Category: Life in general

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Life in general Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Magnolia & Newspaper

Magnolia-web

I was really tired tonight and didn’t think I had the energy to do a drawing but decided to go in the studio for one hour and just see what happened. I’d taken a photo of this magnolia on a walk in my neighborhood last weekend and sat down to draw it in ink in my watercolor Moleskine. One hour later, it’s drawn, painted and scanned and I really enjoyed myself and feel happy to have gotten in a little painting today.

My blog in the news:

Yesterday a reporter from the Oakland Tribune called to interview me about my blog for a piece about the growth of the “blogosphere.” It was a little surrealistic seeing my name and blog address in large bold type on the front page (!) of the paper today, though seeing my quotes (?) in print made me immediately want to edit them. In the online version they mistakenly left off the links to the blogs discussed but they’re supposedly fixing it. Click here to see the article.

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Life in general Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Lavender: Too Much Information?

Lavender

This is Spanish lavender from my backyard in a little lavender hand-blown glass vase (the vase is actually shaped like this–for once it’s not my drawing). I used my magnifying lamp to see the details and discovered teeny purple flowers with yellow centers on the bud-shaped thingee that the lavender petals come out of and that bud thingee is shaped like a mini pine cone. I tried looking up the actual names of these parts but the diagrams I found didn’t really apply to this flower.

While Googling for the plant parts I also uncovered the following “facts” about lavender on the web:

  • Lavender can be used to treat burns, rheumatism, muscular pains, neuralgia, cold sores, insect bites, head lice, halitosis, dandruff, vaginal discharge and anal fissure.
  • Pheramones cause people to be attracted to you and causes mother-baby bonding. Pheramones (like pretty much everything else except for weight) decrease as we age. That’s why men prefer younger women.
  • The same website also explains that too much washing causes divorce: “By the 1940’s, many Californians bathed or showered daily and washed away their personal pheromones, while most of the USA stuck to weekly bathing. California soon led the USA in divorce rates and family breakdown.”
  • The source of the name lavender is Latin lavare “wash.”
  • The combined odor of lavender and pumpkin (ewww!) were found to be a much stronger aphrodesiac than expensive perfume (they actually did scientific tests that get a bit x-rated so I’ll skip the details here).

Ink and watercolor in big watercolor Moleskine notebook.

Categories
Drawing Every Day Matters Life in general Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Souvenirs…of Life

Tibetan-Bell

This week’s Every Day Matters challenge is to “draw a souvenir from a place you’ve been.” This is a Tibetan Bell. I’ve never been to Tibet. My father bought it for me at a street fair in Jack London Square in Oakland on one of his rare visits from the many places he lived in the U.S. and Canada. I loved the sound of the bell and he was happy to buy it for me.

I’ve been missing him lately–sometimes when I’m drawing I get glimpses of the amazing cartoons he used to be able to draw on command and wish I could talk to him about drawing and art. He and my mother both painted for a few years when I was a kid and both were talented photographers. I highlighted my mother’s paintings from the 50s here a few weeks ago, but all of my father’s paintings were thrown away by his second wife when he left her for his third wife.

Searching my house for souvenirs to draw, I discovered that my only keepsakes represent different periods of my life and the people and pets I’ve loved. And even those are few: my grandmother’s pearls and glass butterdish, a spice jar with hair from long gone cats and dogs, the books my father wrote, my wedding ring in a little box I painted blue, a folder with my sons’ grade school essays and drawings, earings given to me by friends and family.

Of course I have my journals, drawings, photos and paintings–those are keepers of my memories too. But I wonder what it means that I have no souvenirs or tchotchkes from places I’ve been. Maybe just that I don’t like to dust.

Ink and watercolor in WC Moleskine. I know I said that for a week I would stop painting when I was 75% done, but I was too tired again tonight to notice, and so put in the background when I should have stopped. It was a lot prettier with just a shadow and an all white background. I did stop painting the bell before I thought it was done so that’s a little progress. I’ll try again tomorrow.

Categories
Drawing Life in general Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

A little lemon

Lemon on Quiche Cup

I had so many ideas of what to draw tonight but I was so sleepy that I had to pick something fairly simple. It was fun–so much fun that I kept at it longer than I should have so it got overworked. There’s always that question of “When is a painting done?” I’ve heard it said many times that one should stop when a painting feels 75% finished but I usually go to 125%. So for the next week, I’m going to try stopping at 75% and see how that feels.

I’m experimenting with uploading pictures to Flickr and then linking them as I did here. Flickr has options for posting a small image on the blog and a big one on Flickr that you are taken to by clicking on the image. If you have an opinion, I’d love to know whether you prefer seeing images this size on the blog or a smaller size with a click to enlarge option? Do you know any disadvantages to storing the image on Flickr?

Watercolor and Micron Pigma in WC Moleskine.

Categories
Drawing Life in general Sketchbook Pages

As Seen on TV

TV2-web

Original pen and ink version below
60-minutes-web

When I finished telecommuting at about 8:00 tonight, I sat down to a microwaved Lean Cuisine and turned on Sunday night’s 60 Minutes which I’d TiVo’d. I watched for the few minutes it took to eat my yucky TV dinner and then decided to do my daily drawing from the TV.

Since I mostly just paused the TiVo on the pictures that interested me with no sound, I can’t tell you much about the show or the people I drew except that it was all scary–the first guy in the drawing is Abu Jandal, who used to be Bin Laden’s body guard. He wants his son to grow up to be a terrorist martyr just like his daddy. The rest of the show was about the rapidly increasing global warming and Bush trying to rewrite the science and play down the warnings. So two of the other guys are scientists who are speaking out and the third is supposed to be Clinton who tried to get the scientists to make the problem sound even worse than it is. The cutest guy of all is a penguin whose environment is slowly disappearing due to global warming.

I drew this with my Lamy Safari pen, Noodlers Ink and my Aquabee sketchbook. The pen kept seeming like it was running out of ink. I think the pen does best on hard smooth paper, not on this. Or maybe it’s the angle I hold it–not upright enough perhaps. But it always seems like it’s not putting down enough ink or it’s putting down too much. Maybe it just takes more practice. The Micron Pigma is definitely easier to use but doesn’t give the variety in lines that the Lamy does.

Update: Next day I’ve added watercolor and deleted in Photoshop two lumps that were supposed to be seals. Which do you like better?

Categories
Drawing Gardening Life in general Plein Air Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Sunday in Barbara’s Garden

Barbara-garden-web2

Barbara and I took a great hike in the North Berkeley hills this morning near her house, and looked at people’s gardens and interesting (and bizarre) architecture. When we got back, her garden was so glorious in the noontime sun that I had to postpone lunch and sit down and draw.

It’s overflowing with beautiful flowers and healthy vegetables: spiky cucumbers, heirloom tomatoes (those funny little orange things on the left that look like pumpkins in my picture), corn (at the back), and in the foreground, a huge “volunteer” butternut squash that she didn’t plant.

The weather was perfect, with the bright sun taking breaks behind the clouds so it wasn’t too hot or cold. Compared to my house near the freeway, her garden is so quiet, with only the lovely Sunday sounds of birds, “beneficial” garden insects, breezes on the wind chimes, a neighbor playing lovely violin and her dog Gertie stretching and yawning in the sun.

With the abundance and variety of vegetation and her mosaics and ceramic sculptures, there’s another painting just waiting to be made every few steps. Drawing the amazing leaves and tendrils on the squash plant would have been enough to make me happy, but I decided to try to capture the whole garden today and then come back again and again to paint her garden over the summer.

Micron Pigma, watercolor in WC Moleskine.

Categories
Drawing Life in general Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Espresso Roma Berkeley

Espresso Roma Cafe Berkeley

I picked up my new chartreuse glasses at the optician’s yesterday, but when I put them on I felt a bit off-balance. I have a difficult prescription with lots of astigmatism and even a tiny error in the lens can really affect my vision. I decided to go next door to Espresso Roma before leaving the Elmwood district and try drawing a bit to test them out. I had a little trouble reading the menu on the wall when I ordered my latte and felt clumsy walking to the table and getting out my drawing stuff.

These guys sat there a long time drinking vino and resolving the fighting between Israel and Lebanon. Drawing seemed harder–it literally felt like I couldn’t see straight, I had to tilt my head to line things up. Fortunately these guys didn’t notice that I was repeatedly staring at them, trying to focus my eyes.

Instead of taking the glasses back to the optical shop, I decided to go home, wishfully thinking maybe they just took getting used to. My vision wasn’t any better today so I had my eye doctor check them out. Sure enough, they weren’t made right and need to go back to the lab, which means I have to drive all the way back to the optician’s. Grrrrrrr.

Even though I go through this almost every time I get new glasses, I always remember how lucky I am to have access to medical care and that I can (eventually) get exactly the right prescription.

Lamy pen, Noodlers ink and watercolor in WC Moleskine. Confession: I erased a couple ink lines in Photoshop before uploading. (My faulty vision gave the middle guy what looked like a giant feather coming out of his forehead from when I first started drawing him. He’s recovering nicely from his featherectomy.)

Categories
Drawing Life in general Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Richard and Florio

Richard & Florio the Parrot

My good friends Judith and Richard have a wonderful parrot named Florio (formerly known as Flora until they discovered she was a he). Florio’s a great bird. When I visit and talk nicely to him he blinks his eyes and dilates his pupils, looking so pleased to be told he’s a good bird. If we ignore him he squawks loudly until we include him in the conversation. Judith prepares lovely meals for him with lots of fresh vegetables and fruits. Judith and Richard are both great cooks. I wish I was lucky like Florio to have them preparing my meals every day, too.

I got the photo I painted from by accident. I borrowed Judith’s camera when we went to the zoo last month (I stupidly brought mine without its memory card) and when I downloaded her card to my computer, this picture of Richard and Florio was on there. The photo is strange and blurry with a weird glow from low light, but as soon as I saw it I knew I wanted to paint it.

I did this in my 5 x 7.5″ watercolor Moleskine, first drawing with a Micron Pigma then adding watercolor, during my painting group’s weekly session at my studio to paint and talk art (and life). While it doesn’t exactly look like Richard, I think I captured a little something of him, and had a lot of fun doing it.

Categories
Life in general Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Happy Birthday Robin

Robin bike

Today’s Robin’s 31st birthday. Lately his life’s been an uphill climb, working very long hours for a good cause. But as long as you’re still climbing, you’re not over the hill… so there’s still lots more to look forward to. I’m so proud of all he’s accomplished. He’s really quite amazing.

I can’t help thinking back to his birth and my life as his mother. I’ve grown along with him, starting with the discovery upon his birth that I had to quickly become a grownup. I could no longer be the free-spirited, hippie artist, selling my batiks and ceramics in the daily street fair on Berkeley’s Telegraph Avenue (much like San Francisco’s more famous Haight-Ashbury), hitch-hiking here and there, following my whims.

Before he was born my silly idea was that I’d strap him onto my back like a papoose and continue making pottery, up to my elbows in wet clay. Instead I was up to my elbows in mashed carrots, baby spit-up, poopy diapers, and piiles of laundry…and then it was time for another feeding…another diaper… He slept little and neither did I. But we survived and he thrived and 31 years have flown by. Motherhood…wouldn’t trade it for anything!

(Ink & watercolor in Moleskine watercolor notebook)

Categories
Drawing Life in general Sketchbook Pages Subway drawings

Hot Seat Quick Draw

Quick draw

These are some of the people riding BART with me this week. The guy above was great–he stayed in one position for several stops so I had the chance to draw more than just a face.

The sketches below from the previous day were a practice in drawing quickly. The flashing sign on the elevated, outdoor BART platform said “San Francisco Train in 3 Minutes” when I arrived. For fun, I did a quick contour drawing of two nearby trees and then began to fill in some of the tree’s interior shapes. The train came before I could finish.

I got on the train, looked around, and picked my first subject (I was going to say “victim”), a Latino man in a seat by the door. I captured his face but two minutes later he got off at the next stop and an Indian man got on and took his seat. I drew that guy, but he too got off at the next stop two minutes later. Next in the hot seat was an elderly, grizzled, African-American man. I drew his face and hair and same story, off at the next stop. He was replaced by a nice, apple pie sort of lady….who got off at the next stop. And so did I. It was time to start the work day and I was in a good mood and feeling perky after a fun session of 2-Minute Hot Seat Quick Draw.
Hot Seat

Everything was drawn with a Lamy Safari fountain pen and Noodlers Ink. The top sketch was in a Moleskine sketchbook, the bottom in a Strathmore Drawing sketchbook. I seem to have five or six sketchbooks going at once these days.