My wine painting collection is finally here! I’ve had a lot of fun painting with coffee and I wanted to try painting with wine as well.

This collection of six wine themed paintings are all painted using wine from local winery Barrel Oak Winery in Delaplane, VA. Each painting is available as prints and greeting cards.

A bleed in watercolor is when your paintbrush touches an area that is still wet on your painting, and the color from your brush bleeds into the wet area.

Bleeds can be a fun way to use the natural unpredictable characteristics of watercolor, but bleeds can be frustrating when they happen on accident. In this post, I’ll give some tips on avoiding bleeds, how to use them in your watercolor paintings, and how to fix them if one happens on accident.

Wet on wet is one of my favorite techniques in watercolor. You have less control when using wet on wet, but it lets watercolor do the cool things that watercolor does. This technique often results in some really neat effects.

In this post I’ll talk about what the wet on wet technique is, give some ideas for how to use it in paintings, and provide some tips for how to control the flow of color.

I’ve had a lot of requests for Christian themed coffee paintings. After a lot of brainstorming and work, they’re finally ready. Each of these was painted using actual coffee from Haymarket Coffee Company.

These are all available as prints (8” by 10” and 5” by 7”) and greeting cards. I print and package all of my prints and greeting cards myself. For my prints, I use archival quality paper with pigment based inks. The paper has a baryta coating that gives the print a nice luster finish. My greeting cards are printed on 60lb premium matte archival quality paper with pigment based ink and come with a matching envelopes.

Blooms are irregular patterns and hard edges, sometimes with a cauliflower shape, that appear within a painted area in a watercolor painting. The opposite of a smooth wash, a bloom is characterized by uneven color.

In this post, I’m sharing all of my thoughts on blooms: why they occur, how you can use them, how to avoid them, how to make them on purpose, and how to get rid them.

Some of my cat paintings are now available as patterns at Spoonflower. You can see the available designs in my Spoonflower store and in this post. Each of these patterns can be ordered on fabrics, wallpaper, or home decor at Spoonflower.

I now have a few of my flower watercolor paintings available as patterns at Spoonflower. You can see the available designs in my Spoonflower store and in this post. Each of these patterns can be ordered on fabrics, wallpaper, or home decor at Spoonflower.

Don’t worry about making your paintings perfect. Make your paintings good enough. Good enough is often still great. A great painting is worthwhile while a perfect painting may be unobtainable.

I’m a fan of both Stoic philosophy and (obviously) watercolor painting. These two interests may not seem related, but I’ve found that both have a lot to teach me about accepting what’s not in my control. In this post, I’ll talk about the similarities between watercolor and how watercolor helps me practice Stoicism.

During the weekends leading up to Christmas, I’ll be at various holiday fairs and markets around Northern Virginia to show and sell my art. As I mentioned in my holiday gift guide, art makes a great gift and can be a good option for those hard to shop people on your list.

I see a lot of new artists ask, “How do I sign my art”. I had the same question when I started painting.

The short answer is: however you want. You are the artist, and it’s your decision to make. There is no right or wrong answer, only opinions and recommendations.

For the long answer, keep reading this post. I’ll explain how I sign my paintings and I’ll list out options for how you can sign your paintings along with recommendations. What I write is specific to watercolor paintings, but most of this will translate to other mediums as well

The Haymarket Museum is right in the heart of Haymarket, Virginia. Built in 1883, the building has gone through a few different uses before becoming the museum. As one of the iconic buildings of Haymarket, I knew I wanted to paint it for my series of local landmarks and landscapes.

For my paintings of local landmarks and landscapes, I wanted to focus on some of the prominent landmarks in Haymarket, Virginia. One of these is the St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. This building was built in 1801 as a district courthouse and went through a few different hands before being given to the Episcopal Church in 1830.

Continuing my series of paintings of local landmarks and landscapes, I choose to do a few paintings of the White House. Like the United States Capitol, the White House is not super local to me, but is fairly close as I am in Northern Virginia. Like the United States Capitol, the White House is an instantly recognizable building and is fun to paint.

I enjoy the calm and quiet beauty of nature at the Manassas National Battlefield Park as well as the solemn reminders of the historical events that occurred there. I also love the views of Bull Run Mountain from the park. These things inspired me to paint a few landscapes of the park.

As part of a series of paintings I’ve been working on of local landscapes, I decided to do a few paintings of the United States Capitol. The Capitol is not super local to me, but it’s not far away since I live in Northern Virginia. And the building is iconic and beautiful so it’s great for painting.

The Bull Run Mountain range runs for about 15 miles from Aldie in Loudoun County to New Baltimore in Fauquier County. In Haymarket, the mountain is home to both the Bull Run Mountain Conservancy and many neighbors in the Bull Run Mountain Estates.

Living in the area, I get to see the mountains daily and I enjoyed using them as a subject of the landscape paintings you see in this post.

I go over my main color palette as well as the other paints I like to use for watercolor painting. I cover my main palette and what’s in it, how I developed my color palette, and other paints I like to use. The paints covered include: Holbein watercolors, Daniel Smith Moonglow, Arteza metallic watercolors, Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolors, Dandelion Paint Co liquid watercolors, Graphite watercolors, White paints, and inks.

I share the story of how I started painting with coffee and how these coffee phrase paintings and prints came about. I also explain what it’s like painting with coffee, compared to watercolor.