I love visiting and sketching artists studios. It was a rare treat to sketch an old school stained glass artist at work. Each piece of glass is carefully cut to it’s exact shape and size and then everything is held in place with leading. This studio was a warm inviting barn like structure next to the house. Someday I hope to create such a studio for myself, but for now, my studio is my artists stool set up anywhere I sketch. I learn a little from every artist I meet and sketch, but I haven’t found the time or place to make a studio where I feel at home. Perhaps it just makes sense to remain a tumbleweed going which ever way the wind blows. Yet still I envy artists who seem grounded and secure in their studio.
I often think of my own sketches like stained glass with the black line work being like the leading in a stained glass window. The thin watercolor washes let light bounce through to the white page to create vibrant color. Playing with translucent layers of color is very much like stained glass, in my case I just stain the page.