Sketching Workshop AUGUST 30, 2025

 August 30

Take a line for a walk around Edmonds

Whether you’re looking to discover your own sketching style, or to build on existing knowledge, practical exercises on site will get you thinking, while being inspired by the charming village of Edmonds.

Learn more 

Two New Books to be released at Sketcher Fest Edmonds

 Mark your calendar! The public release of my two new photo books on plein air and travel sketching takes place on July 19-21 at Sketcher Fest Edmonds.

I will give a 15 minute presentation with Q&A about my books at the Sunday Sketchbook Fair and Art Market at the Edmonds Waterfront Center on Sunday, July 21 at 12:30pm. Purchased books may be signed upstairs at table #18 throughout the day.

The Sketcher Press Bookstore at Graphite Arts Center will have copies for sale July 19 & 20.

Lavender Farm Workshop-Wednesday July 28

 At last!

This will be my first live and in person watercolor workshop since everything closed down because of the pandemic. I found us a perfect location for watercolor plein air while the summer weather seems consistent. There are super clean facilities, outdoor tables and chairs with lots of room to spread out and spectacular views of the lavender fields and surrounding forests, valleys and mountains. And there is a coffee stand on the premises that has lavender lemonade and ice cream!

10am-1pm - Wednesday July 28, 2021
Weather forecast looks fantastic!

Level

Workshops are designed for all levels of participants from beginners to advanced watercolor painters. Instructor will provide guidance and tips necessary to get started for beginner painters while more seasoned artists will be challenged to further their skills with a fun array of fast-paced subjects and themes. Some previous experience will be helpful but not required.

Registration 

This may be our only outdoor in person workshop for the summer. I’ve learned to be flexible as new information comes to light. We'll see. You can register for individual workshops as they are posted. 

One workshop at a time $55 

Register by emailing michelec12@gmail.com 

You can send your payment by:

1. Venmo (@Michele-Cooper-49)
2. Paypal (https://www.paypal.me/michelec12) 
3. Check to Michele Cooper 

I know this is short notice but please join us in person if at all possible. It’s a rare opportunity. 

My fall classes at KAC are online with Zoom. No class at SVC until winter.

Cancelations

Because of the uncertainty of this time you can cancel any workshop or package at any point for a full refund. Transaction fees will be charged if applicable.

Schedule Updates for Outdoor Online Workshops

Until it is practical to meet in groups, our workshops will be live online through Zoom

This summer I am sharing some of my favorite outdoor painting spots through a series of 5 watercolor workshops. Check here for updates on Location and start times for our live online interactive summer sessions.

Registered students will receive a private video of the scene the evening before the workshop. This will help you get familiar with some of the subjects available, ambient sounds, etc.

Register for workshops 

Tentative schedule (there is room for adjustment due to weather, unforeseen circumstances or request by participants-i.e. switch from am to pm) Updates will be published here on my blog, Facebook Art Page and Instagram linktr.ee/michelecooperart 

1. Friday, July 10 (the majority favors pm) 2:30-5:30 pm

Location: River reflections, trees, mixing greens, kayaks in action, basic composition on location

Zoom live interactive on location 

2. Tuesday July 21 -- 2:30-5:30 pm

Location: Coastal scene, embankments, inlets, wildflowers, meadows and marshland, clouds, driftwood beach, foreground composition on location

Zoom live interactive on location

3. Wednesday August 5 — 2:30-5:30 pm

Location: Picturesque vintage harbor, tidal estuary. Options include boats moored in the marina, wildlife in the estuary, boardwalk, old harbor and buildings, dry dock and along Union Slough leading out to Gardner Bay.

Zoom live interactive on location 

4. Monday August 17 (9:30am-12:30pm) has been switched to (9:30am-12:30pm) because of weather watch for extreme heat (TBD by registered members of the class)

Choose Dates

#4 Aug 17, 2020 $45.00 USD #5 Sept 16, 2020 $45.00 USD Both Aug 17/Sept 16, 2020 $90.00 USD

Location: A secluded area in a public garden. 

Options include mass plantings of perennial flowering shrubs, ancient trees, an English garden complete with phone box garden seat, fishing pond with lilies, a cool shaded creek with small wooden bridge, drought plantings, vegetable garden, children's garden and more.

Zoom live interactive on location 

 

5. Wednesday Sept 16 (2:30-5:30pm)

Location:  Rural scenery

Options include: barns, fields, farm equipment, animals, winding country roads, early fall color

Zoom live interactive on location 

 

I am flexible on the start time for classes. Initially I plan am classes from 9:30-12:30   and  pm classes from 2:30-5:30. This takes advantage of the light conditions in summer. Please let me know your preference.

I don’t expect especially large attendance, so we can check in the day before and see how it goes with the weather and the group. It really will be like a small group of friends planning a pai9nt outing for the day.

 

Choose Dates

#4 Aug 17, 2020 $45.00 USD #5 Sept 16, 2020 $45.00 USD Both Aug 17/Sept 16, 2020 $90.00 USD

New 2020 Summer Series of Live Online Watercolor Classes

I found a lovely spot to paint in a nearby public garden.

Let’s paint on location this summer. I would love to share a few of my favorite spots with you where we can paint together, apart. As we follow official guidelines toward gradual reopening where we live, let’s share the joys of sketching and painting outdoors. Join me live online every 10 days or so as we explore the season with watercolor.

• Live watercolor demo from  Michele Cooper

• Suitable for ALL levels of painters 

• Plenty of Q & A

• Take advantage of the “mobile studio”

• Interact/chat with other attendees

• Paint along with me or paint later

• Send me a photo of your painting and I will critique and showcase in a special video on YouTube!

Register for Workshops

I am running a free live online informal meeting with a brief watercolor demonstration on Wednesday, July 8th at 6 pm PDT.  Wherever you are, join me for this Q&A session about the upcoming summer series of workshops and a free live demo of people walking dogs. To join, please fill out my 2 minute survey.

This online workshop is suitable for painters of any level.  Each session there will be an interactive demonstration/tutorial in Watercolor.  I will go at a slow pace and describe with commentary what I am doing and the techniques I am using.  The commentary will only be in English, and I will try and speak slowly in case I have any attendees where English is not their first language.

All you will need is a good/reliable internet connection, and a headphone or PC speakers to hear me and to hear each other .  If you want to, you'll be able to ask plenty of questions as I go along.  There is a $45.00 USD fee to attend this live session.  It will not be uploaded to YouTube (as a Public Video) or available to anyone apart from the attendees who have paid to watch.  I should be able to send you a link to the recording of the demo afterwards, which only you can see.  

The demo might be an hour to an hour and a half in duration (depends on how many questions/comments I get!).  We will paint at a slow speed and in stages.  So you can paint along with me if you want, or wait until you receive a link to the recording. I suggest that you find a quiet spot outdoors to follow along with the recording.

What you will need (apart from paper and water)

1. See my Sketching Equipment page for suggested on location equipment.
2. Your normal palette of colors (I mainly use, organic vermilion, alizarin crimson, burnt sienna, raw sienna, cerulean blue, cobalt blue, ultramarine blue, aureoline yellow and new gamboge yellow, white paint for highlights).  You don't need to use these colors.

Hope to see you online!

Register

Contact me if you have questions.

Watch my series on “Flooded Fields” ahead of time for tips on painting on location.

Here’s a free series to demonstrate my usual approach, special techniques and methods during a typical outdoor watercolor excursion.

• Flooded fields 1
• Flooded fields 2
• Flooded fields 3

Mark your calendar for the official month-long celebration of watercolor as World Watercolor Month returns in July! Founded in 2016, this is the 5th anniversary, and so I hope you'll help us spread the word! Psssst... also the souvenir shop is open and the prompts are posted! ;-)

#30x30DirectWatercolor2018 Day 13 and 14

The butterfly was so quick!

Daniel Smith watercolor stick--French Ultramarine Blue

More direct watercolors from my blue and white garden for Days 13 and 14. June is the perfect month for this challenge because that's when all my blue flowers bloom. The roses are already fading now and the blue flowers will be gone in a few weeks, except for the bell floweres, lobelia and pansies.

Had to add the butterfly and the half open blossom.

I started these out on a drizzly day, testing out my blues and purples and pinks to find the right combination. Daniel Smith French Ultramarine Blue watercolor stick was better than the DS Cobalt Blue for this subject.

Then today, the sun came out and I saw the buds of my hydrangea respond by starting to open up.

I saw a very dramatically marked butterfly pollinating my subject. It was so quick, but visited again and again. That gave me a chance to note the way that it almost looks upside down and the head is not where you might think it is. I think it might be the Canadian Tiger Swallowtail.

iPhone Live photo, Press to see brief video

My husband took this live photo a few days ago. I don't know if it will react unless you see this on an iPhone or iPad, but the original photo gave a few seconds of action.

#30x30DirectWatercolor2018 Day 11 and 12

One Dozen -- Direct Watercolor for Day 12

#30x30DirectWatercolor2018 Day 12 One Dozen, that's how many daily direct watercolors we've done in this challenge so far!

Number 11 & 12 -I used my Prima Tropical Watercolor Set for this page. and tried out my new free sable brush.

Day 11 and 12--reading from right to left.

It's a fun day in the studio today. Besides adding my daily direct watercolor to my sketchbook from the rose arbor, I got a package in the mail  of Turner Watercolor tubes, a free dot card and a free #4 round sable brush. 

Still have to say that Winsor & Newton is my favorite for the earth colors.

I'm always comparing different brands of Burnt Sienna and Raw Sienna to my favorite Winsor & Newton tubes. You can see the comparison here, so still not quite the same. I especially like the Winsor & Newton brand of raw sienna for a natural soft yellow for a glow in the sky. The Winsor & Newton burnt sienna plus French ultramarine blue give a much more neutral mix of warm and cool greys than these other burnt siennas that seem a bit redder and result in a mauve or purple type of gray.

Day Six of 30x30 Direct Watercolor

I think I'm catching the last of my Siberian Iris before they go to seed! Why do all my favorite flowers bloom at the same time!

No preliminary drawing, just direct watercolor with my Rosemary dagger brush.

I'm still getting used to the long wait time while the Kilimanjaro paper in my Cheap Joes Paintbook takes its time drying. Either that or it's a lot more humid around here today than I thought. But at last it's a day full of sunshine!

Getting the most out of my little bouquet.

Day Four and Five of 30x30 Direct Watercolor

DAY FOUR

I'm still frantically trying to keep up with the roses and the challenge of one direct waterccolor painting a day at the same time. I want to do several different sketches before they have to be pruned. There won't be another bloom until late August.

Just a few steps out the door from my studio.

I still need to post my Day Two sketch of the roses arched over my studio window. It's on different paper and not in this sketchbook.

After cutting a bouquet of Siberian Iris, Mock Orange and Ceanothus, I brought my sketch in to dry.

I left some room, albeit to the left of my sketch today, for tomorrow. I doubt I will have time to post these until then. (What can I say? Time is not really linear for me.) It's hard to keep up with the FaceBook group, Instagram and other social media during a marathon of sketching and painting.


DAY FIVE

Bees and Ceanothus (California Lilac)

See my post on the official 30x30 Direct Watercolor Facebook Group page for some compositional notes on why I arranged this sketch the way I did. #30x30DirectWatercolor2018

I think I saw at least 4 different types of  bees all over this ceanothus bush.

I posted the above photos plus a short little video of happy bees on my Instagram feed.
And here's what they look like together in my sketchbook.

Day 4 on the right and Day 5 on the left. :-)

Day Three of 30x30 Direct Watercolor

From under the patio umbrella in my back garden.

This was truly a day for "wet in wet" watercolor. As you can see, I checked about halfway through and it was 52°F with 88% humidity. I am literally "zooming in" by foot, between raindrops and then retreating to paint under the patio umbrella.

Work in Progress

I used my Rosemary 1/2" dagger brush and my Kilimanjaro Paint Book, vertically this time, and marked off an approximate 5x7" area with my blue painters' tape to keep the whole thing from running off the edges. I'm realizing this paper is great for wet lifting, but the wet stage lasts quite a bit longer than I'm used to with Arches 140lb CP.

Occasionally I had to run over to my subject for a few details.

No need for squinting to eliminate extraneous detail. My painting spot gave me just the right blur for the big shapes.

Day One of 30x30 Direct Watercolor

I’ll be posting my daily practice for better or worse during this challenge 

I thought I would just step out my studio door and paint the roses covering the corner trellis. But you need sunshine and shadows for that. AND it was National Donut Day so I had important business to take care of in town as well.

So I piled a bunch of watercolor supplies in the car and found a view I like. An important part of plein air painting from the mobile studio is safe and easy parking. This spot is across from a soccer field with a wide gravel roadside entrance. 

Waiting for washes to dry.

I’m using one of my Cheap Joes sketchbooks for the first half of the month. I haven’t painted in one of these for quite a while, so I’m not surprised that there’s a bit of an adjustment to make.


Then there’s the extreme humidity today and the distraction of horses wandering around the pasture!
Oh, and apologies to the Palomino for making you look like a mule.

Plein Air at Waimanalo

Are all beaches the same? Although a few things were different, like the 77 degree weather, the surfers, the ironwood trees and the soft, deep, caramel colored sand; the beach in Waimanalo reminded me a bit of home in the Pacific NW. People walked along the shore, passing the impromptu structures hand built on beaches the world over. I sketched a similar one of these structures at home recently for my Inktober series. Most familiar, however, was the wonderful experience of spending the morning painting with some local friends.

"Captain Howie" performs a beach wedding. Website

I interrupted my initial sketch to follow a wedding couple down the beach and to sketch them at a distance as they conferred with a local officiant known as Capt. Howie. See my last photo below to view his home, known locally as "the Hobbit House". Another couple were having their wedding photos taken on the other end of the beach. See photo collage below.

After a morning of painting and sketching, watercolorists and oil painters shared a delicious lunch in perfect compatibility. Great conversation, hospitality and a serenade on the ukulele rounded out the day. Many thanks for everything, Adrienne and Lawrence. It was lovely. 

Happy painters after a morning on the beach and delicious lunch with our hosts, Adrienne and Lawrence. Photo: (left to right) Me, Adrienne, Mark Brown, John Dixon and (in front) Spencer Chang.

See a brief news clip about the "Hobbit House". http://youtu.be/sUQqLPPEmgs

We walked past it on our way to go painting at the beach.

Class today

The Stanwood gang at Heritage Park 

What a lovely day! Our last class, outdoors, sunny weather, and a potluck picnic afterwards! We should do this again!

A clear view of the mountains

A few peaks viewed down the road from my PNW studio

It was a beautifully clear day with a view of the Cascade Mountain peaks near where I live. I sat in the car and sketched this today.
They don't call this the Evergreen State for nothing! What other temperate zone landscape has emerald foothills and green grass in the yard at the end of January?

Sandy Beach Gouache

A rare gouache painting en plein air by Michele Cooper

I always tell myself that this will simply be a sketch, no big deal. I know one thing, I will learn something.  So every attempt on location will be successful in some way. I liked the result of my on location gouache at Sandy Beach. In this case, I would call it a plein air painting, not a sketch. 

Before there were children to watch, my daughter-in-law and I would take a deluxe collection of plein air equipment, including lunch, and spend hours painting on location. You pull into parking right off Kalanianaole Highway, there's sometimes an ice cream or food truck, and facilities with a water fountain. This is Sandy Beach, off the southeastern shore of Oahu, sometimes called Obama's beach. If the swells are up you can see the blow hole from there. 

Set up to spend the day at Sandy Beach

ASk at Skagit River Produce

It was a yummy day! The weather on Monday was perfect, the bakery outdid itself with fresh pies and homemade soup, and the sketchers worked all over the property, making beautiful sketches of everything in sight.

SOME people made several pages in more than one sketchbook!

The first crop of sketches.

As various people trickled in, we got to share our sketches. If we missed you in the the first two photos, maybe we caught you in the collage! Welcome, new sketchers!

Sketchers, squash, pumpkins and armloads of fresh sweet corn!

What's so tough about rainy season plein air?

The beginning of a unique outdoor sketching season in the Pacific NW.
Advantages:

1. Comfy seat, with optional warmer. 
2. Climate control.
3. Watercolors and inks stay dry. 
4. Cup holders for your painting water AND your latte. 
5. Built in steering wheel/easel.

Car sketching

Disadvantages:

1. Viewpoint must have parking. 
2. Risk of being taken for a stalker in unfamiliar neighborhood. 
3. Drips and spills have consequences.
4. Your umbrella may atrophy from disuse.

The little stone church

I was on Saltspring Island teaching a watercolor workshop with this as my morning demonstration one day. We had a great location, where we ate our box lunch on the lawn, then turned facing away from the church to sketch the vintage ferry dock.

Most of the materials were brought to the island by barge.

Flowers, Fins & Kites at Magnuson Park

2 credit card sized sketches in my 5x7" Journal

One could spend quite a long time contemplating the rich depth of meaning that can be experienced at Magnuson Park in Seattle.

The public art installation, "Fins", made of recycled dive fins from cold war nuclear submarines, resembles a pod of Orca. They are installed close to the lake, where wildflowers grow along a smooth, paved walking path. The huge property was formerly a US Naval Station, accessible to the public through a narrow sentry gate. No sentry watches the gate now.

My easel under a tree

There is a kite flying hill, where a lone figure assembled his kite, waited, tried and tried again, until he got the kite aloft. Meanwhile, USk Seattle sketchers spread out among the meadows, trees, buildings, climbing wall, and shoreline where they tried and tried again to record their experience of the day.

Whether it's international peace and cooperation, flying a kite, climbing a mountain or other seemingly insurmountable endeavors such as sketching on location, the message seems to be "try and try again."