Category Archives: Deliberate Practice

Sunset in the Meadow

Posted on July 12, 2020 by Sarah Sullivan

When I look at the collection above of the plein air paintings that I did on our recent trip to Colorado, I notice that I am reluctant to include people in the landscapes and to use vivid accent colors. Since … Continue reading →

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Marigolds on Stripes

Posted on November 5, 2019 by Sarah Sullivan

I brought my marigolds inside and took my time arranging the composition. For color and shape contrast, I put the round orange flowers on a mostly blue striped tablecloth. Then I arranged the wrinkles in the stripes to counter the … Continue reading →

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Intuitive Painting

Posted on February 14, 2019 by Sarah Sullivan

I just finished a four-day workshop on intuitive painting with the Arizona artist, Stan Kurth. Above are three of my favorite paintings that I did during the workshop. We learned to develop paintings intuitively. Not from life, not from a … Continue reading →

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Quick Paintings and Quick Decisions

Posted on November 29, 2018 by Sarah Sullivan

I painted many 20-minutes sketches this morning of a model with the SDWS Thursday life group.  A twenty-minute sketch does not give a lot of time for planning, measuring, and color choice. You have to be fast and trust your … Continue reading →

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Frida Underwater

Posted on October 18, 2018 by Sarah Sullivan

This week the assignment in our illustration class was to show a character in an underwater environment, using black ink and traditional pens. I had trouble thinking of a character and began several sketches only to abandon them when I … Continue reading →

Posted in Deliberate Practice, Learning | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Do They Like My Work?

Posted on October 12, 2018 by Sarah Sullivan

I am taking a ten-week illustration course at a local university. Our first assignment was to select text from an unillustrated book and then to illustrate it using five types of pencil marks- hatching, crosshatching, scribbling, tick marks, and pressure … Continue reading →

Posted in Deliberate Practice, Telling a Story | Tagged | 6 Comments

On the Rocks at Yosemite

Posted on September 27, 2018 by Sarah Sullivan

My cousin, who is an amazing artist, has been working with gouache on brown paper. She sent me a photo of a recent painting and it was so gorgeous that it caused me to paint the day away on brown … Continue reading →

Posted in Deliberate Practice, Landscape, Learning | Tagged , , | 3 Comments