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Art School, winter quarter 2026.

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This quarter I'm taking Design 1 (meh) and watercolor. I started by creating a space in which to do watercolors, since you generally paint them flat.   It's tucked into the corner in my studio, next to my computer desk.  Fittingly, that table on the right is my mother's kitchen table. I feel good in this space, and close to her. You can see in the middle where I have markers organized - those are specifically water-soluable markers, and in the little tiny flat drawers are graphite, pastels, pastel pencils, charcoal, watercolor pencils, colored pencils, and permanant markers, all neatly organized.  The shelves are shoe racks with the middle shelf taken out. The stool is a "leaning stool" so that you aren't putting all your weight on your butt. You can see my porcelain watercolor palette under one of the shelves, and the double porcelain water container on the right.  I love this space. I love spending time in it.  I bought a couple of Baohong blocks: Artist-...
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Sea Stacks

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 Just after the winter holidays we took a drive out to the Pacific Coast of the Olympic Peninsula, to see some sea stacks. Amazing views. I took a ton of pictures, went back to my studio, and mounted a 24x30" cradled board on my newly-acquired Artristic Evolve .   As I usually do, I painted an acrylic transparent earth yellow as a ground,  and drew in the picture with white chalk.  I changed the composition just a bit, running more water through the foreground.  Next, I laid in the sky with quick-dry titanium white, and a touch of phthalo  torquoise, increasing the phthalo torquoise as I got closer to the earth.  Then I mixed into the leftover sky some quinacridone magenta, for the distant stacks.   I always do my skies first, because I then save the leftover sky color into whatever  else I'm painting, creating some color harmony.  I started on the rocks with a mixture of raw sienna, quinacridone gold,  and mixed into that...
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My studio.

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 In the back of the house where I live now in Washington the former owner fully enclosed and remodeled a 3 car garage to make it into living quarters for a live-in care-taker. It has a "bar" sink and its own heat source, two exterior doors and an ADA compliant bathroom.  I suppose I could  have made it into a therapy office, but we had a better idea.  We divided it in half. One half is for making sure I have no excuse not to work out. Workout equipment, yoga mat, etc.  The other half, though.  That's where the magic is.   On the left is my eight+ foot, counterweight easel, built for me by my woodworker father-in-law from maple.  These are the plans for this easel: Bob Perrish, Artist Easel Plans. The add-on is the Artristic Evolve, which allows me to mount a panel, be able to paint on the sides and spin it around to reach are areas. I ordered it from Australia, and they were beyond friendly and accomodating, given the insane tariffs. We each ...
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