Category: Life in general

More Soap (EDM #101)

Watercolor & Ink in Moleskine watercolor notebook 6×9″
To enlarge, click image, select All Sizes

I keep my dish soap in this squirt bottle originally meant to mix and apply hair dye. The glass plate is on loan from my sister. When I saw it at her house I begged to borrow it to paint it. I wanted to include it in yesterday’s soap picture.

I was supposed to be doing other stuff tonight but was getting really grumpy not being able to draw or paint so after helping my son with his resume, I abandoned the art business stuff I “should” have been doing. I drew this quickly with ink (hence the goofy edges and lines) and then added watercolor, thoroughly enjoying myself for the first time all day. Well, that’s not true. We did have some fun at work at lunch today, talking about our favorite “guilty pleasure” tv shows, but the rest of the day was just work, work, work.

To end this post on a happier note than the above whining, I’ll mention two things I’m grateful for.

1. I didn’t have a headache or a backache today and I noticed that several times during the day, making me feel grateful each time.

2. Yesterday I realized that even though I get frustrated with my lack of skill when painting with oils and acrylics and want to be good at it NOW, in a year, if I keep practicing and studying, I’ll probably feel pretty comfortable with them and maybe even competent. Or maybe I’ll realize I need another year of practice and I’ll take it. Same with drawing…if I keep at it, in a year, I’ll be a lot better at it than I am now.

Simple stuff, but it makes me happy.

Tags Pen and Ink

Life in general Outdoors/Landscape People Watercolor

(G)OLD Teeth

Watercolor on Arches 140 lb cold-pressed watercolor paper, 18×14″
(To enlarge, click images, select All Sizes)

This shop near my office in downtown Oakland makes sets of snap-on gold teeth (also known as “grills”) for people who like the idea of walking around with their teeth covered with jewelry. I loved the juxtaposition of the old guy walking by their sign with the missing “G” so I took a photo and finally got it painted.

For those of you who have never heard of people buying and wearing these things, you can see some pictures here (scroll down the page there). I don’t get it. Spending big money to get what looks like really fat shiny braces that make it hard to talk or eat and cause drooling seems like a deeply bizzare perversion. The whole culture of hip-hop/rapper/gangstah bling-bling with the prerequisite ostentatious display of wealth to me just seems like an advertisement saying, “I am an ignorant person with no class, taste, common sense or social conscious.” There are so many better things that could be done with money than wear platinum, jewel-encrusted teeth.

And the trend isn’t just for rappers; here’s an article about suburban teenage girls getting them to wear to the prom. When I was out delivering some flyers for the neighborhood association on my block last week I met a family that moved in a couple of months ago. The teenage son was extremely polite and friendly…and he was wearing a set of big gold teeth.

Tags People

Life in general People Watercolor

Reflecting on 2006

Watercolor on Arches paper, 11×8
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I like to spend New Years Eve quietly reflecting on the past year and the new one. This year Michael’s home sick and I’m spending the evening more quietly than usual, alone in the studio thinking about life and art. I decided to make a self-portrait and will plan to do that each New Year. As I get older, it is both fascinating and disconcerting to see the changes gravity and age are leaving on my face.

I took a few photos holding the camera at arms length and then picked this one to paint from. After doing a freehand drawing, painting it, wrecking the painting, and not having enough time left in the evening to start over from scratch, I must admit I used a lightbox to trace the basic shapes for the painting above.

In her post, Celebrate Your Progress in 2006, on her blog Making a Mark, Katherine Tyrrell posted a list of topics for artists to write about. I decided to take the challenge and write about my art accomplishments in 2006:

Blogging: In May 2006 I discovered the wonderful, world-wide community of artist bloggers and started my own blog. In August 2006 a reporter from the Oakland Tribune interviewed me about my blog and the article appeared on the front page of the paper. My blog was also featured on Best Blog on WordPress and Moleskinerie. Some stats: I’ve made 205 posts, received 2,004 generous comments with nearly 47,000 total views. The most views on any one day was 498; the average is between 250-350 a day.

Numbers of art works completed: More than 300 paintings, drawings, sketches, monoprints, and digital illustrations.

Study/Learning:
Drawing: As a result of daily drawing, I’ve seen my ability improve tremendously. I used to draw and paint only from photos that I composed and enlarged in Photoshop and then traced onto watercolor paper. Now I draw most things freehand.
Classes: I’ve taken one weekend painting workshop, signed up for a painting trip to Mexico in February 2007 with watercolor teacher Judy Morris.
Study: I’ve read piles and piles of books on art, design, drawing, painting, digital art, and art history. New Media/Technique: I began doing plein air painting in Summer 2006 and learning about landscape painting. In the past couple months I’ve been exploring monoprinting and other print-making techniques and began studying oil painting. I also purchased and began to use Painter to do digital drawing and painting illustrations.

Art business (always a challenge — I’d rather paint):
Teaching: I’ve had the privilege to teach several sessions of watercolor classes to some very inspiring and talented artists from whom I learned at least as much I taught.
Sales: A buyer in another state found my website via a link to it from the California Watercolor Association’s website and made a major purchase of one of my favorite paintings.
Shows: I was selected for a one-woman show that will be hung in March of 2007. I had slides made and submitted them to the CWA National Show but otherwise have not been focusing on showing in 2006.
Prints: I’ve worked with a local studio to make professional scans and giclee prints of my work.
Framing: I am currently in the process of framing 8 watercolor paintings.

So those are the accomplishments. I’ll write about the challenges tomorrow as part of my Art Plan for 2007.

Tags People

Cartoon art Dreams Life in general People Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Stage Fright (Dream)

Ink & Watercolor in Aquabee 9×12 sketchbook
(To enlarge, click image, select All Sizes)

I woke this morning at the apex of a terrible anxiety dream…but with a slightly different take than usual. First I should say that I have terrible stage fright and cannot sing to save my life. My family used to slam doors shut and turn on the radio to avoid hearing my awful singing along with my pretty bad guitar playing when I was a teen and it never really improved.

I’ve had this dream many times, where I find myself on stage, about to sing or play guitar or both, and realize I’m completely unprepared. In last night’s dream I’d been selected to perform as “Jana and the BlackAttack” and was supposed to be leading some sort of soul/hip-hop group at a very prestigious and large theatre. I was calm and relaxed about the whole thing, trusting that the event organizers knew what they were doing in selecting me. I took a seat in the theatre, watching the opening acts. Then it was time for me to go on stage and the MC was stalling and worried since I hadn’t yet appeared backstage. I walked out onstage, noticing there was a steaming pot of potato-leek soup available for performers and stage hands. I picked up the mike and then…

I realized I didn’t know what songs I was singing, what the tunes or words were, where my band was….basically I realized I was ME. I didn’t want to let the organizer down or ruin my reputation by walking away. Then I realized I had no reputation to lose: I’m not a singer, I’m an artist and I woke up, heart pounding.

Gee, do you think I might be having a little performance anxiety about my painting…(I was struggling with oil painting before I went to bed) or even more likely, about the one-woman show of my watercolors in March that will be held in the lobby cafe of a newly restored art deco THEATRE?!!!! I thought I wasn’t worried about the show but the sleeping mind never lies….or does it?

Tags Pen and Ink, People

Life in general Outdoors/Landscape Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Cold morning

Watercolor, then Micron Pigma Brush Pen in Moleskine large watercolor notebook
(To enlarge, click image, select “All Sizes”)

I did this quick little painting this morning of the view out my living room window (more than slightly imaginated) (imaginate is my word for imagine and exaggerate). Even with the color in the sky, everything looked so cold, with frost on all the rooftops.

I’m counting this as yesterday’s post because last night my painting group got together for a little holiday celebration pizza dinner and I had some wine (which I usually don’t and so it tends to make me quickly tipsy) and even though we all sat around eating and talking and I could have been sketching them, it didn’t occur to me until just before everyone went home. I kept thinking we were going to get back to our original plan of taking a group photo, quickly printing and handing it out, and each of us spending an hour drawing/painting from the same photo and then seeing how different all of our paintings were. But with two pizzas, two bottles of wine, a yummy salad and lots to talk about….it just never happened.

Tags Pen and Ink

Life in general Sketchbook Pages Still Life Watercolor

My little cow glass is broken

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date December 16, 2006
40 Comments on My little cow glass is broken

Watercolor in 5×5″ Hand Book Journal
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I found this little glass at a thirft shop and really liked it. I’d been leaving it on the kitchen counter where it’s handy to grab for a quick glass of water. Yesterday when I came home from work I found it in the sink, chipped and cracked. I guess the kitties were investigating the counter and knocked it off. It makes me sad that I can’t drink out of it anymore. It was just the right size and shape. I like it too much to throw it away. I’ll just keep it in the studio to look at and enjoy.

I know it’s odd that to be so fond of a cheap little thrift shop glass the way other people might relish jewelry or other fancy things. That’s just how I am though–I get more pleasure from simple things than fancy ones–like the old wool blanket on my bed. It’s warm and cozy but long ago lost all its satin binding. It has several holes chewed on the edges from when I took care of my niece Sophie’s pet rat for a few days. We kept the rat in its cage in my sons’ room next to their guinea pigs. But the rat’s cage was too close to the bed and it pulled the blanket (which had been my grandmother’s) into the cage and chewed off some nice bedding material for himself (or herself, I forget which).

My sons grew up and moved on, but I still have the blanket and don’t mind the scalloped edges. The blanket keeps me warm and it’s nice to sleep covered with something that my grandmother once held in her arms as she folded it (and probably ironed it knowing her).

Tags Cats

Drawing Life in general Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Sorry Cody

Ink & watercolor in Raffine 6×9 sketchbook
(To enlarge, click image, select “all sizes”)

My son Cody is an excellent car mechanic, specializing in customizing 60s and 70s muscle cars like his 1970 Firebird. He wanted to put a drawing of his car on his new business cards. I said I’d give it a try but somehow managed to take his beautiful Firebird and turn it into a jalopy. I knew the proper way to do this would be to start with some pencil sketches, or work from a photo of the car in Illustrator or Painter, but I had a stressful day and just felt like drawing directly in ink for fun. (Sorry Cody, maybe you do need to contact that guy who does car illustrations or my blogger friend France at Wagonized who can really draw cars.)

In case you’re interested in “muscle” cars and want to see pictures and video of his handiwork, you can visit Cody’s website. There’s even a video of his car in my driveway with the engine running with full sound effects. I guess he made that video on the day that he put the car all back together and it worked! That must be a thrilling experience to take a car apart until it’s just a shell and then spend a year designing, building and reassembling every part of it. He replaced the engine with one he built, starting from scratch with the biggest Chevy engine block ever made. Many parts had to be specially custom-designed and built for the car. Cody used to be a wonderful artist himself, doing amazing drawings and spray-painted murals (also known as graffiti) and is still my best art critic, always knowing exactly what a painting needs. Now I guess he’s more of a sculptor, making cars into moving pieces of art. He’s a great problem-solver, incredibly determined and persistent (wonder where he gets that?) and a terrific mechanic. If you need work done on your car in the East Bay, you can reach him by email: CodyBouc@yahoo.com

Tags Pen and Ink

Drawing Life in general Sketchbook Pages

My messy coat rack

Ink in small Moleskine sketchbook
(To enlarge, click image, select “All Sizes”)

I was debating whether to draw something, go to bed, or watch TV. I drew something AND watched TV: last night’s America’s Next Top Model that I’d TiVo’d (a bit of mental junk food is an important part of a healthy diet).

This messy coat rack was hanging in my living room by the front door when I bought my house and it’s always been handy, so it’s still there, five years later. It’s not something I would have intentionally bought or hung in my living room though. It always looks messy, whether it’s summer and hanging with hoodies, (when did sweatshirts become “hoodies”?) hats and visors, or in the winter, laden with raincoat, fleece jacket, down vest, umbrella and knit scarves. These things belong in the closet, not by the front door, the first thing visitors see.

Of course the people who come to my house are not “visitors.” They’re people who know me and won’t judge me for my housekeeping or home decor. They know I care more for function than appearances. It’s very functional to have my jacket by the door and makes it easy to grab or put away.

And most importantly, a messy coat rack is fun to draw. If it wasn’t there, the blank wall wouldn’t have inspired me to draw, and then I wouldn’t have had something to post today.

Tags Pen and Ink

Every Day Matters Life in general People Sketchbook Pages

Bubbie Hanging Laundry (EDM #88: Breezy)

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date October 20, 2006
16 Comments on Bubbie Hanging Laundry (EDM #88: Breezy)

Drawn in sketchbook with pencil, scanned into Painter, and digitally inked and painted.

I was very close to my grandmother and was born on her 50th birthday. She was very short and round and so soft…her skin was like velvet…well, very wrinkled velvet, and she always smelled like the sweet dusting powder she used. She had no clothes dryer–didn’t believe in them. She hung everything up to dry in the backyard, though she could barely reach the clothes line. Then EVERYTHING was ironed…even underwear, towels, and sheets. She had a special canvas laundry cart that she dragged the laundry around in that had a pocket stuffed with wooden close pins that I liked to play with. As she ironed she sprinkled the clothes first to dampen them (before steam irons) using a glass milk bottle (from when milk men delivered your milk each morning) with a special top that had holes in it and was designed for that purpose.

I was so happy a few minutes ago…I’d finished this memory drawing of my grandmother (Bubbie) that I’d been working on this week (which was actually for last week’s Everyday Matters challenge) and I’d finished this week’s Illustration Friday challenge and I really liked that drawing too–it WAS so cute and funny. And then Painter crashed just as I added the final, finishing touch. And then I realized I’d been working for two hours and NEVER SAVED that file!!!!! I can’t believe I did that! I was going to post this picture tomorrow and post the Illustration Friday picture tonight, but I can’t. It’s gone. And it’s midnight. I can’t do it over now.

Maybe losing my file was an omen–I’ve been trying to decide whether I wanted to continue pursuing/exploring digital art or stick with watercolors. If I’d done the drawing by hand, I would at least have something to show for the time, something to work with as a reference if I had to do it over. But I have NOTHING. Maybe this was the message I needed to tell me to forget about digital art and stick with paint and paper?

Tags Painter Digital Art, Pencil drawing, People

Flower Art Life in general Watercolor

Bouquet Play

Watercolor and FW acrylic ink in 9×12 in. Aquabee sketchbook.
(To enlarge, click image, select “All Sizes.”)

QUESTIONS:
1. Are the images on my site taking too long too load? I’ve been saving larger sizes to Flickr and putting their medium size here but they are nearly 200K. I used to keep images to around 60K.
2. Do you like being able to click to enlarge or is this size big enough?

Now back to the regular post….

Playing with watercolor and ink again… I painted the flowers loosely without drawing using Kremer Pigments watercolors and then used a sumi brush to apply the ink over top. When it was dry I added a bit of Winsor Violet to the irises on each side because I couldn’t get a good purple with the reds and blues in the Kremer watercolors.

3 notes from Jana’s World today:

1. It was a beautiful sunny day but I spent the whole day behind closed blinds (to keep the glare off my computer) in my office working.

2. On the way home, I was delighted by a parade of humanity exiting the BART train at downtown Berkeley: an aging bearded hippie folk singer in gold see-through vest and red pants, followed by two Tibetan Buddhist monks in saffron robes, a handsome young African-American guy decked out in expensive designer hip-hop apparel and electronic accessories, several Asian students with fully loaded book bags, a skinny pale white woman with dyed black dreadlocks piled on top of her head, an obese woman who could barely walk, a very muscular woman with a crewcut wearing a sleeveless shirt whose arms were covered with tattoos, a young Latina mom pushing a stroller in which sat a round-faced tot wearing what looked like an organza lavender prom dress that ballooned out around her. I have to draw this! (but too tired now)

3. My silly cat Fiona seems to have spent her day in the cereal/pasta cabinet. She shredded open a box of Special K and two packages of spaghetti noodles (but only the white ones–she didn’t bother with the whole wheat, which is good because I needed them for dinner.)

Tags Cats, Ink