Britchida

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Art chat

Today I have some creative miscellany for you, the kinds of things that I might go on about if we were getting coffee, chatting and showing each other our sketchbooks. So grab a cup of something nice and let's go! Painted backgrounds Earlier this month I had an

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EDI Live: Update & Reference photo

Hi friends! I'm looking forward to seeing you today. Two things: 1) I had a personal thing come up so I won't be on 10 min early today, but I will be there and ready to start and noon! 2) I'm going to continue

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Zorn Palette

In this month's main post I introduced one of my favorite limited palettes: the Zorn Palette, which is made of a bright warm red (often cadmium red, but I'm using pyrrol red here), yellow ochre and black. You can click here if you want to read

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June 2023: The Selfie 2.0

It's my birthday month, the time each year that I revisit the selfie as a way to spend time with myself and mark the moment. I notice how I'm aging and growing, how I've become sweeter and stronger and more worn in. I also

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EDI Live: June 17, 12pm PST

Each month, Light Tier members are invited onto a live online painting class where we'll go deeper into the month's practices and ideas. If you'd like to join in, click here. I'd love to see you there! Hello Light Tier friends! Our

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Process

Warble: the breath and the line

When I need to slow down, but actual holding-still, breathing-on-purpose meditation or relaxation is too much for me, I draw. Here are some favorites: 1) The breath line. I close my eyes, put my pen on the page and draw upward on the inhale and downward on the exhale. I

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Events

EDI Live TODAY: Reference Photos

Hi friends! We're painting FISH and their friends today. Here are some reference photos to remind us what they look like! See you at noon Pacific time. Details are here.

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Try It

Color notes

I learned to mix colors by trying to match little swatches to things around me: leaves, rocks, shirts, book covers. It's a calm and meditative practice built on noticing, which is a core ability for both mixing color and living a life.   So, here's something to

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Events

EDI Live: May 20, 12pm PST

Each month, Light Tier members are invited onto a live online painting class where we'll go deeper into the month's practices and ideas. If you'd like to join in, click here. I'd love to see you there! Hello Light Tier friends! Our

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Monthly Guide

May 2023: Noticing

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Canvas tests - EDI Live follow up

Here are a few follow up pics from the tests I did during the live: Here's the acrylic (dark blue) and gouache (hot pink) on unstretched canvas. It definitely warped. The gouache looks pretty amazing IRL, though part of it is this brilliant pink color which is unfortunately

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Lightfastness Testing

It's spring, which means more light up here in the north so it's a good time to set up lightfastness tests. It's something I've been wanting to do for ages. Want to see the process? Let's go! Lightfastness is a

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EDI Live: Apr 22, 12pm PST

Each month, Light Tier members are invited onto a live online painting class where we'll go deeper into the month's practices and ideas. If you'd like to join in, click here. I'd love to see you there! Hello Light Tier friends! Our

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Monthly Guide

April 2023: Materials play

A key to creative energy is the willingness to use your supplies. Use them freely, use them on things that don't work out, waste them, use them up. As much I know this, I still feel resistance from the part of me that wants to collect art supplies

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EDI Live Today: Ref phots

Hello friends! Here are some images I'll be referencing during out session. These first ones are photos of James Gurney's superb book Color and Light.  Below those is a link to the folder of images I may use to paint from today. Looking forward to seeing

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Process

Limited palettes

Earlier this month I shared a way to understand color as relative. Another way to explore this concept is to paint the same image with different limited palettes– in each case I'll be using a red, blue and yellow plus white. Each combination I choose will create a

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Monthly Guide

March 2023: Shifting color

I'm thrilled to be sharing about one of my favorite topics: color. I want to focus specifically on how colors compare to each other, because it's often the relative shift between two colors that matters more than the exact colors. I felt that it would be

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Events

EDI Live: Mar 25, 12pm PST

Each month, Light Tier members are invited onto a live online painting class where we'll go deeper into the month's practices and ideas. If you'd like to join in, click here. I'd love to see you there! Hello Light Tier friends! Our

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Process

Ways to use a journal

I wrote to you earlier this month about how using a notebook helps me as an artist. In this post I'm going share a few ways I've learned to use it as a tool for processing and cultivating creative ideas. Bullet Journal Method Ever since I

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EDI Live - Reference Photos

Hi friends, Below are some reference photos I may draw from in our class today. We'll be taking a look at applying the concepts of water control we talked about last month. Excited to see you! As usual, please join me 10-15 min early if you'd

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Process

Watercolor Flowers & Fruit! 🍒

Flowers and fruit are wonderfully flexible objects to paint. There's room for a lot of variation while still allowing for recognizability, so they're some of my favorite things to sketch when I want to get a feel for new paint or paper. Here are some that

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Try It: Water Control

So much of water control is a hand feel, a sense that develops with lots of experience, where we know how much we can ask of our paint and when to sit back and trust it to do its thing. Here are four swatching exercises I'd recommend to

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Water Control

In our January Live class I showed strategies for water control when using watercolor and wanted to share some of those ideas and practice strategies with you all here. I will demonstrate another round of examples in our February EDI Live this weekend! Watercolor is surprising and unpredictable – this is

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EDI Live: Feb 25, 12pm PST

Each month, Light Tier members are invited onto a live online painting class where we'll go deeper into the month's practices and ideas. If you'd like to join in, click here. I'd love to see you there! Hello Light Tier friends! Our

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February 2023: Keeping a journal

I have kept a just-for-me catch-all notebook for over 20 years or so. In my mind, the pages lined up edge to edge would wrap around my entire life twice at least, but in reality they fit in a few boxes, with all the books from the past decade fitting