Jacqueline’s Blog

Watercolor Painting and Traveling to Italy 2022!

Watercolor Painting and Traveling to Italy 2022!

Watercolor painting is fun and easy to do while traveling! I am planning my next watercolor workshop in Orvieto, Italy, May 22-28, 2021 with Adventures in Italy. I thought it would be fun to treat myself to a new palette.  People often ask me what colors I use and how do I set up my palette.  I want to share with you the best way to set up a new watercolor palette.


The MEEDEN Empty Watercolor Tins Box Palette Paint Case is perfect for creating small paintings and sketches on the go! It holds 12 Pcs Half Pans of paint. Just squeeze your favorite colors into the 1/2 pan, let it dry, and you are all set to paint while traveling!

A few scenes from my traveling watercolor journals:

Doorway in France

The fun part is deciding which colors will go where.  I always use a color wheel to figure out where to put my colors. The first thing to do is to pull out the tubes of color that I want to add to my new palette.  This will take some time and careful thought.

THE COLORS ON MY PALETTE
If I have to narrow my choices down to 12 colors, this is probably what they will be!

Lemon Yellow
Cobalt Blue Teal
Manganese Blue
Cobalt Blue.
Phthalo Blue
French Ultramarine
Quinacridone Purple
Permanent Rose
Permanent Red
French Vermilion
Permanent Orange
New Gamboge

Watercolor Sketchbook

Watercolor Sketchbook

These small, quick sketches of European village scenes are fun and easy to do. I try to make them simple. They are a great way to try out different colors and values. And of course, I can always use drawing practice. Perspective is important in these little sketches so think about the angles of the doors and windows. Make the doors and the windows in the foreground bigger than in the background.

Village Scene

Start with a simple pencil drawing. Add a colorful watercolor wash over the buildings. When this is dry, start adding layers of color to get a variety of values.

Pen and Ink Village Sketch

I will often add pen and ink to my village sketches.

Village Sketch

The Road Less Traveled

The Road Less Traveled

Liven up your landscape paintings with simple, interesting objects. In this painting, The Road Less Traveled, I added some fence posts and flowers along a country road. They all point to the snow-covered Mount Bachelor located in the Cascade mountain range.

The Road Less Traveled

When adding fence posts, I made sure to have a light side and a dark side to each one. The flowers were added at the end of the painting and are loose and representational. Following the rules of perspective, I painted the fence post larger in the foreground and smaller as they disappear into the distance.

The Road Less Traveled is one of the new paintings that is for sale at the Red Chair Gallery in Bend, Oregon.

Located in the Old Town Historic District in Bend, Oregon, on the corner of Oregon Avenue and Bond Street in the O’Kane Building. Red Chair gallery offers the finest in art and contemporary craft.

An Eye and Feather of a Great Horned Owl

An Eye and Feather of a Great Horned Owl

As I am getting ready for the ART & SOUL ART RETREAT, in Portland, Oregon. I am enjoying painting in my nature journal. Here is an example of one of the pages we will be doing in the Naturalist’s Art Journal workshop on Wednesday, June 23, 2021.

Watercolor Art Journal page of Great Horned Owl.

This page in my watercolor journal was inspired by a birding trip that I did with a few friends to a wildlife preserve in eastern Oregon, Summer Lake. At one of the picnic areas, we found a family of Great-Horned Owls. There were two juveniles and two parents. As I took pictures, the mom and the babies would turn their heads and look down at me with those great big eyes. It was fun to try to paint an eye.

Great Horned young babies with parent at Summer Lake

We will be following indoor space COVID best practices guidelines.

Pandemic Daze

Pandemic Daze

What strange and interesting times we live in at this moment in time. 

As I write this I am trying to stay warm as the snow is starting to fly and it has dropped to 19 degrees.  Sitting in my big oversized chair with Olive and Milo, my two Jack Russells, we are keeping each other warm. They are in my lap vying for the best position, pushing my computer out of the way so it teeters awkwardly as I write.  Lately, one of my favorite pastimes, besides watching CNN nonstop at history in the making, is birdwatching, especially from my big picture window. 

Anna’s Hummingbird

I have a variety of different feeders and have been attracting lesser goldfinches, house finches, Downy and Hairy woodpeckers, adorable tiny bushtits, white-crowned sparrows, and even wintering Anna’s hummingbirds.  Unfortunately, the starlings come too. My feathered friends are inspiring me to do some bird paintings in my watercolor sketchbook Journal. Please check back and I will post some of my paintings! If this is something that interests you, I will be teaching an A Naturalist’s Art Journal Watercolor class at Art & Soul, Portland, June 23, 2021

Tumalo Pygmy Nuthatch
White-Crowned Sparrow

Artistic Tote Bags and Zip Pouches on Sale!

Artistic Tote Bags and Zip Pouches on Sale!

Fine Art America is having a 25% off all artist tote bags and zip pouches. There are many sizes and styles available. This sale ends on November 21st at midnight eastern time so hurry and get your order in!

https://fineartamerica.com/featured/poppy-dance-jacqueline-newbold.html?product=tote-bag

https://fineartamerica.com/featured/poppies-and-pods-jacqueline-newbold.html?product=pouch

Painting What You Love!

Painting What You Love!

Often when I haven’t painted in a while, I resort to painting something very familiar and loved to get me back in the mood.  Since I spent so much time trying to be outdoors this Covid summer, I took some time off from painting.  I felt rusty so I thought I would start with a familiar little house in the landscape.  It felt good to get my paints and brushes out again and paint, Just off the Beaten Path!

Just off the Beaten Path
Color Choices

Color Choices

The summer issue of Art Journaling Magazine is still available at stores such as Barnes and Noble for just a few more weeks! Inside this issue, you will find my article, Color Choices, about how I make my color choices in my paintings and art journal pages.

I love to take my journals with me when I travel. Often it is hard to narrow down what supplies to take with me. On a recent get away to Montana, I took the bare necessities because there was not a lot of room in the car.  One thing I forgot to take and really missed was some glue or Yes paste for all the maps and paper items that I like to collect and add to my journal pages.  But I was able to prepare some of the backgrounds of my pages by using my color choices that I write about in my article Color Choices!

Art Journaling Magazine
Jacqueline Newbold’s article, Color Choices, in the Summer 2020 issue of Art Journaling
Color Choices

Color Choices

Good morning!

I just received this lovely email from Francesca from Ireland. It was in response to my article in the current Art Journaling Magazine now available at Barns and Noble.

It got me thinking about all the places one could look for pigments to use in your art. It is easy to try. Just add some gum Arabic to help the pigments adhere to the watercolor paper. I assume you would need to grind the pigments into a fine powder. A mortar and pestle like the kind you need for making mojitos should work!

This is what Francesca writes:

My name is Francesca and l live on the southeast coast of Ireland in an area known as ‘The Copper Coast’. I really enjoyed your work on the Roussillon area of France, l have recently been making my own inks and watercolours using foraged pigments. I was interested to know if you have details of the local sources of the pigments in earth tones. The coast in my area is rich in alluvial mud stones which is easy to grind into pigments. There is a choice of colour, earth tones, lilacs blues and greens, they also contain mica fragments so sometimes l get sparkle too.

        I have been a hobby artist for years but my interest in natural color comes from my interest in ecology. Thank you once again for a great article. Best wishes Francesca.