I had to be in London last week for work, so of course I looked for excuses to do some art-related things (and extend my trip)! I was pleased to be able to attend the Mall Galleries Christmas Carol Concert and Party, held during the Royal Institute of Oil Painters Annual Exhibition. It was so fun to see the fantastic paintings, sing carols, and nibble on mince pies.



Toward the end of the week, I took off with a friend on a minibreak in Devonshire. It's not quite Cornwall -- ergo no Poldark sightings, sorry! -- but the coast is similarly raw and dramatic and windswept. Despite the on-and-off showers, we managed to do quite a bit of shopping and hiking. (And of course there was a good deal of sitting in pubs sipping hot beverages and reading Agatha Christie by the fire!)

We covered a lot of ground: Totnes, Hope Cove, Salcombe, Plymouth, Dartmouth, and Kingswear. Sadly I only really sketched in Hope Cove, where we were bracing against gale force winds as we walked on the beach.



I skipped hiking on the clifftops and found a somewhat sheltered place to draw instead!





We stayed in Newton Abbot, at the Dartmoor Halfway Inn, which had a view of sheep grazing on green hills crisscrossed by hedgerows.



I'd love to go back to these towns in more favorable weather, maybe with a set of gouache paints to capture the pastel-hued buildings and steeply pitched hills and cliffs.

What a great group we had for my Mindful Sketching class two weekends ago at ARCH Art Supply in San Francisco! We practiced ways to focus and simplify a scene, and then we leaned into bold colors using double-tipped markers -- a departure from the usual ink-and-watercolor routine.

Here's a selection of my demo/prep sketches for the workshop:







It's so liberating not to worry about the actual colors!





We used Staedtler Brush Letter Duo double-ended lettering markers on a Bienfang Mixed Media wirebound sketchbook.



Thanks to everyone who joined! I'm starting to plan workshops for next year, so stay tuned!