For WSU...Printing, Cutting, Scanning...

In early April, I will be driving across the state to Pullman, WA, home of Washington State University.  I am so honored to have been asked by the School of Design + Construction to present a lecture, exhibit work, and teach a workshop!  So this weekend is full of scanning, printing, cutting, organizing images for the show, etc.

The Lecture on April 6 will focus on the two fellowships that have taken me to Europe the past two summers to sketch and paint.  The first, in 2013 was the Gabriel Prize, awarded to one architect in the United States each year for three months of learning about architecture on-site through drawing!  So perfect!! 
      My project was to study the use of perspective in the 17th c. landscape designs at Versailles and Vaux le Vicomte.
     The second fellowship was through NIAUSI/The Civita Institute for two months in the amazing hill town of Civita di Bagnoregio ITALY (where I also teach a summer workshop). There, the project was to create an illustrated walking guide to the architecture of the town--a project I'm still working on!

The Exhibit April 6-17 will feature, oh, maybe 100 sketches from the fellowships. Many of these are posted on my flickr page.

The Workshop April 18-19 is in three parts:  Saturday morning, April 18 is a lecture on how to sketch, is open to all at no charge.  Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning are small group hand's on sketching instruction--contact WSU to see if there are any open spots. Sunday afternoon is a Sketchcrawl, open to all.

Thanks so much to Bob Krikac from WSU for arranging this wonderful opportunity.  I hope that sketchers in the area might join us!

Lunch on the rainy San Antonio Riverwalk

At the end of February, I was in San Antonio TX to meet with the Gabriel Prize jury and present my project watercolors (after American Airlines LOST the paintings somewhere between Seattle and Dallas for 36 hours--talk about stress!!)

The weather was sadly very cold and very wet (where is the Texas sun when you need it?), so I sat inside and grabbed a quick lunch of beef brisket :) at The County Line on the Riverwalk.

I used a very muted painting palette of nickel azo yellow, cobalt blue and permanent alizarin crimson, the same colors I've asked the Good Bones workshop participants to use.  It's interesting to use these colors, as they each have very different characteristics.  Although you can't get a really good dark with these colors, it can be helpful to use a simple triad color palette as it gives you a harmonious painting.

Quick lunch on the rainy San Antonio Riverwalk. 

Inside Versailles' Galerie des Glaces

I'm still going through sketches from this past summer, and I see others are too!

It took weeks to get the letter--special permission to sketch inside the château of Versailles! In late July, I battled the massive crowds and made my way up to...that's right, you guessed it...the Hall of Mirrors...straight to the most difficult but most iconic space to draw.

I showed my letter to the guard, who read it many times and made several phone calls until finally, her boss arrived.  She granted me permission to set up my sketching stool INSIDE the cordoned off area at the end of the hall.  So feeling very self-conscious, I climbed over the barrier, sat down, looked up, and felt totally overwhelmed.

It took a long time to do these sketches, and it was so fatiguing, my brain was mush by the end of the day...but I loved the challenge. There was just so much visual information (very hard to figure out how to edit), not to mention the many hundreds of people passing by my right ear.  Of course I couldn't pull out my paints (can't get watercolor on the silk!), so the sketches were painted later.

Versailles, France. Galerie des Glaces. I was grateful to get special permission to draw inside the château.

Versailles, Galeries des Glaces

Versailles, Galerie des Glace, detail.