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I was invited by the Santa Clara Valley Watercolor Society a few weeks ago to do an hour’s watercolor demonstration at their annual show and reception. The general directive they gave me was to show “wet-into-wet” technique—something aspiring watercolor painters are likely to learn on their first day in art class.

I vacillated and dilly-dallied for weeks about what to do for this demo, and while most of the things that came to mind would have been okay—that is, they could have given people information of some reasonable value—I really couldn’t get into them. … Read more

As I hike and paint at Grand Canyon, I often have tunes in my head.  I don’t mind having tunes in my head because, though they may range from Mozart to Lady Gaga, they have some way of connecting with what I am seeing and painting out there.

At the same time, I sometimes think, I haven’t yet heard the real music of Grand Canyon.  That is, if God were to send down THE exact right music for this place, what would it be?  … Read more

Everyone knows Half Dome and El Capitan. These spectacular mega-monuments stand alone in the eyes of the world as icons of Yosemite, made world-famous by the brilliant photography of Ansel Adams. But there are also others—stony needles, razors, sawteeth, and cliffs with precisely vertical smooth-as-glass faces reaching 1,000 feet, 2,000 feet, 3,000 feet from earth to summit, just like El Cap and Half Dome, that are not so well known. Sentinel Peak is one of these. It’s not an icon, but that in no way minimizes its splendor. … Read more