While in England this summer I sketched the Tonbridge Castle Gatehouse in my travel sketchbook. The drawing came to the attention of Shaun Jeffery, whose extensive collection of Tonbridge memorabilia is on permanent display in the Tonbridge Castle Museum. After exchanging several emails, I agreed to allow the drawing to become part of the Castle Museum collection. If you are ever in Tonbridge, Kent, England stop by and take a look!
We braved a big winter storm to travel to Salt Lake City over the weekend. Although the roads were indeed treacherous, we survived to enjoy the resulting white blanket of beauty that always follows. We attended a beautiful banquet high above the city in the Joseph Smith building, followed by a wonderful concert featuring the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and orchestra. It was a grand way to usher in the Christmas season and remember the birth of the Savior of the World.
Jeff and Karianne Prince with their painting of a Swiss Village.
Yesterday I conducted a painting workshop in Zion National Park. But this was a little different. This time we were followed around by a film crew making a video documentary about the Centennial of Zion National Park. Emmy award winning film producer Phil Tuckett, with 30 Emmy awards to his credit, is producing the film leading a crew from the advanced film production program at Dixie State College. In the photo above I stand by the demonstration painting I completed near the Temple of Sinawava. 
A Cameraman zooms in on artist John Mangels while John's wife enjoys the show. At first the artists were shy, but once they got into their paintings they forgot about the cameras. The filming took several hours.
Dick Rose works on a small watercolor painting by the Virgin River near the Temple of Sinawava. Dick is president of the Southern Utah Watercolor Society.
This little painting came on the tail end of the paintings for my England and Europe one man show at Mission Gallery. I shot several photos during the process and finally got time to post them. This is a little lane in England.
After doing a quick outline sketch on the watercolor paper I begin with some very broad washes, wet-into-wet, allowing the pigments to blend freely from warm at the top to cool in the shadow areas.
With the underglazes in place and dry, I begin painting the dark areas on the cottages and the distant trees.
Next to the finished painting is the original photo I used as reference. Obviously I always use a lot of artistic license in my paintings. Remember my role as an artist is not to duplicate a photo, but to create a new image based on my own personal experiences.
