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Thank you very much!

We usually have all sorts of interesting wildflowers this time of year, but it was cold and wet for too long. Bill had spotted these lovely red flowers on his walks. Apparently they are called Baja Fairy Duster and are found in Baja, Mexico.

Thank you!! Glad you enjoyed it!

There's something so fun about watch the moonrise. Nothing and then very suddenly it just pops up out of nowhere and is already above the horizon in about 5 minutes. The fun part that night was that Bill was showing me the moon's position on an app and the second he did, it popped out from behind the mountain as if on cue.

Thank you!!

Thanks!

It takes a lot of willpower to finish some of those, especially if you're not sure where you would like it to end up!

Thank you!! I had a lot of fun doing this. It was nice to enjoy being outside every day during the last bit of tolerable weather here.

Hi!! AZ parks do have a very distinctive look don't they?

@@laurenslatestproject Parks and Freeways lol

@@nonamepainter Haha, true!

Using them as an underpainting would probably work wonderfully. I have found them to be impressively waterproof. I haven't been able to smear them at all, which I have sometimes been able to do with regular India Ink. And thank you! Once it gets too hot to be outside here you'll probably have great weather for sketching where you are. I usually like to travel somewhere farther north so I can enjoy that nice weather for a bit during the summer.

Thank you!!

Thanks!

Thank you!!

Thanks!!

Thanks!!

Thank you!! I have to say these markers have really given me a lot of new ideas. They are very enjoyable to work with.

Thank you!!

Thank you!!

How do you like the gray toned ones? I have been thinking of trying those ones out. And thank you!

Thanks!!

Thank you! I have to admit that I wasn't sure if it would work out how I had hoped even about halfway through. Using new supplies can be interesting. I'm glad you like it and found it inspiring!

It was fun! It was nice to get out of town and away from my routines.

Thank you very much!

😂😂 I think #pleinairconditioning needs to become a thing

Thank you!!

Thank you! Yes, I only saw ducks that day. Sometimes there are some mysterious white herons in the water that look very picturesque.

The Faber Castell pens are all made with India ink. They are waterproof and lightfast and are the perfect way to work with India ink for plein air. They are very cool and I have been just biding my time waiting for a sale, haha. I actually just ordered some more in a set with warm earthy colors. So, I have done some pen sketching without pencil, but it's usually in an indoor situation where I have a lot of time. I find that I'm more comfortable with hand shakiness and imperfect lines with a brush pen, since it really just enhances the "look." That really helped here when I was under time constraints and standing in a funny position to get the right view. I agree that the sketch was better before the watercolor. I think because it was already detailed and textured. I even didn't mind it when I had added just a bit of burnt sienna at first for some midtones. The funny thing is that this sketch has given me some really interesting ideas for a larger acrylic painting. I would love to paint that scene again, but edit the composition and colors a bit. I can see a better idea in my mind's eye now.

Thank you so much!

I'll do a drawing like that for you today, to show you what I mean. They tend not to turn out well at first, until you stop caring, and then you suddenly free up, and it improves drawings no end. Not saying you don't draw well already; I'm talking about my own drawing experiences.

Thank you very much!

Thank you!

Yes, something about that made me really happy. I would love to see some of the paintings that have been made in that spot. That mountain ridgeline is the beginning of a huge volcanic wilderness that has all sorts of beautiful craggly rocks, hidden gold mines, and Native American ruins. There are so many things in there I would just love to paint.

I’ve never been to Arizona, but a son moved to Utah so I’ve tried painting some of their red, rocky terrain. Quite a challenge but also extremely beautiful. Love the way you catch shadows in your paintings.

Thank you!!

I really think that someone who looks like me has been feeding them, because they seem to target me in particular and look very expectant. It's hilarious!

I was trying to think of a good example from around the time of the birth of photography as an affordable option for artists. Think of Monet, and his colourful series on haystacks in the fields, which explored how light fell on the forms, and how colours changed as the sun went on its course throughout the day. Then consider that colour photography didn't really happpen until the 30s or 40s, for photographers. Most of what the series of paintings is about involves how forms are created through colour and light working together, and I don't think black and white photos would be much use for many of the things happening in the paintings. Even when artists from the early 1900s (Monet's contemporaries) used cameras (e.g. Degas) enthusiastically, they still would have had to either take colour notes or do colour studies to have all the info they needed, and photos tended to be supplementary to this, except with Degas perhaps, and Lautrec, who liked the different cropping effects photo snapshots suggested to them. This was all happening post-photography. Sorry the comment's so long, but it had to be, for the sake of clarity.

I spent a lot of time recently thinking about how I came to using photography as part of my artistic process, and it was interesting to see the evolution. When I was a kid, taking my own photos wasn't really a great option. All I had were the cheap, disposable point and shoot cameras that only worked in perfect lighting and no understanding of how photography worked. As I got older and digital cameras became available and affordable, I started to become more interested in photography, but still had no idea what I was doing. I had also stopped doing art almost completely to devote my time to practicing music. Then, I met Bill about 15 years ago and he was really into serious photography with the nice lenses and whatnot. That gave me the opportunity to learn all sorts of things and get more serious about it. That was the only visual art that I practiced for years. Then covid happened and I decided to pick up my painting and drawing again. Because I had been doing so much photography (and photo editing), it naturally became a part of my new process since I was just putting together my different hobbies. I do find it really interesting how so many artists nowadays have become so dependent on that, however. Because you're right that you don't need it to paint from life. I think people who grew up with digital photography never had to try and do it another way, so it seems scary. But really, it's not a whole lot different than painting from a picture aside from the way the sun's movement changes the lighting. There is also something really nice about sitting out in nature and hearing the birds and the wind and feeling the changing conditions.

@@DonnaEmerald8 So, thinking about Monet sent me down such a rabbit hole. When reading your comment about the lack of color photography, I started thinking about how the impressionists would have been recording notes about color and how much of that they were doing in the field. Then, I came across this great lecture by the conservators at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts: th-cam.com/video/_hDJJkiwM1A/w-d-xo.html It's all about the materials they were using and some of their processes. It of course didn't answer my question, but I'm assuming that they did much of this over several days in the field and created color studies for anything they were going to try and do later in the studio. I do think that makes a lot of sense because even with today's modern software, cameras still frequently have a hard time accurately recording colors in an image when there is a high contrast between light and dark. I also notice that phone cameras are terrible with magentas and certain shades of blue. If I take photos for color reference, I frequently have to go into photoshop and fix the colors to match my memory of the scene anyway, In the end, it all comes from your brain!

Thank you!! You're right, this landscape is really full of textures. That is a great way of describing it. I think pen is almost necessary to really help describe the character without making it look soft. The pen I use is a size 01 Sakura Pigma Micron pen. The ink is waterproof and archival as long as it's dry.