June and July just flew by at our house. The warm weather and welcome rain produced a bumper crop of vegetables, and all the work that goes with putting them up. While I was busy, Steve was faithfully making and uploading some enjoyable videos. We also celebrated our 44th anniversary with a weekend away at Old Salem in Salem, NC.
One of the highlights of June was meeting up with Emily Olson, whom some of you may already be familiar with. She joined us at Biltmore House in Asheville,NC, which is one of our favorite local places to visit and do a little plein air painting. Emily flew solo from her Denver, CO home to collaborate with us on a couple of videos. While she was staying in North Carolina, she made some lovely additional videos during her mountain hikes. Later, Emily visited us at our home in South Carolina where she and Steve had a delightful time recording a fun video of their watercolor “Personalitrees” contest in his studio. Emily is truly a dear, gentle heart, and we’ll always remember her visit fondly. (Please check out her YouTube channel at Emily Olson Art.)
July brought our annual Independence Day family gathering, games, and fireworks display. The grandkids ran around entertaining themselves, and everyone else, with their sparklers. Then came more gardening, videos, and in a blink the month was over.
If you happened to have missed any of our June or July videos that were posted for all viewers on YouTube, here they are with a list of links to them all.
As usual, you will also find the additional links to exclusive content on Patreon (only accessible if you’re a Patron). If you’ve not become a Patron yet, please consider supporting this channel and receiving additional, helpful content.
Fun & Quick Landscape Detail Sketching in Gouache
You can break down every aspect of landscape to details such as grass, weeds and brush then paint them in little sketches. Such a fun, quick and profitable practice.
Are You Seeing Your Scene’s ENTIRE Value Range?
Using too narrow a value range in watercolor can often result in flat uninteresting paintings. Look for the lights and darks of a scene and make sure you can recreate the full range of values where they are needed.
Which Watercolor Detail Brush Should I Use? Pro and Cons of Every Category.
At some point we all reach for a detail brush to paint something thin or small. Here’s a round up of what I might reach for and a discussion about each one’s pros and cons.
Stop Looking for Watercolor Tricks and Formulas
There is more to successful rendering than clever tricks and how-to formulas.
Storytime: Let’s Talk About My Watercolor Nemesis!
Do you have a persistent watercolor nemesis that hounds you and occasionally knocks you on your butt. You try to defeat it but it continues to rear it’s ugly head. I’ll tell you mine and you tell me yours.
An Adventure in Watercolor Textures!
Shall We Dance?! These Brushes Have the Moves! Spontaneous Watercolor Landscape.
Wedge and dagger brushes have some interesting shapes that can make unique marks. In this spontaneous painting challenge I limit myself to only those brushes and 4 main colors.
NEW ART STUFF! It’s Like Christmas in July.
Let’s have a show and tell, sort of a haul video I guess. I have some fun new art stuff I find interesting and potentially useful. So take a look!
Easy Rocky Texture From Spatter. “Clutter” Prompt. World Watercolor Month.
It’s #worldwatercolormonth and I’m finally getting around to painting a prompt, #clutter. But it’s also a great opportunity to go into more detail about how I paint a rocky texture from simple drips and spatter. Super easy.
In-Person Collaboration with Emily Olson. Biltmore Estate and Studio Tour.
YouTuber and primo watercolorist @EMILYOLSONART came to our region for a plein air vacation. Yay! So we met up for a collaboration. The rest is history.
The Best Way I Know to Enjoy the ART Creation Process!
It’s been requested a few times that I PLEASE paint another portrait. So here we go. I also wanted to chat about how to enjoy the process of art making.
The Mind of Watercolor 
Thank you Rita, and many congratulations on your anniversary.
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First, congrats on your anniversary, enjoy the time you have together. any more years. Secondly, I want you and Steve how much I look forward to my patron notes each week. I want you to know that your keeping at least one old man frustrated and entertained.
Best of luck in the garden (had to plow mine under last year) but that’s fun too.
Just wanted to send best wishes.
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Love the videos, Steve and Rita (and Reese)! What an incredible team! Please keep ’em coming.
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