Travel paintings of Scotland 2024

 We had a great wildlife tour with St. Hilda Sea Adventures.  We spent 10 days on the Speideren, a 75 ft Norwegian Rescue boat in the Outer Hebrides.  We stopped at 12 different Islands during the trip seeing beautiful scenery and wildlife. 

We boarded the ship in Oban, then traveled through Loch Melfort to our first stop Rum to walk at the Nature Reserve, then on to Canna where we anchored off shore.  Next stop was the Outer Hebrides.  We hiked to a remote beaches of Vatersay, stopped at the harbor of Castlebay on the Isle of Barra, then Lochboisdale on South Uist and Lochmaddy on North Uist where we hiked out to Loch nam Maddaah to see a Camara Obscura and had a day tour out to the small Island of Berneray.  Next we sailed to the Shiant Isles, three rocky  islands in the Northern Minch, that are nesting grounds for thousands marine birds (puffins, guillemots, razorbills, shags and great skuas).  Then we were off to East Tarbert on Isle of Harris and a stop at the local distillery.  On our way back we stopped at the Isle of Sky to hike up to Loch Coruisk, and Isle Eigg for a walk, and Lochdon on the Isle of Mull to tour Duart Castle.

We stayed a few extra days to tour the Isles of Mull and Iona.

We were very busy so I only had time to make quick sketches and take reference photos.  I finished the watercolors after we returned home. 

Oban harbor at night

Kinloch Castle on Rum in process

Vatersay bay, Outer Hebrides in process

Montana land of the big sky

Six of us headed out to Montana to do some fly fishing.  We rented a Forest Service Cabin; a log homestead built in 1917.  It sits in the valley between tree topped hills along side a small rocky creak that flows into a bigger rocky creek where we fished.

The fall landscape is beautiful.  Winding blue water framed by Golden grass covered fields and tall green pines with red bark; tree covered hills with Rocky outcrops; brilliant blue skies with billowing white clouds.

The two story cabin had a propane stove and lights.  It didn’t have a refrigerator, so we kept our food in coolers on ice.  A shed behind the house contained the pit toilet, shower and wood storage area.  The largest part of the shed was occupied by wood, since we used the central wood stove to heat the house.

While painting the cabin I notice movement in grass, a mountain grouse was out foraging.

We spent most of our days fishing and relaxing on the porch.  I caught and released several Rainbow and Brown Trout.  

Fly fishing and sketching

I have been fishing my whole life.  By the time I was five, I was helping clean the fish we caught.  Blue fish, Striped Bass, Rock fish, Porgies and Blowfish were all common in the sound and bay.  I spent my time near the water, on the water, and in the water every day of summer vacation.  If we weren't fishing we were scalloping or clamming or sailing or swimming or walking the beach.    

I learned to Fly fishing much later in life, but found it to be just as wonderful as my childhood summers.  I am outside standing in a clean rocky stream surrounded by forests, fields and mountains.  I fish for trout use barbless hooks, and practice catch-and-release.  Casting is more challenging and getting your line tangled more common, and the frustration can ruin an otherwise great day.

When I start to get frustrated I find a place to sit, drink some water and do a few sketches.  I carry a small  pocket sketch book and pencil in my waders.  I sketch what ever is around me.  After a few sketches I am calm and ready to start fishing again.

 

Sketching in Maine

In the Spring we made plans for a fishing trip to Montana.  We would be staying in a National Forest Service cabin in the back woods near a favorite creek.  Then the fires came.  We watched the fire and weather reports as the wildfires drew nearer and nearer to the area we were planning to stay.  People were evacuated and roads were closing as the wild fires raged.  Fire fighters were fighting fires all throughout the west.  Smoke from the fires we effecting the air quality throughout the west.  We would not be going to Montana.

Instead we went to Maine.  We stayed at a lovely cottage on Little Deer Isl.  We could see the water from the cottage, and ate several dinners on the porch watching fiery sunsets.

Sunrises and sunsets like these call out to be painted.  Capturing the constantly changing colors and deep shadows before they vanish is a challenge.  Luckily I was given several opportunities to try.

Maine's rocky coast is filled with bays, inlets and small islands.  It was a perfect place to spend time exploring and hunting for lighthouses.  We visited Stonington on nearby Deer Island several times, enjoying local good seafood.  We also took a cruise from Stonington out to the Isle au Haut to see the unique Robinson Point Light house.  We spent a day at Acadia National Park; hiking Cadillac mountain, driving along the park loop road and eating seafood in Bar Harbor.  We traveled along the coast north to West Quoddy Head Lighthouse.  This is the easternmost point of land in the continental United States, and around the equinoxes it is the first place sunlight touches.

I have many photos from this trip that someday will be used as references for paintings.  I did finish three watercolor sketches while we were in Maine.  Besides the sunset above, I sketched some garden flowers and a also a beach scene.

Virgin Island colors

There is nothing like the tropics for intense colors; Bright turquoise seas and vibrant green coasts; Brilliantly colored flowers and birds.  The natural tropical colors effect everything and everyone.  Houses are painted turquoise, pink, red and bright green.  People wear bright floral shirts and dresses.

I took my smallest travel kit with me on my recent sailing trip in the Virgin Islands.  It includes a Van Gogh water color pocket box and a small Mole skin watercolor notebook.  The kit's palette includes cold and warm blues, reds and yellows; along with yellow ochre and burnt sienna.  These are usually perfect for everything I paint, but in the tropics I wished I had also taken some other colors like, Quinacridone gold and Opera pink.

Below is a sketch I did from the balcony of our hotel in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas USVI while waiting for breakfast.  The blue sky mirrored the blue of the bay.  Green palms, banana and mango trees reached up through gaps between buildings.  The rising sun reflected off the red roofs throughout the town.  Mixing Permanent Yellow and Madder Lake Deep provided the various shades of yellow, orange and red I was seeing.

For the rest of the trip we stayed aboard our sailboat, traveling from one island to another.  We did spend three days at Cane Garden Bay, Tortola BVI.  While there I was able to do another sketch from the boat.  The turquoise of the water was done by layering Cerulean blue on top of Azo yellow.

Grand Teton's majestic mountains

While touring Grand Teton National Park we had several days when the smoke from burning wildfires obscured the mountains.  Normally you can see the mountains from many miles away, but due to the fires the mountain tops faded into the pale blur gray sky.  Wildfires are common in the dry summers, and the Park Service and local Fire Departments spend a considerable amount of time monitoring and fighting fires.  Each fire that is tracked is named.  One of the fires that contributed to the smoke we encountered was the large Berry Fire.

On one of the clearer days, I went back to an overlook I had previously visited to sketch the mountain view across Jenny Lake.  Thousands of years ago glaciers moved through Cascade Canyon, pushing rocky debris ahead of their progress.  Later, when the glaciers retreated, they left behind a mass of rocky debris which formed a terminal moraine creating Jenny Lake.

I had a lovely time sitting in a shady spot while sketching and talking to several people who were also enjoying the spectacular view.

Vast open spaces in a small sketch book

I was recently out west, where Idaho - Wyoming - Montana meet.  This area has vast open plains, tall craggy mountains, brilliant blue skies and many beautiful rivers.  I spent most of my time fly fishing in Yellowstone National Park, but also was able to tour some of the attractions at Yellowstone National Park and Grand Tetons National Park.

Below is a sketch I did of the distant hills, after spending the day fly fishing the Gallatin River, Yellowstone NP.  Like many rivers, this one begins in the mountains and is formed by rain, snow melt that flows into small creeks.  We were fishing in the valley where the now wider river begins to meander.  The banks of this swift flowing rocky river are lined with dense willows.  I was told that moose like to bed down among the willows, but happily we didn't run into any while we were fishing.  The coolness of the water was a refreshing complement to the sunny warm day.

Views of Portland from my moleskin watercolor notebook

These are some earlier sketches that I did while in Portland.  I really enjoyed my trip there.  There is a wide variety of great food and the public transportation makes it easy to get around town.  I had recently purchased a Moleskin watercolor notebook, that has 60 5 1/2 x 3 1/2 pages and decided to try it out.  The thread bound notebook lays flat which would allow me to create long or tall sketches across facing pages.  I found the 200-gm cold pressed paper absorbed pigment faster than other paper I have used.  Controlling the absorption by lightly wetting the area to be painted helped.  I used a Van Gogh watercolor Pocket Box, using a pallet of: Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna, Ultramarine Deep, Cerulean Blue, Permanent Red, Madder Lake Deep, Permanent Yellow and Azo Yellow Medium.

On my first night in town I had dinner at the Portland City Grill.  I had some great food and enjoyed a wonderful view of Portland as the sun set.  I did the below sketch while finishing my wine.

As the TriMet whisked me back to the airport, I did the below sketch of sunrise from the North Street Bridge.

Architectural reflections

Cities are interesting places to sketch.  There are lots of people, colors and lights constantly moving, day and night.  All this is set against a backdrop of oversized buildings sporting a myriad of shapes, designs and architectural types.

Neoclassical architecture style was popular in the late 18th to early 19th centuries, and is the dominant style of the federal buildings in DC.  However, there are examples of many other architectural styles in the layers of buildings. Egyptian Revival, Victorian Romanesque, Gothic, Neo gothic, Empire, Beaux Art, Craftsman, Contemporary, Modernist, Functionalist and Organic are just a few of the styles.

No matter the style, recently built buildings all boast expansive areas of reflective glass.  As an artist, I am drawn to the play of light and reflections on these buildings.  They provide unique images of life captured in glass, steel, stone and brick.

To the left is the sketch I made of a building's reflection as night began to fall and the final rays from the sun lit cast a yellow glow on it.  Before I could finish, a rapidly moving storm changed the blue sky to gray, whipped the wind up, and pelted my hotel window with rain and hail.

Capturing an image when light is rapidly changing is always a challenge, but this was more difficult than most.  At least I wasn't outside!

Sketches of Dublin, Ireland

This past fall we took a trip to Ireland with several friends.  We spent a few days touring in Dublin, the city we flew into and out of.  It was a very brief stay filled with trips to museums, a walk in the nearby park, a bit of shopping and of course enjoying the local pubs with friends.

The city is filled with brightly colored buildings of various architectural types, which immediately caught my eye.  The days were overcast and rained on and off, but that didn't keep us indoors.

Below are two small sketches I did using my Van Gogh watercolor Pocket Box and my extra small Strathmore spiral bound journal.

 

Volunteer Sunflowers, part 2

I spent a lot of time studying the sunflowers before deciding what to paint and how to approach the painting.  In the end I decided on an off center close up of the flower with a single Bumble bee feeding.

The disc florets spiral out from the center in Fibonacci sequence.  This pattern provides the optimal number of flowers and seeds for the given space.  The pattern can be easily seen in the un-opened disc flowers at the center.  My pencil sketch included the placement of the ray flower petals and the spiral lines in the center's unopened florets.

The palette I worked with included warm and cool yellows and blues; as well as Yellow Ochre, Burnt Siena and Burnt Umber.  The whole central part of the flower would involve a lot of negative painting.  Using the cool yellow I painted the whole center of the disk.  A wash of blue and warm yellow was added the center.  Warm yellow was used for the ray floret petals around the disk.  Then working from the outer edge of the disk inwards, Burnt Sienna was add to define the spent disk flowers.  Yellow was mixed in to the Burnt Siena to lighten the color as I moved toward the center and began to define the open disk florets.  Additional colors were added to darken the spirals in the center and define the unopened florets.

 

Background color was added between the petals and additional shades of yellow were used to continue to define the open disk flowers.  The bee was painted.  Many additional layers of color were added to develop the background, flower and bee.

Volunteer Sunflowers, part 1

This year I have several volunteer sunflowers growing up in the herb garden.  Some have large single flowers and others have multiple smaller flowers.  One thing they all have in common is they tower over the much shorter herbs, gently nodding in the breeze.  The herbs have small flowers that generally attract small insect pollinators.  The sunflowers, however, attract larger pollinators.  Large carpenter bees and bumble bees, in addition to the smaller honey bees and native bees are all attracted to the sunflowers.

Sunflowers (Helianthus spp.) are annuals native to North America.  Their flowers have large centers composed of many small five-petaled florets (disk flowers) that spiral toward the center.  The outer most florets resemble petals (ray flowers).  The disk flowers on the outer edge mature first, then the next row of florets, and the next, until all the florets have opened and been pollinated.   Each composite flower is a food source for days or even weeks.

The two large bees I see most often are the Impatient Bumble bee (Bombus impatiens) and the Eastern Carpenter bee (Xylocopa virginica).  Bumble bees are smaller then Carpenter bees and have a fuzzy appearance due to numerous small hairs on their abdomen and thorax.  The larger Carpenter bees have a shiny black abdomen that is hairless.  The Impatient Bumble bees yellow hair is so pale it seems white.

Carpenter Bees are considered pests because they drill into wooden fences and buildings causing structural damage.  Bumble bees, like honey bees, are beneficial insects, and are responsible for pollinating many plants including food crops.

West Asheville sketch crawl

I spent my second free day in Asheville to do my own personal sketch crawl.  I used my new smaller watercolor journal kit that has a Van Gogh watercolor Pocket Box for my walk around West Asheville.

The day started with breakfast at Battle Cat.  We sat on the porch drinking coffee and watching West Asheville wake up.   Eventually Steve walked down the street to the glass studio where his glass workshop was being held.  I stayed to take advantage of the morning light to do a few more sketches.

   

  

I wandered up and down the streets for a while shopping, then stopped for lunch at The Walk.  While leisurely eating a delicious lunch, I painted a sketch of a rusting blue car at the garage across the street.  From my view I could see under the car and I thought it would be a great place for a cat to hide.  Later, as I finished up the background of the sketch, a cat ran across the street and dove under the car.

For these small sketches I used a palette of warm and cold shades: yellow ( 254, 269), red (311, 370), blue (506, 535) and burnt sienna (411).

A little fruit still life

I took my Van Gogh watercolor Pocket Box with me on a recent trip to Nashville TN.  The box includes 12 1/2 pans, a folding brush, and lid with 5 compartments to mix paint.   It was a short trip so I packed light.  I carried the watercolor pocket kit, an extra small Strathmore spiral bound journal, watercolor postcards, packet of tissues, small water bottle, two Koi short waterbrushes, a mechanical pencil and kneaded eraser in a large zip lock bag.

I only found time to do two still life sketches of the oranges I took back to my room for late night snacks.  Of course I didn't think of doing the first sketch until I had already started peeling the orange.  I carefully removed additional peel and two sections to expose a view of the inside of the orange.  Then set it down on the black desktop.  The light from the lamp cast deep distinct shadows and highlights on the oranges.  The dark surface of the desk reflected back very little of the orange's color.

The second orange I painted before peeling it.  The second orange was not as orange.  I set it on a white napkin which allowed more of the colors to show in the shadow.  I used both cold and warm shades of yellow (254, 269), red (311, 370) and blue (506, 535); as well as burnt Sienna (411) for these small sketches.  For photos of both orange journal entries see my Flicker site.

While in Nashville I went to the Frist Art Museum and saw two really wonderful exhibits.  'Watch Me Move: the Animation Show' with clips from every type of animation done since the beginning of this art form.  'Real/Sureal: Selections from the Witney Museum of American Art' which contains many thought provoking pieces of art.  The bonus was that in their gift store I found a lovely waterproof zippered clutch that everything fits into perfectly.  No more zip lock bag for me!

Plein air river sketches continued

Georgia Watercolor Society Plein Air outing at Island Ford, Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area.  Eleven of us setup along the trail, down river from the lodge.  The day was warm, but not too bad if your sitting in the shade along the river.  We had an hour and a half to sketch and paint.  For this outing I brought my Watercolor travel kit.

I stopped at a wide spot on the trail with a good view of the river.  As I looked out at the fishermen wading the shallows several canoes floated past.  One man had a small dog in a life vest with him.  I watched as he picked the dog out of the water by the vest's straps and let the water drip off before putting it back in the boat.  Several more rafts and canoes full of teenagers drifted past, and a large flock of Canada Geese swam out into the river from a side stream.  

I sketched one of the fly fishermen out wading the river.  Then setup my chair and settled down to paint.  The brown-red clay of the far bank ran between the fresh yellow-green of the trees and dark green-blue of the river.  A cedar house set back in the shadows of the distant trees surrounded by a lawn of bright yellow-green.  Reflections of the green and yellow trees ripple across the still areas of the river around the fishermen.   

After our hour and a half we gathered back together at the Lodge to share our experiences.  Some beautiful paintings were made by the group, and everyone had a great time.  Hope we do it again soon!