Boca de Tomatlan III

Have I said anything about the climate in Boca de Tomatlan yet? Sunny and around 80 degrees every day with a gentle ocean breeze. Warm ocean. It never seemed to get too hot, even in the sun. I was there for one week with two of the days spent in travel from and back to home. That left 6 full days and so much to see in the area. 

But even trying to pack in the experiences, side trips and more, it was relaxing. . . except for the next day’s bumpy bus ride to Puerto Vallarta’s Zona Romantica. The city was full of tourists and stores and attractions which I realized were more a dis-traction. I couldn’t wait to get back to Boca, the small fishing village which felt a bit like our home by the third day.

The following morning I walked the plank bridge (three boards wide supported by rocks in the rushing river) to the other side where boats were being loaded and unloaded with everything from boxes of produce to bags of trash. 

Sitting in the shade on one of those rectangular benches, I picked a house across the narrow river to sketch. It was the palm thatched roof and the dark interior that drew my eyes, but as I sketched, the thatching disappeared as I got absorbed in the sunlit palms!

A house in the jungle, swallowed up by vegetation. I stopped short of the vines that encased it on either side. Too much green! and added a spectator Snowy Egret and boat landing on the river’s edge.

Our scheduled trip for the day was a drive up the mountain to El Tuito, which translates to beautiful small valley. It’s claim to fame is the artesan cheese, breads, cookies and the restaurant, El Patio de Mario, where we ate lunch in a sunlit courtyard with a parrot, . Here I had my first taste of the real Mole, so good! After walking around the dusty village with not much shade to be had, I returned to the restaurant to watch the open kitchen and sketch the lovely ladies at work.

The best part is always sharing the sketch and getting that picture!

The last day before the long trip home to our northern climes, we all spent time on the beach.

This cheerful shop was our neighbor, three doors down. You could buy a drink and snacks and have access to an umbrella table and chairs on the beach, which we practically had to ourselves on that Friday.

I’m not much for sunbathing, being a redhead (well, gray now) who burns even with sunscreen. So an umbrella and a scene to sketch with the warm ocean breeze . . .well that’s the best.

I had to include the dog because I never sat down to eat at the beach restaurant without at least four dogs of all sizes and shapes encircling the table, cozying up to our legs and imploring us with silent doleful eyes. Otherwise you would find them sound asleep in the sun in the middle of any pathway. 

That’s a tiny bit of the story anyway. I’ll be sketching from a few photos now, hoping to prolong the trip just a bit longer.

Muchas gracias to our hosts, Bob Masla and Monica Levine, who shared their winter home and retreat center of the past 18 years with us. It was a small group that week and we enjoyed their delightful company as they got us settled, joined us at meals, and guided us on all our excursions.  The Casa is filled with Bob Masla and other master artists’ work and the open air studio-with-a-view on the upper levels a tantalizing place to paint. Bob and Monica taught us as much about the local culture as about art so that we could feel at home there. Gracias! also to the cook, Rubi, whose meals were the best of regional cuisine, and to all the other Mexican locals who welcomed us to their small village with open hearts and hands! 

If all this has wetted your appetite for a Mexico art journey, visit the Casa de los Artistas website for more information about workshops coming up.

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Watercolor Tips for the Urban Sketcher

The Watercolor Tips for the Urban Sketcher workshop was on Saturday, held at beautiful Sunset Gardens at Cornerstone in Sonoma. It was one of those exquisite sunny (but not hot) days and the gardens were showing off their spring blooms.

I’d started the planning of this “new” workshop with a list of watercolor tips. It got very long and boring, because watercolor can be a challenge and there is so much to learn. So I broke it down into the elements that work best when you’re out “on the streets” sketching and need to get the color down quickly! We had spring flower gardens to entice and serve as subject matter, so that’s where the focus was.

The demos were about getting juicy color down quickly, using analogous colors and complements to make interesting color shapes and create color drama.

For the novices the workshop was about learning how to get rich color from the palette. More advanced students were encouraged to mix color on the paper, painting wet against wet, charging color into wet shapes, and painting lively shadows.

The three hours went by in a heartbeat, with the fragrance of sweet peas and roses to intoxicate, and the good company of fellows sketchers to enjoy.

New Season of Urban Sketch Workshops!

The San Francisco Bay Area Urban Sketchers will once again be offering the popular 10X10 series of 10 on-location workshops with 10 teachers and 10 different topics! I’m excited to be offering a new workshop in the series again this year.

Watercolor Painting Tips for the Urban Sketcher 

Learn watercolor techniques to make your sketches come alive in minutes! In this workshop solutions will be explored for everything from palette selection and managing your watercolors on location to getting vibrant color, rich shadows and more. Structured practice in this lovely garden setting will include other aspects of quick-capture watercolor painting such as drawing with a brush, edge blending and splatter technique.

Date: May 11

Time: 10am-1pm

Location: Cornerstone Gardens, Sonoma, CA

Cost: $55

Click here to register for this workshop

Last year these workshops sold out pretty quickly because people took the opportunity to sign up for more than one. Here’s the list of workshops and teachers you might want to consider, and you can see the whole flyer here.

Need more information? Feel free to contact me. Hope to sketch with you this spring!

Vignette Workshop Postscript

This is a belated postscript about the 10 X10 Urban Sketchers workshop I taught May 26 titled “Sketch the Vignette”. I was drawn to this topic because I have a habit of getting carried away and taking on too much in my sketches. Designing the vignette keeps me disciplined by isolating the main subject and focusing attention on it.

I like Edgar Whitney’s definition: “A vignette is a piece of subject matter in a well designed piece of white space.”

We started by warming up in my favorite way with continuous line drawing. Keeping the pen on the paper is the best way I know to track your subject without losing your place!

For the workshop exercises we spread out in a one block area in Petaluma where there’s lots to sketch, both inside the Old Petaluma Mill and outside. Some sketchers picked the river and old railroad ties and bridge, to the right of this picture. The first exercise was to find at least five subjects to focus on, doing a quick capture sketch of each and naming them. This helps to commit to a focus so that you’re more likely to stick to the point.

Then students were encouraged to place the subject matter in context and design the white spaces around the subject by identifying interesting edges.

Lastly we accented the sketch with color. I did a demo of this spot which I love for the colorful umbrellas (also the food!) while students observed, so we could also discuss watercolor application. Also we discussed rationale for what was left out of the sketch. This is often as important as what is put in. The name of the restaurant on the window was important, but I didn’t do any other detail on the window to not upstage the patio eating scene. The street lamp made for a more interesting white shape.

And then there was the final splatter! which everyone loves to do because it gets the eye moving and makes the scene more active. There was some interest in learning how to do it with control, but to me, control is antithetical to quick capture sketching! And I’m also not very good at it.

 

Watercolor Simplified in Sonoma

On Saturday I met with 13 sketchers at the historic Barracks in Sonoma to teach the day- long Watercolor Simplified for the Sketcher workshop. The weather was warm and lovely and the sun kept dipping behind clouds and then re-emerging. I figured I better get in the demonstration of the “one-two-punch” sketch while the sun was casting lovely shadows.

fountain pen and watercolor in Field Watercolor Journal 7 X 10″

It was also a chance to put in a “sky dash”, which is a juicy blue sky wash that leaves a bit of white for occasional clouds and doesn’t get all fussy when there’s not time to get the particular sky “right”. The one-two-punch goes in layers of darkening values, the last one of which pops out the sketch, rescuing it from ho-hum.

Of course by the time I’d finished my demo, the sun ducked behind a light cloud obliterating the shadows for my poor students, who were then supposed to paint the shadow shapes!

When you’re learning watercolor it’s important to find a way to have fun with it so you don’t get bogged down in trying to get realism in your application. So I demonstrated the spritz-splatter method of creating a colorful sketchbook page and then drawing/painting some detail on it to tell a bit of the story. Since it is spring and the Sonoma Plaza was filled with blooming flowers, this was a good bet. And it turned out to be the most popular technique of the day.

 This fountain went into/behind many of the spritz-splatter floral displays!

Some of the sketchers were putting people in, and this fellow sitting around the fountain was so still as to be an ideal model! He seemed in fact to have perfected the art of doing nothing! I used this as an example of anchoring your subject to the context and leaving out unnecessary detail.

Then the ducks in the pond became a favorite subject! Honestly I could sit all day and watch them and the children shreeking with delight at their antics.

I managed to work them into my spritz-splatter floral!

And then suddenly it was time to call it a day, and such a good one it was!

Watercolor Simplified for the Sketcher

For more information and to register visit my website!