Italy, Every Corner Inspires a Painting

We are having a wonderful time in Italy, exploring, hiking, eating good food and drinking good wine!  I are now in the Dolomite Mountains and hiking everyday.  I have found very little time to paint but have so many photos can be used later.  Here is one painting I did get started of the vineyard view from our bedroom window at a little B&B high in the foothills of Northern Italy.

Second Morning in Italy - I couldn't sleep so I started this painting

Finished Painting of the Italian Vineyard, View from my Window

Art Supplies, Venice, Italy

Letter Stamps

Stamps and stationary supplies

Ciao from Venice!

Oh and leather purses too!

Those of you who know me, know that I will hunt out fun art supplies wherever I go  Last night while roaming the streets of Venice, I stumbled upon a window display that made my artist heart soar.  

New Fall Classes

Dear friends - I am off to Italy with my husband to celebrate our 25 wedding anniversary!  How did that ever happen?

I will be teaching a few local classes when I get back.
check out my website under classes for more info.

Dreaming in Color!

12 Great Lumin Arte Twinkles

I am happy to announce that Leslie, the owner of Dreaming in Color has put together a mix of her fabulous Lumin Arte Twinkling H2Os just for me!  I carefully picked these colors to give a good representation of warm and cools yellows, reds and blues.  Let me tell you that it was hard to limit it down to 12!  But here is the best part - Leslie has sent free samples for me to pass out to some of my CREATE classes in Chicago next week!  I have really enjoyed experimenting with these luscious paints and seeing how to incorporate them into my watercolor journals!

Getting Ready for Chicago, CREATE 2012

Miniature Watercolor Palettes

Everyone loved the miniature watercolor palettes that I had at the Irvine, Create.  I decided to provide even more of them for my classes that I am teaching at the Chicago CREATE.  This way, if you are new to watercolor painting and want to try it without the big expense of buying all new products, you will be able to borrow one of my very cute mini-travel palettes.  These miniature palettes have a variety of colors and hold an amazing amount of paint.  I used empty 1/2 pans that I buy through Daniel Smith Art Supplies and fill them with my choice of colors.  If you find you love watercolor painting, consider purchasing my Watercolor Traveling Kit also available through Daniel Smith.
Here is what Jeanne emailed me about my new Art Journal On-the-Go, on sale today for only $11.97!!!  "Thanks so  much - you are a wonderful teacher. I really appreciate your quiet manner and practical step by step approach. I have assembled - and actually used! - my teeny travel journal kit. It is SO fun to just pull it out and play. It's truly portable, and the way you explain about yours and how you use it made it easy to tailor one for myself. I have even begun making and binding my own custom made books.  I have used it on the plane, in a restaurant, at the doctor's office in the waiting room and to ease the quiet hours at the hotel when I'm traveling for work."  Thanks Jeanne!

Sprinkle, Splash & Splatter: Creating Texture with Watercolor

Sprinkle, Splash & Splatter: Creating Texture with Watercolor is my newest class that I am offering at CREATE, Chicago on Sunday, August  26, 2012.  This is the first time I have ever taught this class and I am having so much fun preparing for it.  Here are a couple of examples of the paintings we will create!  
I have been busy making my fun goody bags for all my students and once again I have some very cool art supplies to give away.  Hope to see you there!

Textured Pears

Textured Landscape

Join me at Bend's August Art Walk, Tonight! August 3, 2012

I have all new paintings for my month of being featured artist at the Red Chair Gallery, located on the corner of Bond & Oregon Streets, Bend, Or.  Tonight is Art Walk (5-9 pm) and it should be a fun time to get out and enjoy the evening.  Please stop by and say "Hi!".    I will will have on display a couple of my watercolor & mixed media journals from my recent trips to Patagonia and Europe.  My journals have been featured in the magazine, Cloth, Paper, Scissors and Daniel Smith Art Supply Company sells a watercolor traveling kit designed by me.  

Evening Rendez-Vous, Original Watercolor by Jacqueline Newbold

A romantic and colorful cafe scene, “Evening Rendez-Vous” is an original watercolor painting by Jacqueline Newbold.    Framed size 15”Wx18H”, Image size 5”Wx10”H
This painting is available to purchase:  Evening Rendez-Vous

Drawing Lesson - Part 2

The Finished Painting in my Journal - notice that I combined the 2 rocks in the background 

Now that you used your pencil to size up what you want to draw, you have some great information about the dimensions of your landscape (see Drawing Lesson, Part 1).  What I love about organic structures such as mountains, trees and flowers is that you can manipulate them to work for you.  They can be enlarged, made smaller or even moved to different places in your painting.  Man-made structures are a little bit trickier.  Buildings, people, and animals need to look proportionally correct or they may give your painting an odd look.

This is what I did with my drawing of the views I had while on the Oregon coast.  I actually drew and painted this journal page while recently on the plane  to Maine for our family vacation.

The Proportions are still the same.

Using my pencil to measure the rocks

Here is one more helpful hint about using a pencil to get your dimensions correct:  you can divide or multiply the size depending on how large or small you want the objects to be in your painting.  For instance, if I had wanted to increase the size of those rock off the Oregon coast, I could have drawing them twice as big using my pencil to help with the measurement.  Or I could have made them 1/2 the size.  If you do this, make sure to treat all the elements in the drawing the same.  So if I doubled the size of the distant rocks then I would have also doubled the size of the little house as well as doubled the size of the nearer rocks.

Daniel Smith/Jacqueline Newbold Watercolor Kit Update

For those of you that have already ordered my new Daniel Smith Watercolor Jacqueline Newbold Traveling Kit, Daniel Smith just contacted me to let me know that they sent out the wrong size zippered case.  They are willing to send you the correct one for free and you can keep the first one they sent.  Leave a comment and I will get you in touch with the right person to fix this problem.  Thanks for all your support and hope you are enjoying the kit!