Traditional buildings all over Goa have sloping terracotta tiled roofs, an absolute necessity when the average annual rainfall is well over 100 inches. Besides keeping the rain out, terracotta tiles keep these buildings cool in summer, warm in winter, and age beautifully. You see them everywhere: on little village houses, grand old homes and massive buildings like churches. They’re fun to draw and paint too. Here are some of my favorites.
Sketch Away: Travels with my sketchbook 
Hi! Wonderful sketches! More watercolor than pen… would you please share your process? I’m wondering if you lay down color first, then pen; or pen, then color; or alternating? Thanks!
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Karen, I don’t have a fixed process: generally, the looser work is color first, but it’s common for me to go back and forth
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Thank you for replying, Suhita!
Someday I may be fortunate enough to take a course with you or otherwise have the chance to observe while you sketch –that would be the next best thing to actually being inside your head, I suppose! About the third sketch up from the bottom (green roof), for example, I’d love to have both observed and queried, in order to learn how you ended up with a sketch that was both loose and conveyed the depth of space. Things like, did you deliberately draw the green roof detail overlapping the door/window deep in the balcony in order to convey that depth of space in a way that just using darker brown value could not achieve, or was that just an artifact of the actual way you saw it from your angle while sketching.
I enjoy your posts very much. Thanks again.
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I love looking at your sketches. So much to see. Where you using a brush pen with these sketches.
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these are mostly done with a bent nib ( fude) pen, Carmel. it gives you an organic line with variable line widths: a little hard to learn to use at first, but I love it.
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Thank you. I have that pen and enjoy using it. I did not recognize the stokes!
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Wow, I really love the way you are painting !! And it’s so great to find back the atmosphere and the colors of Goa 🙂
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Oh wow, these sketches are amazing! I love the way they look lose and precise and vibrant, all at the same time.
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