Painting on location - Plein Air

These are some sketches done on location over the last few months. In the sketch right above, I tried this technique that I learned about in Nathan Fowkes workshop last year.
http://nathanfowkes-sketch.blogspot.com/
It seemed so appealing, since it's such a light way to travel. He uses watercolor and white gouache, and he makes it look so easy in his beautiful sketches, but I got a little frustrated by how the colors dry lighter and darker than expected so I've gone back to oil again. I'm really enjoying painting outdoors again and just enjoying the serenity of being in nature.

Printmaking class

I really love the work of David Weidman
http://weidmansart.com/prints.htm
so I was excited to take a printmaking class at Moorpark College this spring. Wanting to see if I could create some work inspired by Weidman's great shapes and design it took me quite a long time to figure out how to use the medium to it's advantage, so the fact that our teacher Sexton Stewart was very patient and gave us the creative freedom to take it where we wanted was so helpful. I figured out a few things along the way and the prints below were part of my final project. I like working monochromatically at times but found that with printmaking it almost works better the more contrasting colors you use. And I definitely want to play around making more abstract prints.