell you! I've been quiet these last few months as I've been working on opportunities and I finally get to share all the joy with you! To cut down on confusion, I'm going to go in date order so I'm sure to cover all the yummy goodness coming up. You can bet I'll be sharing more in the weeks to come!

December 3, 2016
Festive Starfish Designs
Keeton's Office & Art Supplies
Bradenton, Florida
December 3
9 am - 12:30 pm
Cost: $35
Please call 941.747.2995 to register

These festive starfish can be arranged in a number of ways including a ball, a swirl, and a wreath, just to name a few! I know I haven't been able to stop at just one because this idea opens up so many possibilities.

This dimensional project combines scrapbooking paper, extra watercolor paper, salt, glue and a little bling! It's just another way we can make our journals come alive.





Painting Postcards In The Gardens Workshop
August 14-20, 2017
An Imaginary Trip Made Real To England 2017! Workshop
SaveSave

Okay, I'm in serious denial. This is Florida with temperatures in the high 90's, with hurricanes and tropical storms swirling around us, and we don't see Autumn before December (usually) at the earliest...but why let a little thing like reality spoil the party?!

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!

From the Imaginary Visit To Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks class*

Have you ever found yourself desperately wanting to distract yourself from something ongoing in your life and at the same time you're too distracted to do anything for long? 

From the Imaginary Visit To Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks class*

I don't know about you, but every once in a while, life gets obnoxiously tedious with lots of little "events" that I could do without. Things that cause small amounts of stress and worry. By themselves, they're no big deal.

Unfinished Daffs from 2009

But together, it's like being ganged up on and pecked by a bunch of ducks until I'm a bundle of raw nerves. Together, all those events feel huge. Overwhelming.

And that's when I turn to art as an escape.

Back in 2007, when my job was outsourced to another country, I spent 18 months trying to find another. Unfortunately, the economy was in a nosedive and there wasn't much out there. During those months, art became my way of maintaining my sanity.

From 2008

I started sharing my work on this blog and people stopped by to say hello. I found myself with a new community of friends and before I knew it, I was launching Imaginary Trips!

Before I started the trips, I would frequently "run away" to the garden or the kitchen or a coffee shop so I could escape into my sketchbook and away from the worry of trying to find a job in a lousy economy.

What I realized early on, was that I really liked traveling via my imagination! Who knew it would be so much fun. I could go where I wanted, when I wanted and I didn't have to pack a thing!

Imaginary Trips, from the very beginning has been about escape. Sure, the classes are about growing our skills and preparing for a big trip. It's also about going to places we've not been before or are not likely to get to any time soon.

Sometimes, we're not physically able to travel or we can't break from from our obligations and other times, it's not financially feasible.  There are a host of reasons why it makes sense to travel via our imagination rather than in reality.

By going on an imaginary trip, it's possible to control the weather, how long it takes to get somewhere, the circumstances upon which we travel and where we go. We can travel solo or with friends and we don't have to worry about anyone standing around tapping their toe wishing we'd hurry up. There's no rush to get home and we get to sleep in our own beds each night! We don't have to wait for the seasons to change—you can see them all if you want to—on the same trip.

It's also a fabulous way to keep our skills sharp or to continue to grow our skills when we "go on a trip." Especially if I'm preparing for a real trip I have coming up in the future. I find it so much easier to be creative all along rather than to try to get creative right before or during a big trip.

But for me, I think the most important thing about going on an imaginary adventure is that while it lifts me out of my current circumstances, it also allows me control over those circumstances. It allows me to forget about the struggles and worries for those few precious moments I'm in the zone and creating a memory on my sketchbook pages. Stress goes away. Worry melts. Joy comes and infuses the minutes and a sense of balance is restored.

Sounds pretty good, doesn't it?

If you'd like to join in on an imaginary adventure, please join me for "An Imaginary Visit to Yellowstone and Grand Tetons National Park" starting on May 12th. We'll explore the rugged mountains, hot springs, abundant wildlife and delicate wildflowers without having to camp or sleep on the ground! Click the class title for more info.

If you're not able to join in an interactive class, take a look over at The Imaginary Realm for independent learning classes. They're the same as the interactive classes without the time constraints. You work at your own pace and you have access to the materials for a year. Click on the link for more information.

Detail shot of the front cover

If classes are not for you, strike out on your own. Pick a location and decide when you're going to go, how you'll travel and who will be traveling with you. Look for information on the internet about where you'd like to go along with photos in the public domain to paint from and build an adventure in your sketchbook.

In my "spare" time, I've started a journal to chronicle a trip to the Lavender Festivals. I've only just started it and I work on it in starts and stops, but the time I spend playing in that journal are so very important to my wellbeing. It's a relief to "be away" from the daily grind.


Your imagination is the limit!

Is it my imagination or has the old-fashioned courtesy of taking your hat off when you're inside gone the way of the unicorn?

We went to dinner with my father-in-law the other night and I was amazed at the number of guys (and a few gals) with hats on. I drew the two gentlemen in the sketch above simply because they were sitting in front of us. It also surprised me to see a guy wearing a purple polo! Go, dude, good for you. 

It started out as sketching practice—and I'm pleased to say I'm improving—before becoming more of an awareness about the hats. You haven't seen the other people sketches because they looked more like aliens. Disfigured aliens. Maybe a few zombie aliens. Definitely not pretty. But highly entertaining.

I started looking around and it seemed over 50% of the male population was wearing hats. I'm sure this is nothing new. It's just one of the many gifts of sketching—it tends to raise your level of awareness about what's going on right in front of you.

Have you had that happen to you? You're sketching a place or a thing and suddenly you're launched down a totally unexpected path of learning because the sketching made you slow down to observe? That's what keeps me sketching. Those unexpected paths that lead me to random, seemingly unrelated learnings...that nearly always comes back into play at a later date.

I especially find travel journaling to be like that. Maybe because my mind is already open to new experiences in a place I've not been before. My left brain becomes a little like a toddler, "Why? Why this? Why that? How come that's green or he's wearing that or she said that?"

The cool thing about my left brain being busy is that it leaves my right brain alone and allows it to do what it does best, draw.

If you're interested in learning more about sketching on location, come and join me for An Imaginary Visit To Sweden, starting on April 7th. We'll be explore the country, its people and history. Click here for more info.

P.S. And by the way, National Hat Day is in January. As far as I know there's no National Ball Cap Day! Happy April!!

P.S.S. I am one spread away from being finished with this no name watercolor sketchbook that has been my purgatory for the last six months or so. Cannot wait to be finished with it so I can get back to my beloved Stillman and Birn sketchbook.

An Imaginary Visit To Norway starts March 3rd!

Examining My Approach

First Up: Quick Lettering Guide Tutorial

There are times when I'm out in the field and I don't want to take the time to carefully draw out lines to get a title of type just right. With this in mind, I came up with a quick way to do lettering without having to invest a lot of time.

Once your art is complete and you're ready to add your title, grab a piece of paper. In my example, I'm using tracing paper as I usually have a piece tucked into the back of my journal. Plain white paper works just as well. (The art is from the Keeton's class demo I did this past Saturday.)

The art is fine the way it is, but I really wanted to add the word, Seaside, at the top of the art.  I probably should have used "gulfside" as this is the Gulf of Mexico. You can click on the photos to see the steps more clearly.

Size the tracing paper to the width of the area where you want the type to appear. In my case, I wanted my type to stretch all the way across the top of the art. Please click on the photos to see the steps more clearly.

Once you have the size, fold the paper in half, then into quarters and then down to eighths. This step really depends on how many letters you'll be using. Fold down as much as you want, but the more folds you have the smaller the lettering will be. It may be necessary to space the words rather than the letters. Please click on the photos to see the steps more clearly.

Once I have my folds, I usually mark the folds as it makes them easier to see. I also mark my center fold with a "c." Based on how many letters and the lettering style I want, I then write out my word(s).

If you already know what lettering style you want, you can use the edge of the paper as your straight line. If you're going to play around with a few different styles, draw out several straight lines to practice different styles.

Knowing I really wanted the long, stretchy lettering, I flipped my paper and wrote out my letters in between the folds rather than on the folds themselves as I did in the first example.

Next Up: NEW Classes Over At ImaginaryTrips.com!!
Okay, I'll admit I jumped the gun a little bit as the poll is still open, but Norway got out in front and never looked back! It's a pretty safe bet we'll be heading there first! To learn more about An Imaginary Visit To Norway, please click HERE! Class will get started on Thursday, March 3rd. Come and join the fun! Did you know they have a knighted penguin?! (I didn't either!)

After Norway, we'll head over to Sweden as Norway and Sweden share a border of over 1,000 miles. The history they share is also quite complex and intertwined. We'll head out for An Imaginary Visit To Sweden on Thursday, April 7th. Wanna come along? Click HERE to learn more! Sweden is home to the largest reindeer herd in the world and I'm pretty sure they've a huge moose population as well.

There's still time to vote on the poll and help decide where we go after we leave Sweden! Click HERE to go to the poll. It's open until February 1st!

I look forward to traveling with you this year!