West Tisbury Tractor - new watercolor painting

This is a new watercolor painting of a tractor in a farm field in West Tisbury, on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. Completed in August of 2011. Some in progress pictures of the painting can be viewed here.

Prints are available through my print shop.

Inspirations: Vintage Books no.12

It's been a while since I shared a vintage book that I find inspiring, so tonight I pulled one from my collection and scanned some pages. I picked this up at my favorite local used book store because I loved the simplicity and quirkiness of the interior illustrations. My favorite is the page where a duck is sporting a top hat, jacket, glasses, and a walking cane.

The book is titled Morning Noises and is written and illustrated by Alain Grée, and published by Wonder Books, Inc. in 1962.

All previous posts featuring books from my collection can be viewed by clicking here.

Philbin Beach Rocks - watercolor sketches

I was able to do a little bit of painting while I was on Martha's Vineyard last week visiting my family and working on planning my wedding for next summer. I took two of my watercolor sketchbooks to Philbin Beach in Aquinnah so that I could paint in one while the other was drying. It was pretty hot and sunny, so the paint was drying faster than I would have liked, but I did my best to just work with it and not get too hung up on precise details. These three watercolor sketches are the result.

I'm hoping to do more painting here at home over the next few weeks, using some of the photos I took last week as reference. Later in August I'll be returning to the island for another visit/wedding planning session.

To see more of my Martha's Vineyard drawings and paintings, just click here.

Lighthouse - sketchbook

Here's another page from my sketchbook, featuring the Gay Head Lighthouse in Aquinnah on Martha's Vineyard. Drawn with pen in my moleskine sketchbook.

To see more of my Martha's Vineyard drawings and paintings, just click here.

Sketchbook Pages

This morning I scanned a couple of recent pages out of my sketchbook. I had to keep myself busy while monitoring student exams last week.

Ceramic Apple

I made this ceramic apple to use for a glaze demonstration with my 8th grade students. The apple is true to size, and I wanted to use it to experiment with layering subtle different colors of glaze to make it mimic the variety of colors that you can see in a real apple skin. I was really happy with how the colors turned out in this experiment.

You can also see part of my classroom desk in the photo below.

New watercolor painting in progress

I started a new watercolor painting yesterday, based on a photo I took in West Tisbury when I was on Martha's Vineyard last summer. I'm trying using Strathmore 500 series cold press illustration board, which I don't have much experience with. It reacts differently than normal watercolor paper, so I'm having to slightly re-adjust my painting strategy.

Zooey - a watercolor portrait

I've been practicing some more with watercolor and it led to this portrait of Zooey Deschanel. Over the past couple of years I've become a fan of her music, fashion sense, and acting. I was trying to treat this kind of like an illustration that you would see in a magazine and had fun incorporating the pattern into the painting.

You can see some photos of the painting in progress right here.

The final painting measures 9" x 12" and was completed on May 19, 2011.

Prints are now available through my print shop!