https://www.pedalingpainter.com/blog daily 0.75 2021-10-04 https://www.pedalingpainter.com/blog/paintober21 monthly 0.5 2021-10-04 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6113045a982ecd3842264e9b/1633321598643-WJRD0V9BDSKQ6HQKJHMU/paintober2.jpg Journal - PAINTOBER 2021 31 Days of Watercolors…Almost There is a crispness in the air. Cold days and long cold nights for me means more time painting at the art desk. I’ve decided to participate in Paintober this year. For those that don’t know there is a popular #inktober challenge where artists post illustrations and drawings every day of the month. A lesser know spin off is #paintober. I’ve added the extra challenge of creating time lapses of each painting. You can see a few on my Instagram account. As life would have it, I missed the first day of the month. Instead of beating myself up about it I’m pressing on. I may make it up at some point during the month. It’s suppose to be fun anyway and not some forced march. Why do this? Art, like anything takes patience and practice. I didn’t pick up the brush as often as I would have liked this summer between all the smoke and general business of life. An exercise like this is to jumpstart the art muscles. Get to know the medium again. The point is to not wait for inspiration but to just show up and do it. Art making, like anything, has its ups and downs. Motivation and inspiration is fickle and waiting for the “perfect” moment often leads to doing nothing and despair. So that’s my goal for the month. Show up everyday as best as I am able and make and film a painting. Follow along the ‘gram. I may post a few on sale on the site. https://www.pedalingpainter.com/blog/favorite-travel-brushes monthly 0.5 2021-10-04 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6113045a982ecd3842264e9b/1630871633355-BYT8NSFIMAKD5YR8B9RW/ppimages1.jpg Journal - Favorite Travel Brushes THE “PERFECT” BRUSH? In my short art journey I’ve tried a lot of brushes. I mean a lot. Everything from natural fiber squirrel hair brushes to cheap synthetic brushes to Chinese calligraphy brushes. Like bikes, if one can draw that analogy, there is no simple “best” brush for all circumstances. Even the truism that natural hair brushes are superior to synthetic brushes, at least in my experience, is not the case. There are instances when I want the thirsty water gathering qualities of a natural hair brush, but there are also times when I want the springy dryness of a synthetic brush. It all really depends on the particular effect that I’m trying to achieve. For example, during the first large wash where I’m trying to establish the highlights and general warm/cool without a lot of detail, my brush of choice is usually a soft mop brush (synthetic or natural). As I focus on more area details, I switch to either a smaller mop or synthetic round which gives me more control. By the third pass when I’m working on details (cycling figures, tree branches, etc.,) I’ve switched to a small synthetic round for the ultimate in control and dry brush technique. If you were to look at my assortment of brushes (after being aghast at the small fortune in brushes), you would notice I generally have a “wet” and “dry” version of various sizes from small size 2s to larger size 18s. The smaller sizes for smaller paintings and the larger brushes to have more coverage for larger paintings. You can see how one could very quickly amass quite a few brushes. BRUSHES FOR TRAVEL Travel brushes are their own specific niche in art supplies. While one could argue that every brush is a travel brush (especially if you cut the handles short), there are some travel specific brushes usually denoted by the fact they break in two and collapse into a tidy package that protects the bristles. Most travel brushes tend to be on the smaller size of the spectrum. Usually size 2 to 12. This is usually sufficient for small notebook work, but a little under sized if you’re working in 11x14 or 11x16 sizes. In 2020, the Spanish brush brand Escoda (not sponsored) released a series of 3 piece travel brush sets with some rather interesting bush shapes and sizes that you don’t see in typical travel brush sets. They finally found their way to the US and when I was at the art supply store in Spokane I was able to take a look at each of them personally. The one that suited my style of painting the most was the blue travel set. What is unique about it is that is has a size 16 (a veritable giant in travel brushes) in their Ultimo bristles which are very soft. Essentially, it gave you a soft mop brush equivalent in a large size that traveled well. I had to have it. I would have purchased just that brush alone but it isn’t available outside of the set. The other brushes were a synthetic size 10 and 6 round, both a little on the drier and springier side. After painting a few small studies, it has become one of my favorite travel sets. The size 16 has good water retention and can cover large swaths of paper. So far, it is also holding its tip well for some medium detail work. The 10 and 6 are pretty standard and are great for more detail work. For me, the only brush missing in this collection is some sort of brush for texture work. For this, I use an inexpensive Chinese goat hair brush. It is capable of large washes as well but I primarily use it on the drier side, splaying out the fibers to get a good texture for trees and grasses. Overall, I’m pretty pleased with this combination and plan to use it when we travel or when I need to pack something on the bike. The only thing missing is a travel Chinese calligraphy brush. One can dream. Purchase the brushes and support the blog with the links below: Escoda Blue Travel Set Chinese Calligraphy Brush https://www.pedalingpainter.com/blog/something-new monthly 0.5 2021-08-18 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6113045a982ecd3842264e9b/1628655210095-088507292GRAY3WPJH23/PeasFarm.jpg Journal - How IT ALL STARTED - It was our second winter living in Montana. Summer and bicycling seemed like a lifetime away. I found myself scrolling Instagram envious of people riding bikes while the high for day was in the low teens. How did someone who didn’t care for winter end up here? Or, a better question is how would I survive it without spiraling into some Shining-esque madness? At the time, I had committed to making the Youtube channel work. I was creating anywhere from 3 to 4 videos a week. I was a “content” making machine. While I loved making videos and expressing myself that way, by the time I reached the end of the week my eyes were tired and my wrists and fingers aching from the marathon editing sessions. I’ve never had a good sense of life/work balance. My antidote was to pick up a brush. I had loved drawing as child and my father is actually a well established plein air artist so a little of that rubbed off on me. I had a good “eye” so to speak, having worked as a photographer for several years. But, how would that translate to a new medium? Well, I can tell you it was rough in the beginning. I could barely draw what was in front of me and it was infuriating. Art felt like a puzzle that I couldn’t solve even though the answer was sitting right in front of me. There was a big disconnect between what I wanted to create and what I was ACTUALLY creating. Watercolor is an interesting medium. Some watercolorists paint with the precision of a brain surgeon. That is not my experience. For me, watercolor is a turbulent battle against entropy with the hopes of creating something beautiful in the aftermath. The paint bleeds and moves where it wants to, it mixes at the most inopportune time and it dries much lighter than you expect. It was simultaneously simple and complex, intentional and chaotic and just when you think you have a handle on it, it shows you something new. I was hooked. I liked a good visual challenge. To the outsider it might appear as a calming hobby, but internally I was tilting with chaos. Fast forward two more years and the paintings look a little closer to what I intended but there is still so much to learn. So many images to interpret in a different way. I get so easily distracted when riding a bike and stop to take reference photos for later. Thats the great thing about painting, the photos don’t need to be perfect, they don’t need to be high resolution. They just have to capture ENOUGH. Light and shadow, warm and cool and some basic composition. The rest, as a watercolor practitioner (I hesitate using the word “artist” and reserve that for others who know what they’re doing), is up to you. https://www.pedalingpainter.com/home daily 1.0 2023-03-05 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6113045a982ecd3842264e9b/1628649586967-GBVRZR8M94N4FI3R6KTW/RussPainting.jpg Home Few things are as beautiful as a bike ride on an empty road. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6113045a982ecd3842264e9b/aa57eed3-dce7-4844-8466-2c0bfd7f31ec/Sunland.jpg Home Text Test https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6113045a982ecd3842264e9b/6c0236dd-cef1-43f6-b222-a949598ab596/gravelramble.jpg Home https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6113045a982ecd3842264e9b/f10ffaa7-2d3d-4545-a29a-038e80f09b04/summerride.jpg Home https://www.pedalingpainter.com/about-1 daily 0.75 2021-08-18 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6113045a982ecd3842264e9b/1628647899232-VIQRVVO4L73LQWWJO406/RussPainting.jpg About Plein air painting in his current home base Missoula, MT. https://www.pedalingpainter.com/contact daily 0.75 2021-08-11 https://www.pedalingpainter.com/store daily 0.75 2021-08-18 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6113045a982ecd3842264e9b/1629309072950-KIKDVFSTXZHDOQPR57UK/Screen+Shot+2021-08-18+at+11.50.53+AM.png Store The Full store is still in the works. TO purchase prints and postcards visit the pathlesspedaled store. https://www.pedalingpainter.com/stockists daily 0.75 2025-05-09 https://www.pedalingpainter.com/terms-of-use daily 0.75 2025-05-09 https://www.pedalingpainter.com/privacy-policy daily 0.75 2025-05-09 https://www.pedalingpainter.com/faqs daily 0.75 2025-05-09 https://www.pedalingpainter.com/shipping-returns daily 0.75 2025-05-09 https://www.pedalingpainter.com/paintings daily 0.75 2021-08-16 https://www.pedalingpainter.com/paintings/project-three-ke6bw monthly 0.5 2021-08-15 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6113045a982ecd3842264e9b/1629070711967-8H3P8T8OZ1N59ICZ2ZN3/Mist.jpg Paintings - Mist https://www.pedalingpainter.com/paintings/project-three-ke6bw-kd8yn monthly 0.5 2021-08-15 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6113045a982ecd3842264e9b/1629071122408-TR57F0AIN68JCNU6X2HR/GravelRamble.jpg Paintings - Gravel Ramble https://www.pedalingpainter.com/paintings/project-two-pnhjn monthly 0.5 2021-08-15 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6113045a982ecd3842264e9b/1629070635738-GZAQCJOQY52QLHJR1LDP/SundaySpin.jpg Paintings - Sunday Spin https://www.pedalingpainter.com/paintings/sunland monthly 0.5 2021-08-15 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6113045a982ecd3842264e9b/1629070509534-CXOV4YB3P4Z7TU1X7VUA/Sunland.jpg Paintings - Sunland