Wales to Penzance to Paris


If you have followed my travel blogs for even a short time you know that I have an obsession about packing light, which includes my sketching kit. This Daily Humor from the New Yorker made me smile. We took a small-group day-tour to get out and see some of the countryside of Wales. The first…

A week back in La Thebaudiere


We have been back in La Thebaudiere, our tiny village in Normandie, for just a week – so what have we been up to? Well of course we have spent time remembering our long trip, which for me includes some sketching. One of the best hotels we stayed in was the Central Heritage Hotel in…

We are off tomorrow


We have been home for just a month, tomorrow we head out for a seven week excursion. My art-toolkit.com pallets are freshly topped off – the standard size one with watercolor, the mini with gouache. Just three months ago we were in the PNW, now we are Italy and Croatia with stops along the way….

Lessons from Van Gogh and Instagram


“The duty of the painter is to study nature in depth and to use all his intelligence to put his feelings into his work so that it becomes comprehensible to others.” Van Gogh’s letter to Theo, 31 July 1882 This has been a light week as far as sketching and painting goes, but it has…

A view from the train and evening sketches


Last August I started painting in acrylics again, thanks to Tricia’s encouragement while we were in Paris. When we moved to France I gave away or sold most of my acrylic paints and their accoutrements. So to start up again required some shopping, oh, darn. I did this painting from a photo I took while…