Logan 
Emma Lefebvre is a popular social media watercolor teacher with a cheerful, illustrative style. She specializes in loose florals and cute paintings of food, such as cupcakes. I found her book, Watercolor Lessons, to be a fun, eye-catching intro that raises excitement about watercolor without bogging the reader down with too much technical detail. It would appeal to the beginner who is drawn to simplicity, color, illustration, and a bold, modern aesthetic.
So what colors does Lefebvre recommend?
Recently, I’ve felt like I’ve gotten into an art slump. I’m not making art as often as I used to, even though I want to. Mostly, this is an issue of time, but I find that I procrastinate on starting to do art even when I do find time! What’s up with that? I like it. I want to do it. Yet, I struggle to get back in. What’s up with that?
I’m trying these strategies to help, though, be warned, I don’t have a “tried and true” answer to this question.
I actually lived in Vancouver for half of 2024 (regular readers of the blog will recall me confidently declaring that I was moving permanently!), but I took fewer photos than I normally would on a trip or even in everyday life during that period. So I’m calling this a “travel camera roll.” The photos that are exclusive to this post have been taken on a quick administrative post-move trip in January 2025; the others are reposted from Unsplash or previous blog posts.
I did a burst of outdoor sketching this month, with the return of warmer weather and the development of my spring palette.
I’m feeling some rust in the studio lately, so I’m trying to enjoy some easier “assignments.”
Until now, this has been my personal blog: I, Logan, am the only person to write for it, except a single guest post. That guest post was written by Hanna, a fellow watercolor enthusiast who I met from comments on the blog. We bonded over a shared love of pigments, and Hanna is a frequent … Read more
Gordon MacKenzie is a northern Ontario artist known for his The Watercolorists’ Essential Notebook series of books. A self-taught author who has spent a lot of time teaching, his books are adapted from his class materials and several of the pages do feel like handouts you might get in class.
Normally when I do mix-your-own lookalike posts, I try to find dupes for paints I don’t want in my palette. Either the paint has some textural problem I don’t like, or it’s too limited in use case to earn a spot on my palette, and I want to figure out an alternative means of mixing the hue so I can feel free to cut it. But I love Indanthrone Blue (PB60), and it’s an important part of almost any palette I create. So why try to dupe it?
A fun type of fountain pen is a fude pen, which has a bent nib that allows you to make thin or broad strokes, depending on how you hold the pen. Some people love it, and some people hate it! Which will I be?
Since I’ve been doing my camera roll inspo posts, I’ve noticed I often collect larger numbers of photos from travel because the sights are novel to me. The photos may not be great, but they each show some aspect of place that I want to remember, and that I would combined to use if painting that location. So I’ve decided to sequester unused “possible future reference photos” from each trip into its own post.
These photos are from the Halifax, Nova Scotia area, fall 2022. More on this trip can be found in my post Travel Sketches: Nova Scotia.
Another season, another palette! I’ve been doing very little studio painting but a fair amount of plein air sketching this month, so I’ve been able to adapt my colors to what works for me in the field. I thought I would take you on a little journey showing what I started with, what changes I made, and why.