The Wheelbarrow: Shari Blaukopf's October Newsletter
Published about 13 hours ago • 7 min read
October 2026
LOADS OF VIEWS, REVIEWS & EVENTS
The experts forecast a long and luxuriant fall season, and they were exactly right. It’s one of the most beautiful in memory. Beautiful during our drive to and from Bar Harbor, Maine, where I gave two workshops. Beautiful every morning and afternoon, when my dog Alice and I take our daily constitutionals. Beautiful whenever I glance out the window and see my faithful wheelbarrows leaning jauntily against a tree, surrounded with swathes of brilliant fall colour.
If you're reading this on the other side of the world, you might think I’m going on a bit much. But please indulge me. This stunning natural display is some compensation for the dreary months of leaden skies and icy streets coming all too soon.
As I said, I’ve just wrapped up my final teaching gig for 2026, in Maine, where we once again visited my favourite museum, The Farnsworth, in the town of Rockland. The Farnsworth has a wonderful collection of American art, with particular focus on Maine artists, and I can usually count on seeing one exhibition or another that includes watercolours by my favourite painter, Andrew Wyeth.
With that much-needed jolt of inspiration pushing me on, I can now spend more time in studio experimenting with new techniques and tools, chipping away at the mound of books I’ve accumulated, and starting to plan a new online course.
Wherever you are, whatever your fall weather, I hope you get some inspiration from this issue of The Wheelbarrow for the months ahead.
Shari
FROM MY STUDIO
Beech weather
The foliage is so striking lately that I find myself snapping photos in every direction, just in case it all blows away. Meanwhile Alice gazes up at me, waits until I’m done. But we’ve hardly advanced a dozen paces when I’m at it again. She’s so patient.
This cluster of leaves from a North American Beech, with their brilliant fall colours, their overlapping shapes, layered tonalities and shadows, caught my eye the other day. When I returned to my studio, I got to work.
To capture the freshness and spontaneity I experienced on my walk with Alice, I skipped any drawing and went straight to paint. Using a large brush (see below), I laid down the yellow/green shapes first (mostly Hansa Yellow Medium with some Hooker’s Green), and followed up with the rusty reds (Quinacridone Sienna mixed with Burnt Sienna).
Next, I mixed up a warm grey for the trunk and the branches weaving in and out of the leaf shapes.
I began filling the empty spaces with darks, so the leaves sit more prominently, along with some spots of sky.
To add further depth, I painted around some branches and began to separate individual leaves by adding the shadows cast by adjacent leaves.
For the final defining details, I added a finer brush and a utility razor to my toolkit, and went back in to deepen shadows, indicate veins on some leaves, and add random spots and beauty marks—some areas scratched in with the razor—that make my leafy bower come alive.
My brush for the beeches
The above step-by-step was my first outing with this Series 22 Kolinsky sable brush, which I just received from Rosemary & Co. in the U.K. I am thoroughly impressed. It has a long, tapered point and great big belly, so you can pick up lots of juicy wash and work on everything from the smallest detail to the widest wash. It’s pricey, I admit, but I love it.
FROM MY SKETCH BAG
Tom's Studio Ink in Dove Grey
While in Rockland, Maine, I spotted this handsome little box in a local shop. I had read about Tom’s Studio inks somewhere or other, but this was the first time I’d actually seen one of their products. I snapped it up and, once back at our motel, immediately sketched the scene outside our window.
After completing my drawing in permanent ink, I wet the paper and dipped my brush right into the bottle to capture the volatile grey sky (a Nor’easter was blowing in). For the rest of the scene, I varied the amount of water on my brush to achieve a wider range of densities. (Note of caution: if you try something similar with ink, never use a good sable brush.)
Once I got home, I took Tom’s for a second test drive, this time under more controlled conditions in my studio. Note how the name Dove Grey hardly begins to describe the wonderfully complex hues possible with this ink. When well diluted with water, it takes on an ethereally pink/purple cast, while it's also capable of some rich, dark neutrals.
SKETCHING RETREAT 2026
OCTOBER 27- NOVEMBER 1, 2026
This is my third year as a Sketching Retreat participating artist, and I keep coming back because it’s such a great learning experience—not just for students, but also for instructors. Every year, I come away with fresh ideas and inspiration. I’ve already spent hours watching demos from this year’s 50+ artists and learning from their techniques, tools and approaches. I haven’t finished watching, but I can already recommend videos by Oliver Hoeller, Darman Angir, James Akers, Pedro Alves, Reham Ali, Simone Ridyard and Marius Collin.
Sketching Retreat is a free three-day online event but if you want to keep on learning all year long, you can upgrade to the All-Access-Pass. Here's what that includes:
Lifetime access to all 50+ workshops, starting right now
Bonus trainings and resources from the instructors, worth $500+ USD
Exclusive discounts from instructors
In my opinion, the All-Access Pass at Sketching Retreat is one of the best learning deals out there—especially now. For $37, you get full lifetime access to all 50+ demos (and freebies). Which works out to just 74 cents per demo.
However, once this 6-day event kicks off next Tuesday (Oct 27), the price will jump to $87, and then $247 after the event closes six days later.
$37 is therefore quite the bargain. So if you’re interested, I encourage you to get your All-Access VIP pass before October 27.
As for my own contribution to Sketching Retreat 2026, it’s right above. The Yellow House in Water-Soluble Ink and Watercolour is a fun and colourful scene I spotted while teaching in Alsace this past summer. It showcases how I’ve been integrating inks into my watercolour sketches in recent months. With this demo, I’ve also included a free PDF, “Think About Ink,” that’ll help you sort through the many ways to use ink in your own sketches.
As we did last year, while teaching at Bar Harbour we took a detour to the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland. The main exhibition was devoted to Andrew Wyeth’s wife, Betsy James Wyeth, and her decades of work with architects and designers to create the spaces in which the Wyeth family lived and painted.
I’m such a devoted Wyeth fan that, I’ll admit, I paid much less attention to Betsy’s world (floor plans, elevations, budgets, letters, etc.) than I did to Andrew Wyeth’s. No matter how often I view his watercolours, I still stand in awe and gape at their directness and power, at the mystery of how he achieves his effects. As usual, I put on my reading glasses and pushed my face inches from the surface to see how the magic occurs—because not even the best colour reproduction can capture his scarred, scratched and layered surface. You simply must witness it in person.
Albinos, 2008 Drybrush watercolor on paper
Speaking of mysteries, a small revelation occurred while viewing Albinos, his painting of ghostly white pumpkins under a turbulent sky. While this is not a good photo (notice the green reflection at upper left), you can still see a watermark along the top edge, which finally answers a question I’ve been asking for years: What kind of watercolour paper did Wyeth use?
If you’re ever close by, I strongly recommend a visit to the Farnsworth. It’s beautifully designed, modest in size, and always has superb Wyeths on its walls. And do bring reading glasses, should you need them.
FROM MY BOOKSHELF
THE WATERCOLOR COURSE YOU'VE ALWAYS WANTED
by LESLIE FRONTZ
(Watson Guptill, 2015)
I’m a great admirer of the late Tom Hoffmann (I once took a workshop with him), and first noticed the name Leslie Frontz in his book Watercolor Painting. The name recently popped up again in Rockland, Maine, where I spotted Frontz's book, leafed through its pages and instantly bought it.
If there is one perfect book for learning how to paint in watercolour, or advancing your knowledge and technique, this is it. To begin with, Frontz is a gifted watercolourist, as you see at once from her sketches and paintings: economic in her brushstrokes, loose yet confident, always expressive.
As this book demonstrates, she is also a gifted teacher who manages to illustrate everything that drew me to watercolour all those decades ago: the mystery and magic of this challenging but also deeply satisfying medium.
The book is structured as a series of “guided lessons” on the fundamentals of watercolour, such as values, colours, line and expression. Each of these sections is excellent on its own, with step-by-step demos, and with examples from her own work as well as others.
In a brief profile at the end, the late Edgar A. Whitney and Tom Hoffmann are cited as early and formative teachers and colleagues. I studied with them as well, and can see that she absorbed the best from both of these masters.
UPCOMING WORKSHOPS
As I wrote in the last issue of The Wheelbarrow, I’m pulling back on overseas travel so I can paint more in studio and enjoy my time closer to home.
Having said that, I am still giving workshops in 2027 and enjoying the fact that they’re just a drive away. Two of these:
Gloucester, MA
I’ve taught with Slow River Studio before, but this will be my first time at their new Gloucester location. I can’t wait. The Slow River staff are welcoming and professional. And Gloucester is one of my favourite sketching and painting destinations. I love it for its stimulating views of working boats, crowded shipyards and historic buildings. Gloucester is one of my happy places. Please join me if you can.
This will be my first workshop at Landgrove Inn, but I’ve long known its reputation for hosting artists I admire. Of course, it’s also situated in next-door Vermont, whose mountains and historic structures I’ve sketched and painted for years. Landgrove offers a striking, light-filled studio and wonderful hospitality. I hope you’ll join me for a combined plein air and studio workshop next fall—when, perhaps, we’ll be enjoying similar weather!
