Pencil study done on location in Kent England. I used an 8B pencil in a hardbound travel sketchbook. This is the King Henry VIII Inn and Tavern in the little town of Hever, In Kent England.

While on a recent painting trip to England, we spent some time in the Kent area south of London. We stayed near Hever Castle and enjoyed passing by this pub on a daily basis. As usual I did some [...]

Using the sketchbook drawing done on location in England, along with my digital photo, I work out the design for my painting in a little “thumbnail’ value study. The photo shows how I [...]

My Arches 140lb paper is soaked in the tub then stapled to a stiff backing board. When dry, I apply masking tape around the edges. Using a 4H pencil I sketch out the painting using light [...]

Now I try to catch the feeling of warm versus cool by working in the center of interest. You can see I am establishing the value relationship of darkest darks and lightest lights at this point.

Bringing the painting to completion requires a lot more work — probably as much time as the whole painting up to this point. But the hardest part was the research done on location, planning [...]