I've been inspired by Mimi Robinson's excellent book, Local Color - Seeing Place Through Watercolor - and have been challenged with paining cloudy skies. Also, I wanted to partciipate in Liz Steel's #fivedaysketchchallenge to draw/paint the same subject for five days. Here are my attempts.

Have you tried drawing the same subject for five days in a row? At different times? Or made any local color palettes? Here, I made the palettes first for Monday and Tuesday, and then on Wednesday, I did the landscape first then, the palette; and finally, on Thursday and Friday, I painted the landscapes and the palettes simultaneously. Which do you prefer?

I recently picked up a copy of Mimi Robinson's book, Local Color - Seeing Place Through Watercolor at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SF MOMA). I had seen the book before at the de Young Museum and was intrigued.

In this book, Mimi Robinson creates watercolor palettes of locations both local to the San Francisco Bay Area where she lives (specifically, near Point Reyes, an area I love) and at other locations she's visited around the world. The palettes, themselves, are beautiful.

On my recent camping trip to Steeo Ravine, I made similar palettes for the scenes I was about to paint. But, I did these as preparatory steps, rather than as a means in itself.

After reading Local Color, though, I decided I should concentrate on making palettes as a way to focus on really seeing and mixing colors accurately. Also, the book has some great practices to keep inspiring me.

Here are some palettes I made recently. I am planning on making a palette and (possibly doing a painting if I have time) of the view from my balcony for the next five days at about the same time - shortly after sunrise.