Advent Calendar Day 4: Wide Washi Tape

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Finally, a non-brush! I got a roll of wide washi tape with the thought that I could cut shapes out of it for masking. Of course, it’s midweek, so I’m too tired to really put in the work to do an intricate piece. I did two mini-pieces, fall leaves and a flower. Once the background … Read more

Advent Calender Day 3: Sword Liner

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Another day, another brush! I swear I didn’t put that many in my advent calendar, but my randomizer (my partner) keeps pulling out the brushes. Today’s pick is a Rosemary Snowdrop synthetic sword liner, size 1/4″. I got it because I had heard that sword liners were as good as riggers for thin lines, but … Read more

Mix Your Own Buff Titanium Lookalike

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I used to have Buff Titanium but I don’t anymore. Its light tan color is useful and convenient because it’s common in nature, but I didn’t like the opaque, chalky way that it mixed. It is basically white, after all. Still, many artists like it. Jane Blundell talks about using it for sand, along with Goethite Brown Ochre. Claire Giordano uses buff titanium for desert/canyon scenes, as a base for sandstone rocks. It works really well, and while working one of her Capitol Reef scenes, I actually went so far as to put another tube of Buff Titanium in my cart… but then I challenged myself to make some light tan mixes with colors I already had, just to see if I might like them better.

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Advent Calendar Day 2: Flat Brush

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I rarely use square brushes for watercolor, so I included one in the advent calendar. This is a Winsor & Newton Series 995 3/4″ flat. It’s a good balance of soft and firm, and I liked used it for gouache and acrylic gouache. Today I decided to try it for watercolor, but since I was … Read more

Alpenglow Class with Claire Giordano

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I’ve rejoined Claire Giordano’s Adventure Art Academy, where each month Claire posts on-location painting tutorials from beautiful places. (Read what I learned the first time I was a member two years ago!) She’s one of my favorite teachers, and what really spurred me to rejoin when I did was learning that she was going to teach a three-class sequence on one of my favorite subjects: alpenglow! Here is my work from that class.

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Another Earth Yellow showdown!

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My last Earth Yellow showdown is not, it turns out, the last word on earth yellows! I love earth yellow and I collect them. I’ve added a few more to the comparison. Here’s every color in the map above. I tried to put these in roughly cool-to-warm order (greenest undertone to orangest undertone). Top row: … Read more

#magrish_challenge_sky 2024

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For the third year in a row, I participated in Maria Smirnova’s sky challenge on Instagram (#magrish_challenge_sky run by @magrish). In November, she posts grayscale reference photos and the challenge is to paint them in the colors of your choice. Typically, Maria’s sky photos depict cloud-filled sunsets over Paris. I previously posted about by 2023 and 2022 challenges. So how did I fare this year?

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Introduction the $0 Art Supply Advent Calendar Challenge!

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My art discord was recently commiserating because art advent calendars cost so much. They’re also often full of items you don’t actually want, in retrospect. I have personally found that “mystery box” type purchases are exciting to anticipate, but ultimately disappointing. You rarely actually want the stuff in them. The best you can hope for … Read more

Ikea Kallax Hack: Art Supply Organizer

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Before I moved a bunch of times, I lamented giving up my 2×2 Ikea Kallax, which I’d perfected as an art supply organizer. I’m living in a sublet right now and don’t have room for a new one, but I realized I was really only using half of it for art supplies and I can get away with a 2×1 – and still include all my favorite hacks! I’ve been at my sublet less than two weeks and it’s already set up.

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