Its been a while since I have posted any paintings, so here are a few sketches that I have done over the past few months.

Some paintings I did in Moosehead Lake, Maine over the summer.

For my trip to Spain and France, I made two sketchbooks from scratch.  All it took was some $4 large format sheets of 140lb watercolor paper I picked up at Utrecht, a 4-ply sheet of black museum board for the front and back covers, and my old office’s binding machine with some bronze-colored coils.  I cut the sheets to 24 pages at 7″x9.75″ and the museum board covers to 7″x10″ so that the pages have some extra protection on the ends.  The result was a lightweight, durable, cheap, and pretty handsome sketchbook.  The advantage, besides being half the price, is that I could choose the size, number of pages, and kind of paper that I made it out of.  Plus you get the satisfaction of making it yourself.

Here are some watercolors from a trip I took this summer to Spain and France. Most were quick 10-15 minute sketches done on site.

It seems that every aspiring painter has a guru.  Mine is Jason Heinze, a former co-worker at Machado Silvetti and friend of mine.  However, since he is already taken, I figured the least I could do is pass on his own personal guru: Handprint.com.  Although it is a bit hard to navigate at times, Handprint is mindblowingly extensive.

I also wanted to mention some of the brushes and paints I find to best. In terms of paint brushes, I have tried many different types and styles, but I always end up going back to the two brushes Jason gave me for my birthday last year: a #8 Synthetic and #6 Kolinsky Sable pocket brush.  They are brilliant.  Their tips are flawless and the brush has amazing capacity.  It feels great to paint with because of the weight distribution being towards the brush.  Plus because they are reversible, they are amazing for traveling and painting on the go.

See Part 1.  These are with a bit more practice, although it may not look like it.

Paintings should generally not have descriptions.  These are some watercolors from when I did not really know what I was doing.