Category Archives: Beauty

What’s Your Nugget?

Posted on January 1, 2025 by Bobbie Herron

Yesterday I began searching Double Take for the best story to end this three-month series of essays. Here it is— it’s about Endings and Beginnings, and is also a gentle challenge to you and to me. Are you facing something … Continue reading →

Posted in Beauty, Book #2: Double Take, Look at That! book, Seeing and looking, sketching, Urban Sketching (On-Site Creativity) | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Travel is my favorite path to Enlightenment

Posted on December 15, 2024 by Bobbie Herron

Mark Twain once said, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” I agree, and I love experiencing this truth firsthand as often as possible. Five years ago, I traveled to England to visit a friend I’d never met. Well, that’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Beauty, Book #2: Double Take, Seeing and looking, sketching, Trips to the UK, Urban Sketching (On-Site Creativity), Watercolor | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

If you stop, I’ll stop.

Posted on December 8, 2024 by Bobbie Herron

Those of you who sketch outdoors regularly may recall times when you entered a trance-like state while sketching. Without planning it, you traveled from effortful thinking to effortless rapture, and before you knew it, you had the shallow breathing of … Continue reading →

Posted in Beauty, Book #2: Double Take, Musings on Life, Pencil sketching, Seeing and looking, Urban Sketching (On-Site Creativity), Watercolor | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Resilience and Positive Resignation

Posted on November 10, 2024 by Bobbie Herron

This week’s column links two entries from “Double Take,” from May and July 2017. Both entries explore how, when faced with adversity, some people fail miserably at giving up. You read that right. Some people call it “perseverance” but I … Continue reading →

Posted in Beauty, Book #2: Double Take, Musings on Life, Seeing and looking | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

When a pen is more than a pen

Posted on October 20, 2024 by Bobbie Herron

(The next in the Autumn 2024 series of excerpts from my illustrated memoir, “Double Take”) April 25, 2015 – journal entry about pens and my pen history Back before the invention of markers, gel pens, roller-ball pens, and ballpoint pens, … Continue reading →

Posted in Beauty, Book #2: Double Take, Musings on Life, My Story, Pen & Ink, Urban Sketching (On-Site Creativity), Watercolor | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Do your pauses refresh or agitate?

Posted on October 13, 2024 by Bobbie Herron

A brief note first: This latest series of posts has given me an unexpected gift:  the feeling of reading “Double Take” for the first time. When writing, editing, proofing, final proofing, final-final proofing any piece of writing, it’s natural to … Continue reading →

Posted in Beauty, Book #2: Double Take, Musings on Life, Pen & Ink, Seeing and looking, sketching, Watercolor | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

No need to be in a city to be an “Urban” Sketcher!

Posted on October 6, 2024 by Bobbie Herron

For centuries painting outdoors has been referred to as “en plein air” painting. It is a French term that literally translates as “in full air,” and is used to describe artwork created outdoors, through observation of the scene in front … Continue reading →

Posted in Beauty, Book #2: Double Take, Pen & Ink, Seeing and looking, sketching, Urban Sketching (On-Site Creativity), Watercolor | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Mining “Double Take” until New Year’s Day

Posted on September 22, 2024 by Bobbie Herron

At the bottom of every blog post, for the last 8 years, there has been a tag line that reads: About Bobbie Herron: I live surrounded by watercolor brushes and paints, fountain pens, sketchbooks, and journals- often wanting more than … Continue reading →

Posted in Beauty, Book #2, Book #2: Double Take, Pen & Ink, Pencil sketching, Seeing and looking, sketching, Urban Sketching (On-Site Creativity) | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Watercolor is a gentle medium. No way around it.

Posted on September 15, 2024 by Bobbie Herron

Look at this Winslow Homer boat on a stormy sea. Observe closely, this is watercolor… … and then imagine it in oils. There’s no comparison.  If you want to calm yourself and create something of beauty or even release bittersweet … Continue reading →

Posted in Beauty, Watercolor | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Secret 7:  How to Become a Water Detective

Posted on September 1, 2024 by Bobbie Herron

For a moment, let’s step back from thinking about watercolor painting and instead ponder how water behaves under all circumstances. There are three ways that water moves all on its own, in every circumstance, unless a physical barrier stands in … Continue reading →

Posted in Beauty, Look at That- Second Edition, Second Edition of Look at That!, Sketchbooks, sketching, Watercolor | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments