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A Peak Inside my Watercolor Art Journal, Italy and Croatia

A Peak Inside my Watercolor Art Journal, Italy and Croatia

Traveling to new and unusual places gives me the opportunity to paint in my watercolor art journal. I am always on the lookout for some fun and creative ideas. Sometimes I sit in little alleyways to paint on location, and sometimes I finish my paintings in my journals in the evenings with a glass of wine. The painting of the little church below is of a Church that my husband and I hike to while on a recent boat trip to 3 islands near Dubrovnik, Croatia, This lovely Church was built over 1,000 years ago!  It had a tiny door.  I  guess people were smaller back then.   If you are interested in painting with me and learning about keeping a watercolor journal,  I am teaching four different classes at the Seattle Create art retreat  There are several seats still available in each class.

Fun Ideas for Your Watercolor Journal

Fun Ideas for Your Watercolor Journal

In the summer issue of PAGES magazine, I give you another fun idea for how to add interest to your watercolor journal.  This article is about how to use black gesso.  I hope you enjoy trying this cool technique!

Cover Art for Art Journaling,

Cover Art for Art Journaling,

I was so surprised and honored to find out that my art was chosen to be the cover art for the spring 2014 issue of ART JOURNALING magazine!

It will be on in stores available for purchase on April 1, 2014.   My article is about using shape to design journal pages.
This photo did not get into the article so I wanted to share it with you here.  Here is what I write about this page in my Patagonia watercolor journal.

One of my favorite journal pages is one where I painted a meadowlark and a vista behind him.  The meadowlarks were plentiful and darted about the brush flashing their red bellies.  I often heard their melody as we hiked.  Instead of just painting a scene with a meadowlark in it, I wanted to try a different point of view.  I painted him much larger than the vista and had him placed off to one side to help frame the page. He is looking back over landscape as if to say he is the guardian of this remote area.  

I hope you enjoy this new issue of Art Journaling!

http://stampington.com/Art-Journaling-Spring-2014


A Time to Relax

A Time to Relax

The thing about the warm southern sun, tropical breeze and bright sand, is that it just makes you slow down, relax and enjoy.  Coming from snow and cold winds, makes it next to impossible to paint out-of-doors in the winter so I love being in this Mexican warmth and painting what is in front of me.  On our whale watching and kayaking trip I enjoyed painting the following scenes in my watercolor journal…..

Art Journaling: Whales, Birds and a Little Tequila

Art Journaling: Whales, Birds and a Little Tequila

Ok, well maybe a lot of tequila!  We are off on a camping/wildlife adventure with wonderful guides provided by Mar y Adventuras.  We camped on beautiful white sandy beaches on two different island in Baja California, Mexico.  

Our guides took very good care of us, offering lots of tequila, fresh fruit, and fresh caught fish.  Happy hour awaited us every day when we returned from a day of bird watching, whale watching, hiking and kayaking.

 I added at least 15 new birds to my life list.  I started this list as a young teenager in Alabama so you can imagine how exciting this is for me.  I finally see blue-footed boobies!  

Zoom in to see the blue feet!

I see two birds that are endemic to Baja California, the Belding’s Yellowthroat and the Gray Thrasher.  

The drive to Magdalena Bay, for gray whale watching, is a four-hour van ride through a land of cactus, lizards and turkey vultures, bare and hot. We stopped at a tiny cafe for fresh empanadas and quesadillas, which were served from a rancher’s kitchen.  

There is no menu and we satiate our appetites by ordering from the kitchen window.  The rancher’s wife quickly warms up our food on a wood burning stove.  Delicious!  We all order seconds.  I wander outside to find meat hanging to dry like freshly washed laundry.  Surprising, there is a flock of brightly colored yellow birds.


 I take photos and identify them as Lesser Goldfinches.  Off in the distance at the tip of a cactus I take a picture of another, not so colorful bird and find out that this is a Gray Thrasher found only in this region.  All this is wonderful inspiration for painting in my Arches watercolor journal that I brought on this adventure.  I had to pack my traveling light kit, as I knew there would be limited space.  Here are some photos of how I prepared my small Winsor Newton palettes.  I filled one with my warm colors and another with my cool colors.  

Lots of Wildlife!

Lots of Wildlife!

Did you know that I am an avid bird watcher? Part of going to a new location is the joy of spotting a new species to add to my life list. I thought it would also be fun to incorporate all the birds I have been seeing in Baja, Mexico into my watercolor journal.  Here is a watercolor painting of a Brown Pelican…. they were everywhere!

 This is a photo I took of a Black Crowned Night Heron who was doing some fishing right in front of our restaurant on the water in La Paz, Mexico…. (a painting waiting to happen!)

A Page in my journal showing a map of Baja with a painting behind it

Here is a photo of one of the Whale Sharks we swam with.  Thanks Michi for sharing this awesome underwater photo.  Look at those fabulous polka dots!!!

New Article for Cloth, Paper, Scissors – Pages Magazine

New Article for Cloth, Paper, Scissors – Pages Magazine

I’m excited to tell you that I am just about finished with an article I wrote for the Summer 2014 Issue of Pages.  I am putting the finishing touches on some journal paintings that I had started.  This is so fun for me because it is like visiting old friends.   I am getting them ready to send off to Interweave Studios in Boston to be photo graphed so I want them to look their best!  This particular article that I have been working on is about my favorite water-soluble pen.  I will tell you about the other articles I have been working on in a following post.