Sketch Sicily with me!

 

I will be taking a group of sketchers and adventure lovers to Sicily in Spring 2027!

I loved working with Lisa in Tuscany and was stunned by how beautiful Sicily was. The Flower festival as so wonderful. It is a perfect place for a road trip.

Siracusa is possibly one of my favorite places to sketch last year and I look forward to sketching Taormina.

There is a link below to get all the details and pay your deposit. 

I hope you can join me!

This is the itinerary so far:

Day 1 Catania Pick Up

Day 2 Messina 

Day 3 Taormina Day 

Day 4 Etna Day 

Day 5 Winery Tour Day 

Day 6 Head to Siracusa  

Day 7 Siracusa 

Day 8 Noto Flower Fest 

Day 9 Modica and Ragusa 

Day 10 Agrigento 

Day 11 Early Departure for Catania

Get more info and register here. 

Sketching Here & Everywhere

 

My book about sketching cam out in 2023. I am so happy about how it turned out and how it continues to sell.

Recently, it was added to Sketcher Press' bookstore!

Inside images:

Of course, you can also get it at Snapdragon Books and from my Website!

I am currently working on my next Travelogue, so stay tuned!

Join My Mailing List!

 

Sketching Here and Everywhere, My Sketching Obsession is launching this summer. 

I have it chock full of sketching and material tips, anecdotes, and sketches

SIGN UP TO BE NOTIFIED WHEN IT IS AVAILABLE!

One of the first 100 subscribers is in the running for a free pet portrait!

Holiday Wishes!

2015 has been a crazy year; wonderful in so many ways! The biggest is I have my hearing back thanks to Dr. CaJacob's skilled hands! I also have tiny titanium implants in my ears, which is way cool! I have otosclerosis, a hereditary hearing loss which causes the ear bones to calcify and preventing the sound waves from getting to the cochleas. Now I can hear normally; it is amazing and no more hearing aids!


It looks like it will be another crazy year in 2016. I have a lot of great things lined up and am kicking things off with a trip to Costa Rica with some friends and a university group.

I plan to do a lot of sketching and painting while there.

Here is a sketch from recent trip to the Krohn Conservatory with a group of fabulous ladies. Their holiday display is extraordinary and they add to it every year.

Final sketch...

On location

Sarah, me, Amy, Anisha, and Vanessa

Travel Fever and Zoo Sketches

Adorable, shell shocked baby fox

I went to the Cincinnati Zoo with Amy Bogard and Robin Ewers Carnes Friday to get some live sketching in on a beautiful day!

The animals were delightfully active and it was a good day to be out in peak fall color.

I was particularly obsessed with the baby gray fox above. He looked so new and vulnerable. He eventually curled up and had the pose my cat has when he is settling down with his ears in the owl position.

Our other favorites were the merekats, the lions, the African painted dogs and the Visayan warty pigs.

A composite of my sketches from my mini-sketchbook

We also saw the Sumatran Rhino before he leaves this Thursday for Indonesia.

He was pretty chill and enjoying a spa day in his mud bath...

Farewell Harry!

See all of our artwork here on the Cincinnati Illustrators Blog!

Wrestling lion cubs-too cute!

In other news, I am planning to go to Costa Rica the beginning of January. I am still playing the airfare chess game, so hopefully I can get a good deal. It would better be described as a shell game. I think the artificial intelligence that puts together these flight legs is some kind of sadist. It is a system designed to give you kind of what you are looking for but deliberately not.

I look forward to sketching there!

Spring Fairies

Unleashing the last spirits of winter

Something about spring makes you think of fairies. I think it is all of the new life that emerges. So, I have been doing a lot of them in my sketchbook lately.

The council is in session...

We also just saw Song of the Sea, a wonderful film by the folks who did The Secret of Kells. It was a beautiful film with a bit of a Spirited Away vibe with a dash of Tolkien's Silmarillion (he was greatly influenced by Celtic and other European mythology). I loved the design and the concept.

It is common mythology around the world of spirits being a part of everything... The world does awaken this time of year from a dormant state.

I can hardly wait to get outside to sketch!

The Leaf Litter...

Even at the Krohn Conservatory!

It is The Year of the Goat

Happy Chinese New Year a day late! Although this is from the goats I saw in Greece on a tiny island off of Aegina called Moni Eginas.

It was cute and covered in goats and peacocks.

My friend brought bread to feed them and got head butted by an aggressive male when she tried to pet him. She said she should have known better and had giant bruises to prove it!
They had glorious horns!

Moni Eginas; magical land of goats and peacocks

Trip to Romania Part 3: Painted Monastaries

Me Sketching at Voronet

We went to a lot of monasteries old and new. Of course the star monasatries are the old ones...

Above is Voronet Monastery in the Moldovan area of Romania. It was built in 1488 by Stephen the Great. The painting have survived war, weather and disuse. They are now restored including the paintings on the inside. They are not restoring the exterior paintings as far as I know which I think is a good thing.

This was the only place where we ran into an American tour group.

Detail from the exterior of Voronet. All of these churches have paintings of the Last Judgement... This is the place you want to avoid...

This is from the Humor Monastery located in Mănăstirea Humorului.

Me sketching at Humor Monastary

Detail of the battle in Constantinople.

Above is the Humor Monastery, a painted monastery located in Mănăstirea Humorului.  The frescoes were originally painted in 1535 and this one shows Constantinople defending itself from a Persian invasion in 626. The Persians were illustrated as Turks which is proof that the news is always prone to revisionism even if it is really old news

A lot of the monasteries had these cool seraphim images depicted as wing clusters with lots of eyeballs.


I know I have been slow to post these images. But there is MUCH more! Next up, the Merry Cemetery and a stones throw from the Ukraine border...

Trip to Romania: Part I

Red line shows our itinerary...

I just got back from a 2 week trip to Romania with my friend Ioana who is working on a plant field guide to the country. So much fun touring the country and seeing castles, churches, villages and fortresses.

It was a whirlwind! We were on the road a lot so we could see as much as possible. But, in the short time, it was just tastes of different regions. 

We first went to Romania in 1998 to be in George and Ioana's wedding. The country has done a 180 since then and is growing in leaps and bounds. Unfortunately, the guys could not join us this visit.

We did not get to revisit the seaside town of Constanta or the Dacian ruins, but next time...

Our first stop was Brasov and OF COURSE Castle Bran in Transylvania. We did not see Bran last time since I had to pick one castle to visit and that was Peles. So this time, we made sure to cover it.

Brasov is an amazing town. I hope to go back and sketch more! We only got a little taste of the city.

The Brasov town square

While I sketched this, they were giving a free opera concert. It seemed to cover a lot of the greatest hits and was a bit of a sampler platter of songs.

A peacock is a good image in Brasov. It is a proud and beautiful city.

Did you think I would not sketch it?

Queen Marie's Chapel we thought... Gorgeous with all the moss...

Me, walking up to the castle...

If you are curious and want to know more, watch this amazing series about Romania called Wild Carpathia. They go to a lot of the places Ioana and I went to and talks about how they are trying to conserve the largest areas of virgin forest in Europe.

http://youtu.be/jvDIpOPlWJ8

Sketch Workshop in Chicago

I am finally posting all of my sketches from Chicago. I have been buried since my return in work. (I have some amazing projects on my plate at the moment.)

But, it was wonderful to have a weekend devoted to just sketching and hanging out with wonderful friends.

You can see photos from the seminar here: http://chicagosketchseminar2014.wordpress.com/
and some of the Cincinnati group's photos and sketches here: http://cincyillustrators.blogspot.com/2014/06/urban-sketching-seminar-in-chicago.html

See Vanessa's sketches here: http://nessydesigns.blogspot.com/2014/06/urban-sketchers-chicago-2014.html

and her incredible photos here: http://nessydesigns.blogspot.com/2014/06/chiacgo-urban-sketchers-trip-photos.html

My favorite sketch from the weekend. This is the Holy Name Cathedral where Roger Ebert's funeral was held

Another church on the church architecture tour

Porsche at what the locals called 'Viagra Triangle' which is a good description

Big statue next to the hotel

A bit of sketching between bites of Garrett popcorn

Detail of the facade

Part of the Newberry Library

More Spring Sketches...

Amy, Vanessa and I managed to get out and sketch the cherry blossoms at Spring Grove Cemetery while they were peak. It was a beautiful day. There was also a plein air group out that day, so a lot of painting was going on.

 Here is a vine on location: https://vine.co/v/M5T7vuYrIz5

Also, I forgot to post the Cosmopolitan building sketch from a couple weeks ago. It is a couple doors down from Suder's Art Store and is supposed to be haunted.

It is a beautiful building and it is being renovated for The Brandery. Its windows are incredible!