When it comes to on-site sketching, itself a prized technique among artists, on-site watercoloring is the gold standard. The art lovers and patrons and fellow artists know you are a true artist because you can do this difficult medium outdoors with hardly any equipment but your water jar, paints and paper and a little easel. I have only been able to achieve outdoor watercolor a few times and this one here is one of my best efforts in the medium. I have done countless on-site sketches using ink and colored pencils, after all that's my favorite medium for winery drawing. But you don't see a lot of colored pencil drawings on the sketch sites I frequent.
I didn't have a little easel but I had a fold-out camping table which was my portable studio (big and clunky, not chic tiny easel) and I had plenty of room to set up my art stuff on it. The junk-strewn porch here (NOT junk, antiques! see the sign?) was a landmark on Nolensville Pike, near Nashville, Tennessee. Inside were more old things and a large woodworking shop where the owner, "Marvin," created lathe-turned banisters and other furniture. The red flag on the porch eave is the state flag of Tennessee. Two good friends of mine lived nearby and introduced me to Marvin and his cat.
The shop is long gone though it was memorialized in many publications. I think my painting here was published in a tourist magazine of that era, since I sent Marvin a copy of the art. My friends still live in Nashville but not near this place. Maybe someday I'll give on-site watercolor another try.
Marvin's shop is ink and watercolor on sketchbook page, about 6" x 7", June 25, 2003. Click for larger view.
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