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Warning: Get your comfy pants on, a cozy sweater and cup of tea or coffee because this is going to be a lengthy recap. We’ve spent the last two weeks in my beautiful home state of Michigan, both visiting family and attending Paint Grand Traverse. This marks my sixth year attending this wonderful event, and this is the first year that I’ve truly felt comfortable. The Grand Traverse area is one of the most stunning places in the country. The terrain varies from epic sand dunes, vibrant city life, turquoise lake views, rolling vineyards, to vast green forests - all...

This was my third year attending this invitational, The Morgan Hill Plein Air Paint Out, and it’s fourth year in total. It’s a small event with no more than 15 artists, and it’s wonderfully organized by Colibri Gallery in a little town that has a fiery passion for art. The prior years I've attended have been during the fall months, so this being in the spring was a welcome change. There’s nothing better than seeing the long lush green grasses swaying in the breeze, decorated in wildflowers. If you’re new, you might be surprised to hear that I — well,...

It’s been a long time coming. Instagram has been a major source of my success as a fine artist, but also a huge contributor to my growing stress levels. 2016 is the year I started my instagram account to share my “lunch sketches”, small gouache studies. A group of likeminded coworkers in the gaming industry and I would pack up our bags every day and weave through the pungent SF alleyways to our destination — usually Yerba Buena Gardens in San Francisco. An early sketch in Yerba Buena Park, SF of Chris Greco and Nicole Li The row of art ducklings...

The most common questions I receive are related to my palette, whether it’s the colors or the actual box. It’s something I don’t really talk about often because exact pigments aren’t a huge deal to me, and I think there’s a benefit in being flexible and working with whatever you have available to you. With that in mind, and the fact that I am constantly changing things and trying new paints, let’s go into some detail about my gouache palette. Oil palette will be another post for another day. CHOOSE WISELY The type of gouache palette you use is highly...

Amidst a barrage of terrible news about tech layoffs, market crashes, and AI takeovers, the new year seemed like a good time to invest in some learning and distractio- I mean, self improvement. My sights were initially set on individual online classes to learn new programs and techniques, but I was eventually lured in by Schoolism’s $100 off their annual pass and variety of classes. My initiation to the world of gouache was courtesy of Schoolism - Specifically, Nathan Fowke’s Course Landscape Sketching in Watercolor and Gouache that I took in December 2016. I vividly recall watching it while simultaneously creating game assets for my day job, then eagerly...