Tumacácori

Final sketch

A couple of weeks ago, we did a day trip south of Tucson to Tubac, Arizona which is a town just north of Nogales. Tubac has a historic village with interesting buildings, restaurants, shops, galleries and is also where the Tubac School of Fine Art is located. I had been looking forward to taking workshops classes there but like many things, COVID has put the brakes on that for now.

Driving back north from Tubac, we stopped at Tumácacori which is a National Historic Park. The Mission was established in 1691 and was abandoned in 1848 and is now a ruin - and a beautiful ruin it is! I was able to do some on-site sketching and take some photos of this beautiful spot

The watercolor sketch of Tumacacori was done in my new Saunders Waterford “FatPad” sketchbook which is spiral bound with 140lb CP 100% cotton watercolor paper. This was the first sketch I did in the book. It has off-white paper, which is not my first choice but it’s a easy trade-off for 100% cotton paper.

Study in a Strathmore art journal

60 miles south of the Catalina Foothills

My first study with watercolor I love - it has all the looseness I crave! I read somewhere recently (I think it was in artist Joyce Hick’s book that “a tight drawing will make a tight painting” and that mantra is going to stay with me!

On-site sketch at Tumácacori