Spring Sketching, Lilacs and Trees

To see my paintings visit my website www.janblencowe.com

Every year I make sure that I do something with the lilacs when they bloom. Sometimes it's a full painting, sometimes just a watercolor or sketch. This year it was a sketch. These come from a large shrub in my mom's yard. I brought her a huge bouquet of them as she was in the hospital recovering from a hip replacement. The scent of lilacs is just intoxicating! Watercolor, pen, acrylic marker.

This quick watercolor was done just at the edge of our property looking up the road. It was very overcast and while I was working it started to mist creating beautiful star patterns in the paint similar to what you get when you drop salt on wet watercolor.

Sketching Farms and Food

To see my paintings visit my website www.janblencowe.com

Tiffany Farm, Old Lyme, CT, Stillman & Birn Beta Sketchbook, Copic, Prismacolor, Utrecht Design, Mark-It, Uniball Vision

Really loving the new Stillman & Birn sketchbooks. 180 lb. paper in a sketchbook is just fantastic.

This was done late in the day this past Sunday. Tiffany Farm is one of the few remaining working farms in Connecticut. I pulled off to the side of the road and sketched from my car. It's a view I've done before and i always find the buildings challenging. I liked the rows of stubble in the field in the foreground. Corn will be growing there in a few months.

Here we go with the Stillman & Birn Alpha, spiral bound sketchbook.  White, 100 lb. paper which is working very well for ink and watercolor washes. I'm using a Uniball Vision pen and Daniel Smith watercolors.

Here's a close up....

This was done at Savvy tea Shop in Madison, CT a favorite hang out of mine.

Tea and Scone at the Books-a-Million cafe in Waterford, CT also in the Alpha sketchbook, Uniball Vision pen and Daniel Smith watercolors. Using a lot of water to lighten the background washes and the paper is holding up well.  The page does buckle somewhat when using watercolor, but it doesn't curl like some sketchbook papers do. The buckling doesn't bother me at all because once the sketch is dry and the book is closed the weight of the cover (and other pages when you get further into the sketchbook) flatten out a lot of the buckles.

Still in the Alpha (which I think is going to become my foodie sketchbook!) Uniball Vision pen and Daniel Smith watercolors.

This week end I'll be in New York City sketching, so stay tuned!