How to Mix Desert Green in Watercolor

What do I mean by desert green? Feast your eyes on the cacti and agaves below to see: Did you spot the baby saguaro? 🙂 This opaque dusty green really used to trip me up when I first got started with watercolors. But not anymore! I found some key colors that really make mixing this

Cactus Collab Palette with Letter Sparrow!

I’m super excited to share a project that’s been in the works for a while now: a Cactus Palette Collab with Letter Sparrow! Kelly makes some of the best handmade paints that I’ve ever used, hands-down. This is like a dream come true. It will come in a Folio palette from Art Toolkit, with plenty

My Palette for the Nature Spot Challenge

I had so many requests for info on the little palette I’m using for the Nature Spot Challenge — so here you go! Colors are: DS = Daniel Smith, WN = Winsor and Newton Just let me know if you have any questions, and happy nature spotting! PS. You can join the challenge anytime —

What’s On My Palette?

Choosing paints to put on your palette is very personal — it depends on where you live, what you like to paint, how much you enjoy color mixing, and more. Someone who does botanical art will have a very different palette than someone who focuses on urban scenes. I live in Central Texas but I

Nature Spots

What are nature spots, you ask? They’re spots of color to mark your observations while out in nature. Be it a flower, butterfly, amazing rock formation or magnificent mountain, nature spots are a great way to document a subject without taking up too much time. Fill up a journal to document a hike or time

Organizing My Art Toolkit Palettes

Tips and tricks on how I keep the pans for my Art Toolkit palettes organized.

I started a perpetual journal!

I’ve been wanting to start a perpetual journal for a while now and I finally dove in! I wanted to do a quick writeup since several friends have asked me about it. First off, what is a perpetual journal, you ask? It’s the brainchild of Lara Call Gastinger, and in a nutshell you do a

Fall/Winter palette update!

I love tinkering with my palette and switching it up for the seasons. I put together this fall/winter version in my Art Toolkit Folio so that I could play with lots of reds, oranges and yellows plus have some moody darks and easy ways to mix snow. I also tried to have transparent and opaque

Review: The Laws Sketchbook for Nature Journaling

I just finished up my Laws Sketchbook for Nature Journaling and thought I’d post a review. (Find it HERE in Jack’s shop.) For those who haven’t heard of him, John Muir “Jack” Laws is one of my heroes — I think of him as the father of the nature journaling movement and he’s an all-around

Folio Mixing Palettes

Do you ever dream about watercolors? I do! And I had a dream about a new Art Toolkit Folio palette configuration and had to try it! 🙂 Say hello to my new setup for World Watercolor Month — on the left! I had been using this as a mixing palette, and decided to convert it