Category: Life in general

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Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Life in general Urban Sketchers

Brain Under Construction: Learning How vs. Being Able To

Under Construction, ink & watercolor 5x7"
Under Construction, ink & watercolor 5x7" * I was sitting on the curb just finishing up my sketch when a guy in a truck pulled over and politely asked me to move so he could park in front of his house, where I was sitting. I added the watercolor standing up.

When I returned from my workshop a week ago and told a friend about all I learned, she said something like, “I can’t wait to see your paintings and how what you learned has improved your work.”

If only it were that simple! Learning HOW is quite different from being ABLE to DO what you have learned. Especially when the teacher you study with has painted 8-12 hours a day for 20+ years honing her ability to see, draw and paint. Even when the teacher is extremely generous in her teaching and tries to tell you everything she knows during the intensive week of painting and learning.

I’m still processing what I learned, experimenting with it, and trying to incorporate it into a way of painting that works for me. I promise a post about what I learned soon. But no promises that you’ll see big “improvements” in my work yet. That only comes with practice and time. In fact, after “learning” something new, it’s not unusual for work to show signs of struggle and get “worse,” not “better” for a while.

MEANWHILE…The Studio Conversion

I’m still in the construction/remodeling/moving and sorting stuff process of converting my former studio (half my duplex) back into a rentable apartment and remodeling my former 2-car garage into my new studio (almost done; pictures soon). My carpenter planned to finish a few weeks ago on what turned out to be the only rainy weekend of the winter, which forced postponement.  Now he’s tied up on a big job but hopefully will squeeze mine in over the next week or two.

Categories
Drawing Faces Ink and watercolor wash Life in general Painting People Self Portrait Sketchbook Pages

Coffee and Me

Coffee with Pre-Trip To Do List
Coffee with To Do List

I’m back from my fantastic, amazing, intense week-long portrait workshop with Rose Frantzen, the best teacher I’ve ever had, in Scottsdale, Arizona. I will share my experiences once I have fully processed them and recovered my blogging mojo.

Meanwhile, I’m going through caffeine withdrawal again. After months with zero caffeine I needed extra energy to paint 8 hours a day on little sleep for a week. First it was just a morning cup of green tea, then black tea, then an afternoon diet Coke, and by the last day,  a morning cup of bad coffee AND the diet Coke in the afternoon. Now, after two days of withdrawal migraines, hopefully I’m over the worst of it. And it was worth it.

Self portrait with grey sweatshirt, ink & watercolor, 7x5"
Self portrait with grey sweatshirt, ink & watercolor, 7x5"

I felt like sketching and the mirror was handy so why not draw myself, cozy in my gray sweats. My grandma Gertie had a “house dress” she wore all the time at home and out back to hang her laundry. Just a yellow cotton smock that snapped up the front. I have my “house sweats” that I wear when I’m at home. So comfy and warm.

Categories
Drawing Life in general People Subway drawings

Subway Sketches and Exploding Head Decisions

Subway heads 1, ink in Small Moleskine sketchbook
Subway heads on way to work, ink in Small Moleskine sketchbook

It’s appropriate to be posting sketches of heads since mine feels like it might explode if I have to make one more decision! There is so much going on in my little life right now, and so many important and non-important choices to make that my brain wants to go on strike.

Some of the decisions have to do with traveling with oil paints for the first time to the Rose Frantzen 5-day workshop in Arizona in early February (ship supplies by UPS or USPS? risk checking paints in my suitcase? how to get wet paintings home? live-in or drop-by cat sitter while I’m gone? plus all the travel worries a homebody like me can drum up).

Subway heads 2, ink in small Moleskine sketchbook
Subway heads on way to San Francisco, ink in small Moleskine sketchbook

The guy on the left above was actually standing right above me on the subway and interested in what I had been drawing, posed for me. He was nice enough to say he liked it. I wanted to tell him I’d fallen in love with his chin, but figured that would be stupid.

Subway 3, Waiting
Subway people waiting, drawing slowly

Other decisions I’m dealing with have to do with some remodeling of my duplex to prepare the back unit (currently my studio) as a rental unit, replacing both kitchen/pantry/laundry room floors, moving my studio out to the new former-garage studio (easier now thanks to space planning help from my sister the amazing interior designer), and lots of sorting and getting rid of stuff to prepare for the moves.

And all the above lead to leaving my half-time day job and getting to paint full-time. But of course there are decisions related to that too, like when to take the leap, currently planned for about a year from now.

I’m grateful these decisions are all about happy, exciting, positive changes. But even happy things can be stressful. There’s even a word for that: eustress.

eustress: noun.  Stress that is deemed healthful or giving one the feeling of fulfillment. From Greek: eu ‘well, good’ + stress, modeled on distress

The trick for me is to just make each decision once and not rethink it. Decide. Done. Next. I’m getting there.

Categories
Ink and watercolor wash Interiors Life in general People at Work Sketchbook Pages Urban Sketchers

What I Learned About Art and Life in 2011

Pastime Hardware After Dark, ink & watercolor, 5x7"
Pastime Hardware After Dark, ink & watercolor, 5x7"

Before I get to my reflections on art and life in 2011, a word or two about the sketch above (and below) from our evening at the hardware store. I stood and sketched between the paint solvent and cleaning product aisles (both stinky), using an aisle-end shelf for my paints.

Same Pastime sketch before adding the dark in the windows
Same Pastime sketch before adding the dark in the windows

When we finished and shared our work, I realized that in the original sketch above, I ignored the fact that it was dark outside. So when I got home I painted all the windows dark. I’m not sure which I like better. What do you think?

Accomplishments and Things Learned in 2011

STUDIO

  • Converted a 440 square foot garage into my new studio including a patio door onto a deck off the studio, insulation, sheet rock, flooring, electrical, and water. Once I have everything moved in I’ll post the story with pictures.

PUBLICATIONS:

ART-LIFE

  • After a brief (and briefly successful) venture into painting things to sell, returned to following my whims and inspiration instead of worrying about making work that would sell. This led to the series of 16×20 portraits of people at work in my community, now well underway.
  • Learned from Rose Frantzen video (see clip here) to say “Oops, made a mistake…but that’s ok I can fix it!” instead of “Now I ruined it!” followed by self-critical name calling. It’s downright liberating!
  • Realized that while I value and enjoy many different artists’ styles and techniques, I’ll never be as good as them at painting like them so I’m focusing on painting like me instead, which I can get good at.
  • Learned to ask myself, “What do I want to do with art today,” and doing that, not what some imaginary critic or the illusion of an audience is demanding that I should be doing.
  • I heard Robert Genn say that one’s style is often the thing one doesn’t do right, that it’s your mistakes or the rules you break that make it yours. I’m learning to relish and appreciate my wonkiness. Perfect is boring.
  • When someone plays piano and finishes a tune, there’s nothing left, just quiet. Why not paint that way too, focused on the line, the brush stroke…enjoy the process and let go of the product.

TECHNIQUE AND MATERIALS

  • Abandoned water-soluble oils and acrylics for regular oils after learning from my friend Kathryn Law how to reduce the use of toxic chemicals and still get the consistency I like.
  • Started watercolor sketching instead of oil painting at plein air paintouts to quickly capture a scene and keep moving instead of standing in one spot for hours while the light changes completely.
  • Tried a bunch of different pens, from expensive Namiki Falcon fountain pen that I didn’t love (sold it) and inexpensive uni-ball Vision Roller Ball, but returned to my favorite, Lamy Safari Extra Fine Point Fountain Pen with Carbon Platinum ink. Both hold up well on the watercolor paper I use in my journals.

STUDY/WORKSHOPS:

  • Registered for a week-long Alla Prima Portraiture class with Rose Frantzen at Scottsdale Artists School in February 2012. (So excited!!!) It is way out of my comfort zone (and budget) but I adore her work  and her book, Portrait of Maquoketa and she is a fabulous teacher.
  • Took a 3-day workshop with Peggi Kroll-Roberts in her studio after studying her series of CDs. Learned how to mix/use juicy luscious paint and more. She said I needed to work on my drawing.
  • Studying the Loomis books Drawing the Head and Hands and Figure Drawing for All It’s Worth to improve my people-drawing skills. Unlike a painting of a pear which can succeed even if the drawing is a bit off, a portrait will fail. It may still be an interesting painting, just not of the person you’re painting.

SKETCHING AND BOOKBINDING

  • Continued to sketch nearly every Tuesday night with my Urban Sketchers group and regularly sketch my world. As a group we have committed to a sketch a day in January.
  • Finally mastered binding journals using the method in my directions and can create a journal in a few hours instead of days.
  • To mix things up I switched to a Moleskine when I finished the last journal and am already missing my handmade sketchbooks with their really nice multimedia paper.

ART BUSINESS/SALES

  • Made the decision to wait until I leave my day job in a year to put effort into art biz/marketing and just concentrate on painting until then.
  • Sold a number of paintings early in the year on DailyPaintWorks.  Recently sold a sketch of Der Wienerschnitzel for their corporate collection.

BLOGGING

  • Found balance by prioritizing making art and living life above blogging about it.
  • Celebrated my six-year blogging anniversary with 180,000 views in 2011 (982,746 total); 141 new posts (total 1,004) and 418 pictures uploaded in 2011.
  • Posted regularly and administered the Urban Sketchers S.F. Bay Area blog.
  • Regularly follow about 30-50 other art blogs.
Categories
Art supplies Bookbinding Ink and watercolor wash Life in general Painting Sketchbook Pages

How to Turn Potato Chips Into a Sketchbook

Foil bag of potato chips, ink & watercolor, 5x7"
Foil bag of potato chips reflecting on red cloth, ink & watercolor, 5x7"

When my friend Mindy sent me a fun little gift box of potato chips (which were invented in her town, Saratoga Springs, in 1853–read funny history here), I was smitten by the cute box (photo below). Then I opened the box, saw the foil inner pouch and had to try to draw it (sketch above, on a red cloth).

Box of Saratoga Springs Chips
Box of Saratoga Springs Chips

The box was charming, a replica of their original packaging from 1853. I remembered seeing  journals created from packaging on the fabulous Make a Book a Day blog where Donna Meyer binds and posts a new book almost every day. In August she did a whole series of recycled packaging books, from KitKats and Snowballs to root beer books.

Saratoga Chips Journal front cover
Saratoga Chips Journal front cover

So I grabbed a sheet of Stonehenge Kraft-brown paper and the excellent Gwen Diehn book Real Life Journals: Designing & Using Handmade Books to find out how to make a pamphlet book and got started.

Continue reading “How to Turn Potato Chips Into a Sketchbook”
Categories
Art supplies Drawing Flower Art Ink and watercolor wash Life in general Painting Rose Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Will You Accept This Rose? (War of the Roses Part II)

Will You Accept This Rose? Yes, Finally. Watercolor, 7x5"
Will You Accept This Rose? Yes, Finally. Watercolor, 7x5"

After all the struggles of the previous day, I was determined to succeed in painting a rose and decided to give myself a break. First I rearranged the colors in the palette, putting them in my prefered, mostly color-wheel order instead of helter skelter as they were, and replaced several colors (see below for color chart).

Revised Schmincke Palette chart
Revised Schmincke Palette chart

(WN=Winsor Newton, S=Schmincke, DS= Daniel Smith, H=Holbein):

Top Row: WN Transparent Yellow, S Cadmium Yellow Light, DS New Gamboge, S Cadmium Red Light, WN Permanent Alizarin, WN Permanent Rose.

Middle Row: WN Violet, S Ultramarine, WN Cobalt Blue, H Cerulean Blue, WN Winsor Blue, DS Indanthrone Blue.

Bottom Row: S Thalo Green, WN Sap Green, S Yellow Ochre, WN Burnt Sienna, DS Indigo, S Titanium White (the latter will probably be removed since I’ve never successfully been able to incorporate white into watercolors).

Second to Last Rose Test, ink & watercolor
Second to Last Rose Test, ink & watercolor

The other thing I did to give myself a break was that after I made the second to last rose sketch above from life, I decided to work from a photo of the rose.

Continue reading “Will You Accept This Rose? (War of the Roses Part II)”
Categories
Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Life in general Painting Places Sketchbook Pages Urban Sketchers

K-9 Unit, Paramedics and Fire Truck at El Cerrito Plaza

K-9 Unit, Paramedics and Fire Truck, ink & watercolor, 7x5"
K-9 Unit, Paramedics and Fire Truck, ink & watercolor, 7x5"

The parking lot at El Cerrito Plaza was filled with police cars, fire trucks, hazmat vans and other emergency responders when I walked up there to do errands Saturday. Contrary to my sketch above, which looks like a police car crashed into an ambulance (thanks to a little drawing flaw), it turned out to be the annual Tri-City Safety Day.

I sat on the curb and sketched while cops, firemen and other public safety people handed out fire hats, pencils and buttons to kids who got to climb on police motorcycles and fire trucks, and explore the DUI checkpoint trailer.

The K9 patrol car was off limits when I was there, as King was standing guard inside, barking if you got too close. I heard that earlier he’d been out and available for petting but I bet the huge German Shepherd scared off more kids than enticed them.

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Berkeley Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Life in general People Places Sketchbook Pages Urban Sketchers

4th Street Berkeley Sketches during New Apple Store Grand Opening

This Old Band on 4th Street, 7x5", ink & watercolor
This Old Band performing on 4th Street, 7x5", ink & watercolor
Waiting in Line at Apple, Waiting to Play in Front of Peets, 2 page spread
Waiting in Line at Apple, Waiting to Play in Front of Peet's, 2 page spread

When the new Apple Store opened in Berkeley, I played hooky from my plein air group’s scheduled paint out and went down to 4th Street in pursuit of sketching opportunities and one of the free t-shirts Apple was giving out to the first 1,000 customers.

When I arrived an hour after the grand opening, the line was barely one block long and moving quickly. By the time I sketched a few people and balloons (above) I was in the store. I got my shirt, bought a gizmo for my gadget and went across the street to Peet’s Coffee.

This Old Band
This Old Band playing on 4th Street

I enjoyed an iced coffee at a sunny table on their front patio as “This Old Band” set up to play. The music was wonderful, with a sweet, sensitive, gentle feel to it including some Otis Redding, The Drifters and other great oldies played by talented musicians.

There were some interesting (?) conversations going on around me.

Peet's Patio People, ink & watercolor, 7x5"
Peet's Patio People, ink & watercolor, 7x5"

This guy was actually sitting at a table with another woman beside him on his right blabbing away, but he seemed more interested in this one.

A chubby, balding, dorky-looking, baby-boomer guy sitting behind me pompously talked non-stop about his life as a rock star and the book he was writing about it. His wife never said a word, and the guy he was talking to was obviously someone he was paying to help him with the book, though he barely got a word in either.

After dropping dozens of famous stars’ names who he supposedly shared a life with, he admitted it was “Better to be a Has Been than a Never Been.”

Categories
Colored pencil art Life in general Sketchbook Pages

Time Is Like Toothpaste (Or Paint); A Tube of Birthday

Tube of Birthday, Ink and colored pencil, 12x9"
Tube of Birthday, Ink and colored pencil, 12x9"

I have a very tenuous grasp on time. I always think I can do more in the allotted time than is possible and then I end up rushing to avoid being late (usually unsuccessfully). This “time grandiosity” I suffer from also means I start the day, a weekend, or in the case of the drawing above, my birthday vacation, with a sense of infinite time. And then suddenly the time is gone and I’m shocked and dismayed.

I always thought of time as passing on its own until I read this article at the beginning of my birthday vacation, How to Actively Take Control of Your Time, which compares time to a tube of toothpaste.

Unlike a stream running or sand falling in an hourglass, toothpaste does not simply come out of a tube on its own – we force it out and use it up…Time does not fly by – rather, we push minutes, hours and days out of our finite toothpaste tube of life.  ~ Sid Savara

So at the beginning of my vacation (back in June) I drew the tube of paint (seemed more appropriate than toothpaste) and marked off what I did each day. I paid attention to the choices I was making about how I squeezed out that day’s “paint.”

What about you? Do you choose how you squeeze out the hours of your life or do you feel like time is squirting by on its own?

Categories
Building Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Landscape Life in general Painting Photos Places Sketchbook Pages

Port Costa Post Office and Bikers

Port Costa Post Office, ink and watercolor, 5x7"
Port Costa Post Office, ink and watercolor, 5x7"

Port Costa is a strange, tiny, rundown town and a popular destination for motorcyclists out riding the winding roads in herds on noisy Harleys. At the end of  town, by the railroad tracks and behind their cracked and crumbling Post Office I sketched above, is the Warehouse Cafe, a seedy bar in a ramshackle warehouse with cheap, stiff drinks, a funky outdoor deck, and a surly female bartender (perfectly described in this collection of hilarious Yelp reviews).

Port Costa Bikers Saddling Up
Port Costa Bikers Saddling Up in Front of Post Office

The bikers roar into town, have themselves a breakfast beer or two and ride out. While they seemed like a bunch of  tough, old burn-out guys with beer guts and women who looked “rode hard and put away wet,” they were very polite when I asked them questions about their (very expensive) bikes.

Bikers Lining up to Leave (Arrow is where I was sitting to sketch)
Bikers Lining up to Leave (Arrow is where I was sitting to sketch)

It turned out that the corner where I was sketching (red arrow in photo) is where they line up before tearing out of town in a caravan of ear-splitting noise, leaving behind a cloud of flying dust and gravel from the barely paved road. I had to pull my sweatshirt over my face and plug my ears every time a group tore off. My friend Beth Bourland posted some great pics of the day here including one of me so focused sketching I didn’t even know she took the picture.

Besides the bikers, it’s a fun place to paint so my plein air group meets there once a year. And then same thing always happens: we set up for our critique on the patio at the Warehouse Bar and just as we start to talk about the day’s work, they crank up the music on the outdoor speakers so loud that we can’t hear a thing and have to move all our stuff down the street to a quieter spot. Is it a coincidence? Does their music always go full blast at 1:15? Or are they trying to keep away the wrong sort of customers (us)?