Hello, friends! It’s been a little quiet around here because I’ve been super busy, but hopefully things will slow down now. Here’s the story: we loaded up our converted Ford Transit cargo van and left home in Austin, Texas back on May 31st to set off on a long road trip to Ohio to visit friends and family, then took a longer route back home, returning on November 12th. I’ll write some more about our travels in future posts, but for now let’s just say that time really does fly when you’re having fun! I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that we were gone over 5 months. It all went by in a blink of an eye.
That’s just one of the reasons I love making time to sketch — it slows down time and helps fix a place in my mind the way a photo can never do.
I filled up 2 full sketchbooks on the trip, here’s the smaller one that I mostly painted on hikes while in National Parks — note the park passport stamps, this is such a great souvenir! (Click to watch a flip-thru!)
The next two weeks were a whirlwind of doctor’s checkups, dental appointments, van repairs, ordering gear and more, including a…
Live Demo with Art Toolkit!
I had a fun live demo with Maria Coryell-Martin, the founder of Art Toolkit where we talked about one of my favorite subjects: painting fall leaves! Catch the replay here on YouTube.
Speaking of Fall
Speaking of fall, I was honored to do some illustrations for the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center/The University of Texas at Austin a few years back. They reposted the leaves on Instagram this week and it was cool to see how far I’ve come in painting.
Random fact about me: I’ve volunteered at the Wildflower Center and led native plant tours and helped with vegetation monitoring — this is were we’d drop a meter square made out of PVC pipe and then document each plant species and cover class. It was really fun! If you’re ever in the Austin area the WFC makes a great visit.
Back on the Road Again
We hit the road again on November 26th and we’re currently out at Big Bend National Park, Texas, so stay tuned for paintings from the desert! Every single time I’m out here I wonder at the beauty of it all and run around like a nut taking photos and painting. It’s one of my favorite places on earth.
Time moves slowly in the desert: some of my favorite cacti and yucca friends seem unchanged each visit. But my time here always goes by too fast!
Gear Geek Out of the Week
If you know me, you’ll know I love geeking out over colors and tinkering with my palettes. I had an idea to add blobs of paint to mixing pans and I can’t wait to try this out in the field!
Here’s my plan:
Use the top left mixing pan for warm colors
The top right mixing pan has a blob of yellow and will be for mixing greens — no more dirtying up my pan of yellow paint yay!
Lower left mixing pan will be for sky color
The lower right has a blob of ultramarine blue and a blob of transparent red oxide for mixing browns and greys
Paints are Daniel Smith unless noted (H = Holbein, WN = Winsor and Newton):
Chinese white, hansa yellow medium, yellow ochre (H), quinacridone rose, transparent red oxide, chromium green oxide, cobalt turquoise light (WN), peacock green (H, it's pthalo blue + phthalo green), ultramarine blue, Van Dyck brown, and neutral tint (H)
See this palette in action here on Instagram!
That’s all for this week! — Lisa
I'm so glad to have found you here Lisa! The experience of being able to travel and see so many different types of landscape must be wonderful and so inspiring! I totally agree about how a sketch can help us fix a place in our minds way better than a photo can. I've never been to a desert and I love the way you describe it as a slow place with slow growth, something I've never thought about before and really interesting to think about the character of a place that way. I'm looking forward to following your posts!