Imagine With Art

09/05/2026

Rutledge Family Farm

Thursday morning we pictured ourselves stranded out in a field of 9 foot sunflower giants in the midst of a downpour and were on the verge of cancelling our Thursday meet up to the Sunflower Festival at Rutledge Family Farm due to an ominous prediction of rain. But some of us showed up anyway. . ..and bought the ticket for the wagon ride out through the muddy puddles to where 42 varieties of sunflowers, from 1-9 feet tall and every color from yellow to orange to deep russet to black and white to pink, were freshly washed and waiting to be sketched!...

09/03/2026

Baby Bunny in the Beauty Bush

There's something about having bunnies scampering in the yard that makes me feel like I'm in a children's storybook. Like I need to give their characters names like Hoppy and Mr and Mrs Hopkins. They seem to be there every time I open the door lately! I've developed a tone of voice when speaking to them, high pitched and honeyed. I always start the conversation this way because it seems the most courteous thing....

08/26/2026

I get to be a videographer!

On Saturday my good buddy Jane Wingfield let me come to her urban sketch workshop as her videographer! We were downtown on Percival Landing, the main waterfront in Olympia. The workshop, great for beginners as well as experienced urban sketchers (and there were several in the class) was First Steps: getting started as an urban sketcher. It covered all the basics, like what to expect when you show up at a meet up, finding your spot, designing your sketch using thumbnails, simple perspective and adding people!...

On Saturday my good buddy Jane Wingfield let me come to her urban sketch workshop as her videographer! We were downtown on Percival Landing, the main waterfront in Olympia. The workshop, great for …

08/25/2026

A Skipper and Blue Dasher

This beauty showed up in my garden in her extraterrestrial glory. So I sat down with a photo to study all the parts - the stained glass wings, the helter skelter chopstick limbs, the bug-eyes (she is after all a bug), and head protuberances. I imagined all parts deep in floral nectar heaven, each with a different task. So it took a while to draw....

This beauty showed up in my garden in her extraterrestrial glory. So I sat down with a photo to study all the parts – the stained glass wings, the helter skelter chopstick limbs, the bug-eyes…

08/23/2026

When faced with a creature. . .

It's been a while since I've done a Muse painting. Been too busy enjoying our gorgeous summer weather and events I guess. But I was looking through my posts from the early years of blogging, back to 2006 and 2007 when I first started my Conversations with the Muse and then started teaching Muse Groups. I needed a hit of that revelatory energy that art play always evokes....

It’s been a while since I’ve done a Muse painting. Been too busy enjoying our gorgeous summer weather and events I guess. But I was looking through my posts from the early years of blog…

08/12/2026

One Small Life

You never know what may show up on your driveway. There was a very tiny animal body on mine, maybe three inches long, and I stooped down to look. Sort of gray and fur-like, flattened though, and with a rodent nose, clearly dead. A mouse maybe? but I could not see the ears. And maybe a sort of tail, and sort of arm....

You never know what may show up on your driveway. There was a very tiny animal body on mine, maybe three inches long, and I stooped down to look. Sort of gray and fur-like, flattened though, and wi…

08/08/2026

Monarch Sculpture Park

bamboo pen, black ink, watercolor in hand.book watercolor journal The smoky skies cleared somewhat on Thursday morning, and I was anxious to get out and sketch with friends before the heat set in and the smoke from the devestating Spokane fires blew back our way. I think I've sketched at Monarch Sculpture Park and Art Center every year since I moved to Olympia, and it's a favorite place!...

bamboo pen, black ink, watercolor in hand.book watercolor journal The smoky skies cleared somewhat on Thursday morning, and I was anxious to get out and sketch with friends before the heat set in a…

08/05/2026

How to sketch what you can’t see

Well, I'm afraid there is not really a way to sketch what you can't quite see, but you can always sketch what you think you see and try to add in what you feel. I gave it a good try recently, sketching musicians at a free evening concert at Port Plaza, down by the waterfront in Olympia. I knew I'd have to improvise, so at home first I collaged some torn music pieces into a toned sketchbook, and brought it and a couple pens with me....

Well, I’m afraid there is not really a way to sketch what you can’t quite see, but you can always sketch what you think you see and try to add in what you feel. I gave it a good try rec…

08/02/2026

Bergfords’ Garden: Land of the Giants

We all had to wonder how the plants in the Bergford garden grew to be such giants this year, dwarfing us humans. I felt like Alice in Wonderland among them. The corn, the lilies, sunflowers, hydrangea trees and . . .the hollyhocks that towered over the pond where the fountain is. So I had to go small and sketch one bloom at a time....

08/01/2026

Young birds

I wanted to try sketching a baby bird. Fledglings tend to look a bit goofy, fuzzy and of different proportions than adult birds. This one, along with the others here was photographed by my friend Lisa. A teenager here, with that gangly body, in contrast to the sometimes sleekly elegant adult great blue heron. No child here, this adult Kestral is a compact dude, smallest of the falcons, and quite dapper (if you're his prey!)

I wanted to try sketching a baby bird. Fledglings tend to look a bit goofy, fuzzy and of different proportions than adult birds. This one, along with the others here was photographed by my friend L…