Our Tuesday night still-life group met online, and we were quickly engrossed and painting away. The pot was tilted on its side and I spent forever trying to get the angles of the mouth and sides to look right. I had an easier time with my color decisions as the scene was perfect for gouache on raw sienna-tinted Colourfix paper. I let the raw sienna show in the horizontal stripe in the background and in parts of the pot.
Saturday, we went out to Lakeside for the monthly paintout with the San Diego Watercolor Society. Shuang Li gave a terrific demo, and then we all painted.
It was such a beautiful day, full of irresistible subjects, clouds, boulders, fresh green meadows, fences, horses, vistas, and farm equipment. I decided to focus on the boulders and got to work. Soon, though, my sketch was bursting with all the loveliness of the spring morning, and I ended up with a cluttered mess.
Today I tried again. No beautiful fence that zig zags across the meadow, no majestic clouds, no terraced fields, but a much more pleasing painting.
An interior scene is an unusual yet fitting final sketch for our two weeks in San Pancho. On our first day here, my sister-in-law received a stunning birthday bouquet from our cousin. It captured my eye the entire time we stayed together because of its shape and colors. Although I intended to paint it, I kept deferring, as so many other scenes caught my attention.
I finally painted it using a composition I am experimenting with- a still-life in the foreground with a figure in the distance.
Today is Constitution Day in Mexico, and the beach here in San Pancho was full of people enjoying the long weekend. A lot was going on, and I had trouble deciding what to sketch. Eventually, I noticed a young couple sharing a towel, chatting, and watching their son play in the surf. I liked their companionable vibe and tried to capture some of it in this sketch.
A leisurely breakfast while sketching delights me, and San Pancho is the perfect place for this indulgence. The Cielo Rojo, a few blocks from where we are staying, is full of art, color, movement, and good food. I wanted to capture some of its charm in this sketch.
The waves here in San Pancho are full of force and beauty, as are the people who play in the surf.
I watched a mom and baby play along the water’s edge before I got into sketching them. Initially, the mom held the child by both hands as the wave crashed toward them, lifting the baby just above the wave as it broke. Each time the baby was drenched, she laughed and reached out for more. By the time I started this sketch, the mom was holding her squirming baby, who seemed determined to get back into the water.
Showing the surging waves is a challenge. Today I experimented with making shorter, choppier strokes to mimic the sea’s energy and like this better than my earlier attempts.
Two children at the far end of the beach were tirelessly jumping off rocks. They stood on the ledge waiting for an incoming wave and then jumped as the wave filled the small pool below the rocks. Then they would ride the wave to the beach, scramble up the rocks, and jump again. It was the most joyful thing I have seen in a long time, and I quickly tried to capture it in this sketch.
Deliberate Sketching 