Demo Sketch of a Horned Owl

OwlGreatHornedPencilJ5725 This is the demo sketch of a Horned Owl brought home from a Clayton Home School Pencil Drawing Class. Classes are only 55 minutes long so I am not always able to finish the subject we choose in that amount of time.

Finishing What You Start

But, finishing what you start on your own time is truly worthwhile for any artist. And, NOT accumulating stacks of unfinished sketches and paintings in a corner of my studio is a great lifelong goal for me.

Afterschool, donating 30 more minutes on this sketch at home looks like this (below).

It is worth it to finish your sketches? Yes.

Check out another older blog post about finishing…

With just a little bit of effort you change this sketch’s destination and also improve your skill level as an artist.

Adding 1/2 hour

Changes this drawings destination of being laid in a stack of papers, and later thrown away later, to becoming a treasure worth putting up on the wall.
Helps the artist in you to practice and learn how to finish anything you start. Abandon the half way done mind-set. Improve your artist skills by forcing yourself to choose which details and rendering styles you will use.

Give it your best and you will never have to wonder about it later on. We in the creative fields tend to easily abandon a project before actually finishing it. It is simply in our nature. It is easy to change this tendency in ourselves by resisting the urge yo throw more into that pile. Instead, practice finishing something and experience the joy of accomplishing a job well done.

Finished this Duck Patrol

DuckPatrolF1225 I just finished this Duck Patrol watercolor painting, a 9″w x 12h” on 140lb wc paper.

I started on location at the Coeur d’Alene Lakeshore in northern Idaho. Sitting in an area named Tubbs Hill that is just south of the North Idaho College campus. I was painting the well known scene when a duck kept coming over to me and checking me out. After multiple photographs I did a quick water closeup with two versions of the duck laid out in it. I finished it in the studio using the photographic references I had.

You can see more of the process for this one if you look at this previous post.

I have found that painting while outdoors is a real treat for me. It can sometimes be more difficult if there are weather conditions that get out of hand but still the bright colors are much more alive. I find that more and more of my artist time is spent painting and drawing en plein air because I am getting more comfortable setting up outside.

You Are Not Alone

If you ever feel like doing this yourself, you are always welcome to join us. There are many like-minded artists at painting meetups by the Inland Northwest Outdoor Art Group on Facebook.

We are all going when we can and staying as long as we want. The main thing is that you can meet other artists who like to paint outside and make friends so that possibly you will be able to not have to go to strange new places all alone. Whenever I have joined this group it has turned out to be a really enjoyable outing and I get to learn something really cool from someone in the group each time. Some of my best friends are artist’s!

Art on the Green Coeur d’Alene ID

Art on the Green, in Coeur d’Alene ID was a lot of fun this year (2025). There was all kinds of arts and crafts along with music and fun activities. I worked at the Plein Air Booth right across from the stage on Friday, Saturday and Sunday (Aug 1st, 2nd, & 3rd). There was something like 30,000 visitors and art was tremendously present.

One of the funnest attractions for me was the amazing sandcastle. Wow! It was ginormous!

ArtOnTheGreen25_02
There were many more art booths that were filled with enormous talent, like other painters on site.

ArtOnTheGreen25_06
And let’s not forget the entertaining music with dancing. ArtOnTheGreen25_05

My job was to paint plein air and talk to people about doing painting outside. I will not bore you with multiple images at different stages. Here are a few examples from painting at the booth for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

nflowerSingleAOG2025_01 TreeAOG25_01 TubbsHill_01 SunflowerSingleAOG2025_01 SunflowerTwoAOG25_01
I will be looking at these to see if I should do some more finish work on them before calling them done. Anyhjow, it takes me awhile to recuperate from th crowds, heat and standing all day long and I am just now feeling rested so painting should speed up to a more normal pace soon.

THIS SATURDAY!!!

HaynesConservArea01 — Inland Northwest Outdoor Art group members.

This SATURDAY at 8am, join us,

the Inland Northwest Outdoor Art Group for
PLEIN AIR PAINTING

HAYNES ESTATE CONSERVATION AREA

1712 E Leona Dr, Spokane, WA 99208

see more here: https://youtu.be/NROJlzemHbk

There is no better way to reward your inner artist! Pack only the essentials in art gear and come play with other artists outside.

This is the first of five summer events to help increase more artist participation in plein air painting in our beautiful region. Artist’s from our group will meet with up to 25 new participants on location, to paint together for 4 hours. We are not teaching a class, we are just artists painting together outdoors. If you are a member of this group you do not need to sign up to go, we just need you to show up. This Open Air Painting Meetup (Plein Air) is sponsored by the Libraries in Spokane (https://scld.libcal.com/event/14100798)

Tubbs Hill 04 Small

This view is what caught my eye at this location, it was a massive tree that fell down and made a bridge over the Little Spokane River. Over the span of only 4 ours the olors in this scene changed in so many ways. (Bring a camera) HaynesConservArea03

A Second Subject

duck05 A second subject appears, as I paint en plein air with the Inland Northwest Outdoor Painters Group last Saturday (Tubb’s Hill in Coeur d’Alene ID).

You know how that goes don’t you?

Just A Second…

You see something that just really catches your eye, so, you grab a camera and take pictures as fast as you can. There are 6 different shots that I took. There is really no choice, because, you sure don’t want to quit painting what you are already working on.

What kind is it?

When my subject appeared it was a single beautiful duck on patrol for goodies. Can you find this kind of duck on the ducks.org link? What kind is it? Message me the answer and win a free sketch. This one duck was so interested in me (us) sitting on the shore, that he/she came back again and again to see if maybe I had decided to share some kind of snack. I wasn’t eating, but, that is the only reason I could think of for so many return trips throughout the morning. I was not the only one who noticed. A fellow pléin air painter, Aimee, noticed this character too. Now, I am curious to see if she decides to paint it when she gets back home too. We’ll have to wait and see.

Mix and Match

As I look through these photographs I realize that the water changes so very much, in every single one! Using my artistic privilege I pick my favorite positions and also sort through the best water patterns to do. During this process, I have a crazy thought of maybe doing each and every one of those water patterns and maybe even doing them in psychedelic colors, Hmmm… Neon green and yellow highlights and blue with purple shadows. WATCH OUT! The crazy artist is emerging out of me. I settle down my inner creative lady and convince her to just do one simple pair of ducks on the water (real water) before actually starting the project. If we want to, we can do a totally neon one after we finish this one.

duckPatrol03sm This is the, “Duck Patrol”, painting beginning. You may notice that I have altered reality just a little bit by giving my single ducky/goose/waterfowl a partner to cruise the waters with. With many swimming around in my photos to choose from, “Why not?” Life is so much more fun when we are lucky enough to have friends join us along the way.

Tubbs Hill Plein Air

Tubbs Hill 04 Small I spent the early morning painting in plein air at Tubbs Hill in Coeur d’Alene, ID with friends of mine from the “Inland Northwest Outdoor Painting Group“. It was a great start to a weekend and was full a lot of fun as we all enjoyed ourselves. Come paint with us!

TubbsHillLocalPhoto03 I thought it might be fun for you to be able to see how hard we work at trying to get that perfect photograph of THE PROOF SHOT that proves we we’re really painting outside and on location. Sometimes it take a group effort to get the right shot.

TubbsHillLocalPhoto04 Just right!

Remember that, “Art on the Green, Coeur d’Alene ID happens during the first weekend of August 2025”, the Plein Air Painting Contest requires that you take a photo of your painting and setup at the beginning, during and at the end to prove you are really painting outdoors. Sign up ASAP!

Finishing Landscapes

Finishing

I love teaching at the Home Link art classes, but, since we only have an hour to paint together, I brought this Blue Heron home unfinished. The kids and I painted it in watercolor. We concentrating on creating a dark background while reserving the beak, face and curved neck area for the next layers. The careful blues and feathers with a bright yellow eye. I took the liberty of finishing this one at home and also added some pen & ink to give it some kick. I hope to inspire my students to take their work home and finish it too.

This one is entitled, “Walk Thru the Woods”. I have been painting non-stop in both my studio, and in the classrooms each week with home school kids but there has not always been enough time to finish. So, there is a stack of paintings in the studio that are now calling my name, “Come finish me Val…”. My goal is to concentrate on completing them.

Water Wheel Cottage — 13.5”w x 9.5”h watercolor on 300lb wc paper. A quaint little cottage alongside a waterway with an old water wheel ready to work.

This is a cottage on the water started from a workshop with Michael Holter that I was blessed to take during Spring Break. It was fabulous to learn new ways to approach landscapes. I started this one in the workshop but was not able to get even close to halfway done. To finish it, I decided to not use the photograph from the workshop and see what I would do if I just finish it on my own. I am pleased with with the way it came out. I could see myself climbing up the steps and walking inside to check it out this beautiful historic old place.

Plein Air Painting

Plein Air Painting in the spring is something I absolutely love. It is so very vibrant with the brightest greens and so many colorful flowers.

Plein Air

Plein Air Painting in the spring is something I absolutely love. It is so very vibrant with the brightest greens and so many colorful flowers. I want to share a plein air piece that I entered last year at the plein air booth contest in “Art on the Green in Coeur d’Alene, ID“. This piece won 3rd place. It is entitled, “Beauty After Fire H1224”, a watercolor on 140lb wc paper showing a vibrant forest scene coming back to life after a wildfire.

Beauty After Fire Sky Here is a picture I took of the sky right when I started. It was a beautiful sky full of life. I was sitting where we just finished rebuilding our house after the wildfire of 2023 (Oregon Road Wildfire), and, these are the only patch of trees that remain. They looked so happy and I was so glad they were there. I thought I’d go ahead and put those tall standing giants on paper with their great backdrop. The biggest challenge for me was doing that dramatic sky first.

This second picture is what it looked like at the at the end of that first afternoon. I returned the next day, but of course the sky was not anywhere near the same so a lot of the view from there was more from my head than my eyes seeing it. I added the red’s in the sky after I had put orange in the bare clay dirt at the tree bases. It really warmed things up, yay! Beauty After Fire 02
Today taking a look outside, the bug has really got me and I am wanting to get out there and paint, hope to see you out there too!

Art Reception at the MAC Show

Join us at the Art Reception

Today is the Spokane Watercolor Society’s awards ceremony and reception at the Museum of Art and Culture downtown from 1-3pm. Michael Holter will be there with some of his art. Please come and see some fabulous art and visit with all the artists.

We just finished a great workshop with our invited artist, Michael Holter at the Spokane Art Supply classroom. It was 4 days crammed full of a massive amount of great learning. I am hoping that the lessons learned from him will enable me to improve my own artwork in the near future. My brain is almost at over full levels right now. Come and see our art and even come see some of Holter’s original art too.

Hello Fall

You can see I started with the sky, the tree and the basic lines of the architecture shape to follow. The sky was a bright yellow where the sun peeked over the roof line but otherwise it was sparsely clouded and light as you look higher. Putting the large maple tree on the left takes a large part of the composition area.

HelloFall_Clayton Home School 01 The architectural parts of this old beauty of a school, were a bit of a challenge to sort through. What details to drop an which to keep, so that the painting could be done in a reasonable amount of time. Making a texture that would accurately show the brick took a little bit of trail and error.

This was all followed by leaves up close then lots of them in the background in the breezes.