Watercolor Painting and Traveling to Italy with Jacqueline Newbold

 Watercolor painting is fun and easy to do while traveling! I am planning my next watercolor workshop in Orvieto, Italy, May 22-28, 2021 with Adventures in Italy. I thought it would be fun to treat myself to a new palette.  People often ask me what colors I use and how do I set up my palette.  I want to share with you the best way to set up a new watercolor palette.

The MEEDEN Empty Watercolor Tins Box Palette Paint Case is perfect for creating small paintings and sketches on the go! It holds 12 Pcs Half Pans of paint. Just squeeze your favorite colors into the 1/2 pan, let it dry, and you are all set to paint while traveling!

A few scenes from my traveling watercolor journals:

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  Window in Italy, painting my travel journal

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Doorway in France

The fun part is deciding which colors will go where.  I always use a color wheel to figure out where to put my colors. The first thing to do is to pull out the tubes of color that I want to add to my new palette.  This will take some time and careful thought.

THE COLORS ON MY PALETTE
If I have to narrow my choices down to 12 colors, this is probably what they will be!

Lemon Yellow
Cobalt Blue Teal
Manganese Blue
Cobalt Blue.
Phthalo Blue
French Ultramarine
Quinacridone Purple
Permanent Rose
Permanent Red
French Vermilion
Permanent Orange
New Gamboge

Watercolor Sketches

 These small, quick sketches of European village scenes are fun and easy to do. I try to make them simple. They are a great way to try out different colors and values. And of course, I can always use drawing practice. Perspective is important in these little sketches so think about the angles of the doors and windows. Make the doors and the windows in the foreground bigger than in the background.

Start with a simple pencil drawing. Add a colorful watercolor wash over the buildings. When this is dry, start adding layers of color to get a variety of values.

I will often add pen and ink to my village sketches.

    

 An Eye and Feather of a Great Horned Owl

As I am getting ready for the ART & SOUL ART RETREAT, in Portland, Oregon. I am enjoying painting in my nature journal. Here is an example of one of the pages we will be doing in the Naturalist's Art Journal workshop on Wednesday, June 23, 2021.

This page in my watercolor journal was inspired by a birding trip that I did with a few friends to a wildlife preserve in eastern Oregon, Summer Lake. At one of the picnic areas, we found a family of Great-Horned Owls. There were two juveniles and two parents. As I took pictures, the mom and the babies would turn their heads and look down at me with those great big eyes. It was fun to try to paint an eye.

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Painting What You Love!

 

Often when I haven't painted in a while, I resort to painting something very familiar and loved to get me back in the mood.  Since I spent so much time trying to be outdoors this Covid summer, I took some time off from painting.  I felt rusty so I thought I would start with a familiar little house in the landscape.  It felt good to get my paints and brushes out again and paint, Just off the Beaten Path!

Welcome to International Nature Journaling week

(1-7th June 2020)

You know how I love nature journaling. I found out that there is now a week together as a world-wide community to celebrate and document the beauty and diversity of the natural world!

“Nature journaling allows us to open ourselves to wonder and explore with joy.”

Each day during International Nature Journaling Week will be focused on a different aspect of nature, which will be a starting place for our journal pages for that day. You can access the themes for each day through the Program page or in the list below:

1ST JUNE - PLANTS

2ND JUNE - ANIMALS

3RD JUNE - FUNGI

4TH JUNE - NATURE FINDS

5TH JUNE - LANDSCAPES

6TH JUNE - SKIES

7TH JUNE - ECOSYSTEMS

Traveling is a great way to inspire ideas for paintings in an art journal. I am fortunate to be in the colorful, sunny land of Baja, California, Mexico for a few days. My focus has been bird watching every morning - early before it gets too hot and the birds are still active. Inspiration from nature is a great way to add to my journal.

My brother shared with me an app called ebird which has been very helpful to keep track of all the beautiful birds I have been seeing here. In the afternoons, I am enjoying relaxing by the pool and painting in my journal. The birds are colorful fun to watch. Here are a few photos that I took over the last few days. Insiration from Nature....

Inspiration from Nature

Monochromatic Pen, Ink, and Watercolor Washes

It is fun to add pen, ink, and watercolor washes to create monochromatic pen and ink paintings to your art journals. These are easy to do and are a great way to make little paintings in your journal to record your travels. I am currently teaching a series of classes in my Tumalo Studio in Oregon. The weather has turned quickly into a feel of winter, so what a great way to bring in the new season than to do some sketches and monochromatic washes.
The focus of this series of classes is incorporating pen, ink, and watercolor. Here is an example of one of our lessons. I started with a photograph I took of a quaint village in the south of France - the Dordogne area.







I did a contour drawing of the parts of the photo that I wanted to include. Then I used this as a reference and transferred it to my watercolor art journal. I drew it with a permanent pen. I added watercolor washes of Quinacridone Burnt Orange and Aussie Red-Gold, both by Daniel Smith. Where needed, I added more pen and ink lines after the painting was dry.

Upcoming Watercolor Workshops with Jacqueline Newbold

Jacqueline Newbold Colorful Watercolor Paintings Capture Gorgeous Landscapes, Cityscapes, and Flowers 

Make your 2019 wishes come true by joining me on a

Painting workshop in France

Watercolor art painting workshops with Jacqueline Newbold
LET’S GO! – FRANCE May 10-17, 2019, with French Escape!

ART AND SOUL, PORTLAND, OREGON 2019

I am teaching at the Portland 2019 Art & Soul Retreat
The Painted Garden – Tuesday, March 12, 2019
A Naturalist’s Art Journal – Wednesday, March 13, 2019
A Colorful Palette – Thursday, March 14, 2019
Loosen Up Landscapes – Friday, March 15, 2019

Painted Valentine Cards

Why not give your loved ones a hand-made gift of a watercolor card this Valentine's Day?  This card is easy to make and you can make several in one afternoon.  This project uses watercolor glazing techniques and negative painting.  See below:

Negative painting around hearts

• Start with a piece of watercolor paper (I use 140 lb Arches paper) torn to the size you want. 
• Tape your paper to a workable surface around each edge using a removable painter's tape.  
• Paint a colorful watercolor wash and let this dry.  I used new Gamboge, permanent rose, permanent magenta and cerulean blue.
• With a pencil, draw some heart shapes, some large, some small.  Overlap some hearts.  Negative paint around each heart.  This means you paint the background around the hearts, creating heart shapes in your painting.  Let this dry.
• Draw a few more hearts and negative paint again around all the hearts.  You can negative paint these hearts several times to make a rich, glowing background.  Painting over your last layer is called watercolor glazing.

  

  Glazing and negative painting

  
  

• Now decorate the hearts in fun ways: polka dots, checks, stripes.  You can either use watercolor or colored pens and markers or a mix of both!  Have fun, doodle, think of your loved one.  Here is your opportunity to put a smile on their face!  And after reading Jenn's facebook post from Cloth, Paper, Scissors - PUT A BIRD ON IT!
• With an ink pen, draw around your hearts and outline the tape before pulling it off the edges.

My final valentine for my husband.  Hope he likes it!