Category: Life in general

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Gouache Ink and watercolor wash Life in general Painting People Sketchbook Pages

No Stopping the Seasons…or the Arrows of Time

Can't Stop Trees, ink and watercolor
Can't Stop the Seasons, ink and watercolor

On my walk to Peets Coffee and the bookstore today I saw so many things along the way that I would have liked to sketch. But I was feeling tired and under-caffeinated so I made a mental note to take the same route on the way back to sketch them.

It struck me as ironic to see a sign saying “STOP” beside a tree (above) with leaves that are changing colors and falling. We can’t stop the seasons, time keeps steadily moving on, the days get shorter, and I’m so aware of each passing day being one less to do all the things I want to do.

As I wrote that, I pictured myself with a quiver of arrows that represent my days, and each day I select an arrow and shoot it from my bow…and that gave me an idea for a sketch….

Arrows of Time, ink and gouache
Arrows of Time, ink and gouache

And that made me wonder which is better:

  1. To carefully select the daily arrow (of time) and aim to make sure the day is spent intentionally, doing the things that matter;
    or
  2. To be adventurous, pick an arrow at random and shoot without aiming and (as my old yoga teacher used to say when instructing us to take a seemingly impossible pose) “just see what happens” — let each day be its own adventure.

UPDATE: Diane Patmore just left this most wonderful comment:

“Perhaps that sign is telling us to stop and look at the tree?”

That snapped me right out of my melancholic meanderings. Indeed, the only way to slow time is to live in the moment, and enjoy it as it’s happening! Yes! Stop and look at the tree; appreciate its beauty and the color of changing leaves. Accept its reminder that change is inevitable and resisting change causes suffering.

Breathe in the wonderful October air and be grateful to be breathing at this very moment. Ahhh. I feel much better now!

P.S. The book I bought was Imaginative Realism by James Gurney that I read about this morning on Making a Mark. It’s an excellent guide to illustration and art in general.

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Ink and watercolor wash Life in general Painting Sketchbook Pages Still Life

Rebooting from Worker Bee to Artist

Downy Pearls Jasmine Tea, ink and watercolor
Downy Pearls Jasmine Tea, ink and watercolor

The transition from work week to painting week is often difficult for me. I supposedly work only half a day Fridays but it usually turns into a whole day. So last night, to prod the transition along, I took a nice hot shower, put on my jammies and made a cup of Peets Downy Pearls Jasmine Tea.

The tea leaves come wound up into cute little balls a bit bigger than capers. As it steeps, the tea transitions too, from little balls to long spiky, stringy tea leaves that expand tremendously.

So I put some dry “pearls” in one plate, the ones that I’d brewed for my tea in another and my tea on the table and sketched and painted it, to reboot and ease into my art life. I just wished I’d drawn with pencil instead of pen since my drawing brain wasn’t really warmed up and ready to go.

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Animals Ink and watercolor wash Life in general People Sketchbook Pages

Dogs and their People at PetVet, Part I

Pomeranian Lady at PetVet, ink and watercolor
Wonderful Pomeranian Lady at PetVet, ink and watercolor

A couple miles south of my house, is a high-priced pet shop that sells cashmere sweaters and designer collars for dogs. I don’t shop there. PetVet is a mile or two north of my house, in Richmond. They offer discounted food, medicine and vet services and draw a much less affluent clientele.

I shop there because they sell  the prescription cat food Busby needs, but I usually try to avoid going during their weekend low-cost vet clinic. I don’t like seeing  pets with people who seem unlikely to be responsible pet owners such as this group of young men and their pit bull puppies with cropped ears (a style from dogs used in fighting.)

Tough Dudes and their Pitbulls, Ink and watercolor
Tough Dudes and their Pit Bulls, Ink and watercolor

When I arrived, the parking lot was full and people were waiting inside and outside for the first-come, first-served vet visits. After I stocked up on cat food I was intrigued by all of the interesting characters and dogs and wanted to stay and sketch. But I couldn’t find a way to do it surreptitiously.

I decided to be brave and ask if I could take photos of pe0ple with their dogs; surprisingly everyone was happy to pose. The dudes above dropped their tough guy stance and smiled nicely for me. I’d much rather be drawing from life, but it was still fun sketching from my photos.

Treats while waiting, ink and watercolor
Treats while waiting, ink and watercolor

I’d like to work on my dog drawing skills so that I’d have enough confidence to go back there and sketch the waiting dogs and owners directly.

Not a Pitbull? Ink & watercolor
Not a Pit Bull? Ink & watercolor

This young lady was quite a character. As she walked past me, she turned to a guy with a really wide pitbull and said to him “Your dog is FAT!” Then she told me her puppy wasn’t a pit bull, it was a brindle and would be bigger than a pitbull. [Except brindle is a mixture of color in a dog’s coat, not a breed.]

There were so many people there with puppies, and many of those puppies were pit bulls or pit mixes. It breaks my heart to think about how that will turn out. I know how much work it is to responsibly raise a good, healthy dog and that the shelters are full of pit bulls surrendered when the cute little puppy grew up and got to be too much trouble.

I will just try to hope that all of those people and their pets have what they need for happy, healthy lives. Meanwhile, I still have another half dozen pictures to make from the day.

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Cartoon art Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Life in general People Plants Sketchbook Pages Sketchercize

Sketchercizing My Errands

Walking with my dust mop, ink & colored pencil
Walking with my dust mop, ink & colored pencil

I needed a new dust mop, a tube of silicon adhesive and some exercise, so I put them together and walked to Pastime Hardware, a large family-owned hardware store that has everything, including  their famously helpful employees.

The sketch above actually closely resembles me when I’m out walking, with my green backpack  that is so comfy, even when loaded with junk, my nifty purple cap, and old green shorts.

On the way to the store I called my mom on my iPhone, getting that task done as well. As she told me tales of her adventures with her new, and first computer, I stopped to draw some cacti I spotted along the way.

Cacti, ink and watercolor
Cacti, ink and watercolor

My last stop was at the video store to pick up a copy of Local Color which never came out in theaters in Northern California and is finally available on DVD. Then I walked home with the mop over my shoulder feeling like I should be whistling a little tune.

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Life in general Photos

Creepy Bugs and Even Creepier Humans

While I’m busy in the studio with a painting project, here are some photos of creepy critters in my garden and the creepiest of all, on a big SUV.

First I opened my front door to grab the mail and as I reached out, this was guarding my mailbox box. She turned her little ET head towards me in a friendly sort of way.

I reached for my mailbox and...
I reached for my mailbox and...

But I thought Praying Mantises were green? Are they chameleons?

Spooky Shadow!
Spooky Shadow!

Then I was watering the garden and spotted this big guy.

Big Hefty Spider. Should I be scared?
Big Hefty Spider. Should I be scared?

I’m curious whether it’s a kind of spider I should be worried about. She? was huge! If you know, do tell. I touched a silken strand leading to her web and she went running down it, thinking something juicy had landed there.

Here’s what she looks like from on top:

Big one from above
Big one from above

And this pretty little one was hanging out nearby.

Little Pretty Spider
Little Pretty Spider

Maybe about to be lunch for the big guy?

And now for the creepiest of all…I saw this giant Yukon SUV in the parking lot at the doctor’s office. Can you imagine being someone who would hang these on their car? They even had a baby seat on the back seat, fully equipped with a TV screen facing it. Scary.

What were they thinking! Yuck!
What are they thinking! Yuck!

I hope I haven’t ruined your day with obscene car accessories and insects! Maybe I should remove this last picture? Or the license plate number? But I guess if they have the balls to hang them off their car in public, they mean to be seen. Or am I joining them in contributing to the downfall of civilization by posting it? And oh yeah, the Yukon gets 12 mpg and costs over $42.000.

More art coming soon.

Categories
Drawing Flower Art Ink and watercolor wash Life in general Painting Sketchercize

No Power So Sketchercize & Play

Peets Coffee Drinkers, Ink & watercolor
Peets Coffee Drinkers, Ink & watercolor

It’s been a weird weekend. As the song says, “It never rains in California in the summer” except it did on Saturday morning after a night of thunder and lightening (also rare in the Bay Area). It was supposed to be a plein air painting day but the combination of rain and a headache convinced me to stay home and paint instead.

Then the power went out. It was too dark in the studio to paint without some lights and I needed coffee to try to get rid of the headache so I walked to Peets to sketch there. I used my sepia Copic Multiliner and then did a watercolor wash (mixing a few colors on my mini-watercolor palette to match the ink color.

Alejandro's Dahlias, ink & watercolor
Alejandro's Dahlias, ink & watercolor

When I got home I called the electric company and they said to expect repair or a report by 11:00 p.m. that night so I made plans to go out to dinner and to the movies. I didn’t want to open the fridge so my food would stay cold as long as possible. Then I sat my sketching stool in the driveway next to my neighbor’s flower bed and sketched and painted a couple of his dahlias.

Then I took another long walk with  a friend, grabbed a fish burrito and went to see Julie & Julia which I loved! It had been ages since I’d been to the movies and even longer since I’d gone alone. I sat near another woman singleton who had the most infectious laugh and we laughed together throughout the delightful movie.

I appreciated the movie’s nod to the challenges faced by tall women (being one myself). The obsession with eating and cooking rich French food made me curious to know whether Julia Child ever dealt with body image issues or weight problems.I found these quotes from her in an interview in Business Week magazine in 2000:

Q: Could you sum up your feelings about the low-fat food movement? A: I don’t go for that at all…our motto is: “Small helpings. No seconds. No snacking. A little bit of everything, and have a good time.” If you can follow that, it keeps your weight and health in good form. Even if you’re going to have some rich dessert, you can always just have a little spoonful to taste it and keep your spirits up. Then I don’t think you have to go into that miserable, low-fat stuff.

Q: That’s more the French way of eating, I think. Americans always wonder why the French aren’t fat even though they eat rich foods.
A: It’s because the French don’t eat these great big helpings. It’s really horrifying to them to go to Disneyland and see these great big fat Americans plodding along, always eating something. No snacking is very important, I think.

I have a feeling she’s right about the snacking, but I know I find it a lot easier to maintain my weight if I cook and eat simply than if I’m surrounded by delicious, rich food and try to just eat a spoonful to taste it. But then I’d always rather be in the studio than in the kitchen, and am just as happy with a bowl of brown rice, broccoli and tofu than fancy French cooking.

P.S. The electricity came back on the next morning, 24 hours later.

Categories
Drawing Flower Art Glass Ink and watercolor wash Life in general Painting Sketchbook Pages Still Life

Attack of the Insidious Shoulds

Attack of the Shoulds #1, Mixed media
Attack of the Shoulds #1, Mixed media

Sunday I got into one of those funks where no matter what I was doing I felt like I should be doing something else. It was a beautiful day: I should be out painting plein air. But there were paintings in progress in the studio that were calling to me. And then there were shoulds about the medium to use: I should be painting in oil, no acrylic, no watercolor…I was driving myself nuts!

So I sat myself down at the drawing table and just started writing  in my sketchbook journal all the shoulds I was hearing in my mind (but who was saying them–aren’t I the only one in there?). When all else fails I default to flowers. I picked a hibiscus, stuck it in a little bottle and started sketching. I got it wrong. I drew with a pen dipped in ink, I added wax crayon, watercolor crayon, rubbed it with a paper towel, rubber stamps, more ink, more crayon, and just kept angrily abusing the page, trying to dump the shoulds.

Attack of the Shoulds #2, Ink and watercolor
Attack of the Shoulds #2, Ink and watercolor

I wrote on the page: “Accept that it is all impossible.It will be wrong. It will be bad. It is pointless. And do it anyway. Because you can. And doing it badly is better than not doing it. Break the cycle. Stop the nonsense!” When there was nothing more to do the first page spread I started on the next, feeling freer. I tackled the hibiscus again, and did #2 above.

Attack of the Shoulds #3, watercolor and ink
Attack of the Shoulds #3, watercolor and ink

For #3 above, I sketched with pencil, added watercolor and then outlined everything afterwards with a Pitt Sepia F pen.

Attack of the Shoulds #4, ink & watercolor
Attack of the Shoulds #4, ink & watercolor

It was almost time to go to a dinner party but I squeezed in one more, which I mucked up a bit with too heavy outlining so added some fun scribbly white pen. The good news is that I did break the cycle, got over the shoulds and got back to having fun in the studio today.

Categories
Animals Cartoon art Drawing Gardening Illustration Ink and watercolor wash Life in general Painting Plants Richmond Annex Sketchbook Pages

Strange Garden Ecology: From Birds to Mice to Wasps to Ants to Birds

Weird Ecology, ink & watercolor in sketchbook
Strange Ecology, ink & watercolor (click to enlarge or see big images below)

I used to love feeding the birds and seeing my little customers flocking to the feeder. But one day I thought I saw the wood chip ground covering moving under the feeder. When I looked closely I saw it wasn’t the tan bark moving, it was dozens of mice! By feeding the birds I was also nourishing a growing army of mice with all the seed the birds scattered!

1. Feed the Birds 2. Mice grow strong and prosper
1. Feed the Birds ---> ---> ---> ---> ---> ---> ---> 2. Mice grow strong and prosper

I called “Vector Control” (a euphemism for the county rat patrol) and an interesting female rat inspector came out and inspected. She told me the only way to get rid of the mice was to stop feeding the birds and that for each mouse I saw there were 50 more I wasn’t seeing. I was sad to stop feeding the birds but it was better than the alternative (which included multiple mouse traps, even sadder).

Meanwhile, the spilled millet seed grew into a lovely, tall, feathery bush under the feeder, which I left hanging in a bit of wishful thinking that one day I’d be able to return to feeding my feathery friends.

3. Millet grass grows under feeder. 4. Wasps move in.
3. Millet grass grows under feeder ---> ---> ---> --->4. Wasps move in.

A couple years pass, the feeder and bird house remain empty and the millet bush continues to be a pretty garden feature. One day I notice something odd: wasps are buzzing in and out of the feeder and have built a nest inside it. I learned that while wasps do not pollinate like bees, they are still beneficial because they eat insect pests in the garden. I decided to leave them alone and enjoyed watching them care for their  babies (larvae) in the nest.

Wasps eat potential garden pests including the venomous black widow spider. Adult wasps eat only pollen and nectar (or your soda at picnics). They only hunt for meat (insects, worms, your barbequed hamburgers) to feed their larvae. Wasps nests have only one purpose: to ensure the production of young. At the end of the nest’s cycle, every member of the nest, except emerging queens, dies.

5. The wasps move in next door ---> 6. The Greenhouse Effect
5. The wasps move in next door ---> ---> ---> 6. The Greenhouse Effect

I guess things got a little crowded in the nest because the wasps started hanging out at the neighboring empty bird house too. Then one day we had a scorcher of a summer day. The temperature in my usually cool and foggy neighborhood by the Bay was in the 90s (f). The clear plastic bird feeder turned into a greenhouse and cooked all the wasps in the nest. So sad. All those poor little larvae, all that building and hunting and gathering of food.

But it wasn’t entirely wasted…

7. The millet bush becomes a little ladder and the ants have a party
7. The millet bush becomes ladder to an ant party

The stalks of tall millet grass made a perfect ladder for the gazillions of ants who live in my garden (and don’t even get me started about the ants and their nasty aphid ranches). The ants were streaming up the grass onto the feeder and having a lovely dinner party of roasted wasp.

And because my garden is well stocked with ants and aphids, I am, in a way, still feeding the birds. They still flock to my garden, but now they eat the ants and aphids off the rose bushes and it doesn’t even cost a penny in bird seed.

Categories
Animals Art supplies Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Life in general Painting Sketchbook Pages

Cool Dog in a Cool Car

Cool Boston Terrier, Ink & watercolor
Cool Boston Terrier, Ink & watercolor

This very hip and cool Boston Terrier was watching me with one eye and watching his hip and cool owners with the other from the open window of their cool 1960’s era blue Cadillac. The two guys were wearing hip and cool hats while digging for cool stuff from a dumpster containing items from a remodeling job at the of the Longs Drugs at El Cerrito Plaza.

I’m always drawn to cool stuff in dumpsters or left out on the street, but have to work hard to control those pack rat tendencies since I’ve seen how that turns out (with a certain family member who shall remain anonymous). Unless a found item is something that I need and would buy if it was in the store, I leave it be. I remind myself that I’m NOT a sculptor who makes things from found objects and that I don’t need to bring home someone else’s garbage, regardless of how cool it might be.

To draw the dog I first sketched in pencil from a photo I took of the dog, and then inked with another pen I was testing: the Prismacolor Premier series Fine Line Marker. It came in a set of five pens with varying points from .005 to .08. They’re “permanent, acid-free, lightfast, water-resistant and archival.” I used the .01 and .05 and found them to be comfortable to hold and smooth to draw with.

Categories
Art theory Colored pencil art Drawing Life in general Outdoors/Landscape People Places Sketchbook Pages Sketchercize

Sketchercizing My Grocery Shopping

El Cerrito Natural Grocery, Copic cobalt multiliner & Polychromos colored pencils
El Cerrito Natural Grocery, cobalt Copic multiliner and colored pencils

I had to make my morning coffee with the last drops of non-fat milk (yuck, 1% is OK but non-fat in coffee just doesn’t cut it) and there were no peaches or milk for my Cheerios. A trip to the market couldn’t be put off. But I had a full day of experiments in the studio planned and I needed some exercise. Easy solution:

  1. take the long way around, up and down big hills, to my favorite grocery store, El Cerrito Natural Grocery (cardio)
  2. sketch the market using the cobalt Copic Multiliner I wanted to experiment with (I think I prefer the sepia)
  3. shop
  4. carry groceries home in a loaded backpack plus another full bag (weight lifting)
  5. add colored pencil to the sketches to try out the new Polychromos colored pencils (LOVE THEM!)
BART riders, cobalt Copic Multiliner and colored pencils
Quick subway sketches with the cobalt Copic Multiliner and colored pencils

I’m trying to simplify my choices with my art supplies, wanting to narrow down the pens, ink, pencils and colored pencils to keep handy and those I’ll give away. I did tests today on drawing pencils, sepia liquid inks and sepia pens and will post them and my preferences tomorrow.

I’m also working on painting a grid of 16 different acrylic painting techniques to improve my understanding of acrylic techniques and possibilities. It became clear this was needed when I started a series of paintings in acrylic and realized I didn’t have the “chops” to accomplish what I wanted. I was trying to use oil painting techniques and was getting nowhere fast (and ruining brushes with all the scrubbing I was doing with them which seemed the only way to get the smooth transitions I wanted).

Each medium has its own capabilities and pitfalls. Why not make good use of the characteristics of the media instead of trying to force it to be something it’s not? Despite people claiming acrylic can be used like oils and like watercolor,  I’m going to try to learn to use it like acrylics instead and have fun with all the crazy stuff it can do. This series of large paintings wants to be in acrylic and so it shall, and soon I hope.