Category: Painting

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Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Life in general Painting Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Found on a Walk

Found on a walk #1, Ink & watercolor
Found on a walk #1, Ink & watercolor in large Moleskine watercolor book

One of the advantages of a semi-urban neighborhood is the wealth of detritus that can be found on a walk to bring home and draw. Near the end of my daily walk is the “cat house”: a mossy, old cottage on the edge of small “urban park” (empty lot with grass). The homeowner is a kind soul who feeds the cats who live in the “park”. She also puts out bags of unwanted “free” stuff.

My first find of the day was one of those “free” bags—full of books in great condition. I selected the above, a 1963 edition of “You Can Draw” with dust jacket intact, Joan Didion’s “Year of Magical Thinking” which I’ve been wanting to read, and a funky old edition of “Everything that Rises Must Converge” by Flannery O’Connor. I appreciated the title’s nod to perspective drawing and a quick browse of the book intrigued me to read more.

The little symbols around the edge of the sketchbook page above were my experiments to create a little signature/date symbol after seeing the marks that some of the artists in “An Illustrated Life” used in their sketchbooks.

Found on a Walk #2, Ink & watercolor
Found on a Walk #2, Ink & watercolor in large Moleskine watercolor book

When I’m walking I’m attracted to shiny things and remants of life I find on the ground. These bits include the seemingly racist “Pancho Lopez” wrapper for a pre-paid phone card, a losing lotto ticket, a claim check for “Latham Square” and a piece of a dog-walker ad.

Found on a Walk #3, Ink & Watercolor
Found on a Walk #3, Ink & Watercolor in large Moleskine watercolor book

Lastly, some holiday remains: a bit of an already abandoned Christmas tree, a piece of fluff from a Santa hat or stocking (?), fall foliage and some little seed pods.

It was a great walk; a bit blustery and it started to sprinkle as I reached home, ready for a hot cup of coffee and the drawing table.

Categories
Animals Drawing Dreams Ink and watercolor wash Painting Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Dreamt a Peacock Wanted My Beaded Bag

Peacock Harassment Dream
Peacock Harassment Dream

I dreamt I was being harassed by a peacock who wanted my antique beaded bag that Steve’s mom gave me 33 years ago (where is that bag now?). In the dream I was carrying the little bag inside a big purse. The beaded bag is in peacock colors and that bird was determined he (?) would get the bag. I finally stood up to the big bird and said “Go home!” and he went to the house across the street.

I followed him and knocked on the door, prepared to ask them to keep their dangerous peacock at home. A lovely Persian woman opened the door and I could see the house was full of Persian women and children having some sort of daycare cooperative. I know that Persia is now Iran, but in my dream they were Persian.

I can’t even begin to fathom what this dream was about!

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Drawing Every Day Matters Ink and watercolor wash Life in general Painting Plein Air Sketchbook Pages Still Life Watercolor

Sketchcrawl of a Day: Racing to Complete Sketchbooks by January 1

Bedside Table Morning
Bedside Table with Coffee & "An Illustrated Life" - Morning
morning walk
DeLuxe Parked - morning walk
Midday
Poodle Waiting at Trader Joes, El Cerrito - Midday
Busby Napping After Dinner
Busby Annoyed, Trying to Nap - After Dinner
Fiona "As Seen on TV" Evening
Fiona "As Seen on TV" (literally) - Evening
Messy Desk - Evening
Messy Desk - Late Evening

I challenged myself to do a sketchcrawl of my day, making a 10 minute drawing (almost) every hour, wherever I was at the moment.  I was surprised by how many times during the day I saw things I’d like to draw. But I waited for my timer to tell me,  “Now!” and then started drawing.  If I was out and about, I added the watercolor at home in the evening.

Reading Danny Gregory’s book, An Illustrated Life,  inspired me to get back to my sketchbooks which I’d been neglecting while I focused on oil painting this past year. As a result of that neglect, I had half a dozen unfinished sketchbooks that I’ve challenged myself to complete by the end of the year. Hence the sketchcrawl above (and more to come as the year draws to a close, or should I say, “as I draw the year (and my sketchbooks) to a close!

More sketching = more fun!

Categories
Life in general Painting Watercolor

Wind Up Angel Dressed for Christmas

Guardian Angel, Watermedia, 8x8"
Angel, Watermedia on Arches paper, 8x8"

My sister has great parking karma. She deeply believes there will always be a parking place for her, and there is. She gave me this little wind-up “parking karma angel” that I keep on my dashboard, along with my Boy Scout “Finding My Way” badge (that I bought at a Boy Scout store I happened upon) since I’m notorious for getting lost. The angel has a knob on the back and if you wind it up, her wings flap and she grants you a parking space.

Perhaps she can also grant New Years or Christmas wishes. Send me your wishes and I’ll wind her up for you.  Be sure and let me know if they come true!

About the painting:

I placed a turquoise cloth beneath her and draped a red one to her side, making her silvery gown and wings reflect all that color back.  I wanted to paint her in oils but decided to do watercolor first. Since I still haven’t  gotten around to replacing my masking fluid (which had turned into a solid lump), I tried preserving the whites but didn’t completely succeed. So I tried recapturing them with gouache (came out greyish), then acrylic (too cool, too bright white) and finally used some latex interior house paint that I’d previously had matched to the color of my Arches watercolor paper. It worked well and matched the preserved whites.

I took photos of Angel Baby (what I call her) with different colored cloths and some of them were quite dramatic. I’m going to try painting her again with some of those other colored cloths.

Happy Holidays!

Categories
Life in general Painting Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

What Makes Sweaters Itchy?

Itchy Sweater Bugs, Ink & Watercolor
Itchy Sweater Bugs, Ink & Watercolor

This used to be my favorite sweater but I hadn’t worn it in a few years. When I discovered it hiding in my sweater drawer I  decided to wear it out to dinner last night.  I put it on and was surprised how short the sleeves were. I couldn’t remember whether they were originally 3/4 length (a stupid style I’ve never understood) or if they just shrunk. The rest of the sweater fit fine so I tried lengthening the sleeves by pulling on them which didn’t create a truly attractive look. One stretched longer and one stretched wider for some reason.

It was a cold night and I figured it would mostly be covered with a jacket so I left it on and went off to dine. Within minutes of leaving the house I started itching. First there was a scratchy tag tickling my side. Then it started feeling like a circus of tiny tickle bugs with little claws were dancing around inside the sweater, tickling me everywhere and driving me crazy. I didn’t want to scratch myself constantly so tried raising and lowering my shoulders which sort of rubbed the sweater against me and was better than doing nothing.

I couldn’t wait to get home. Fortunately, after a short postprandial stroll, my dining companion and I parted ways. I pulled that hideous sweater over my head, put on my pajamas and hung the sweater over my drawing table for its good-bye painting and a little illustration of those pesky (usually invisible) sweater tickle bugs dancing around as they do.

Then I put it in the to-be-donated bag. I’m not sure whether donating it is a kindness or a crime.

Categories
Art supplies Every Day Matters Ink and watercolor wash Sketchbook Pages Still Life Watercolor

Salad Remains with Danny: Finishing Sketchbooks

Salad Remains with Danny's Book (ink & watercolor)
Salad Remains with Danny's Book (ink & watercolor)

I was feasting my eyes on Danny Gregory‘s new book, “An Illustrated Life” while I was eating a delicious salad in my big yellow salad bowl for lunch today. When I finished eating I had to sketch the colorful remains. The first drawing didn’t work (partially seen on the previous sketchbook page above), though I took it as far as I could and then drew it again and painted it (happily using up two pages in this sketchbook I don’t like).

I love reading about all the other sketchbook artists in Danny’s book and the way they think about sketching and their sketchbooks. It inspired me to finally finish off all of the random sketchbooks I have going. I have at least half a dozen unfinished sketchbooks, some that I’ve made (like the one used above) and some that I’ve bought. I keep them in a special open box and grab the one that calls to me.

There are several that I don’t like for a variety of reasons (e.g. don’t like the paper, don’t like the dimensions, don’t lay flat, don’t scan well, too fancy…) and they’ve been partially used and abandoned. I’m making it my goal to fill them all by January 1 so that I can put them on a shelf and start working in one book at a time in a chronological order. I like order.

Categories
Ink and watercolor wash Other Art Blogs I Read Sketchbook Pages Still Life Watercolor

Not Wood Roses

Wood Roses or Pine Cones? (ink & watercolor)
Wood Roses or Pine Cones? (ink & watercolor)

I found these taking a walk (I was walking, not these thingees) which I thought might be called Wood Roses…but I looked it up and learned that Woodrose is “a parasitic plant endemic to New Zealand.”  Since these fell from a pine tree in Berkeley, they’re definitely not woodrose, but they do look like Wood Roses!

Categories
Faces Ink and watercolor wash Life in general Painting People Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Sketching as an Antidote to Insanity

Marcy calling home, ink & watercolor
Marcy calling home from Mom's porch, ink & watercolor

It wasn’t an easy weekend in L.A. visiting family but sketching really helped me to avoid going completely bonkers. There were some lovely moments: walking on the beach in the misty morning with my sister Marcy, taking a tour with Mom and Marce of an historic house (now a museum) in Santa Monica where a huge retrospective of Milford Zorne‘s amazing paintings were on display (more about that in another post).

Mom cooking stinky cabbage, ink & watercolor
Mom cooking stinky cabbage, ink & watercolor

My 85 year old mother doesn’t cook much anymore, but she got inspired to make Pracas (sweet and sour meatballs in cabbage).  But despite not having some of the ingredients or being able to see the recipe in the cookbook well enough to follow it, and despite the jar of ancient fossilized onion flakes she substituted for the actual onion in the recipe (demanding that I use a sharp knife to break the clump up so it could be extracted from the jar), and the house stinking like cabbage all afternoon, dinner wasn’t that bad, really.

Guy sleeping holding his boarding pass; hanging out at Mom's
Guy sleeping holding his boarding pass at Oakland airport; hanging out at Mom's
Grateful for my pen & sketchbook
Grateful for my sketchbook

It’s amazing how sketching can calm my nerves and put the whole dysfunctional family thing at a distance while still being physically present.

Josh reading
Josh reading

It’s really good to be back home.

Categories
Oil Painting Painting Sketchbook Pages Still Life

Pile Of Persimmons

Pile of Persimmons, Oil on Gessobord, 8x8"
Pile of Persimmons, Oil on Gessobord, 8x8"

This was so pleasurable to paint. I experimented with doing an underpainting in acrylic first to put in the darks without having to wait for paint to dry. Then I tried to focus on values and color temperature, but  I think I got sidetracked by all the interesting shapes of light, color, reflections and hazy surfaces  (they were organic persimmons and some of the skin had a kind of filminess like blueberries have).

I’m also working on trying to see and mix just the right color of paint, and apply strokes once (instead of guessing, putting paint down, scraping it off, trying again). Last night when I realized I’d been painting for an hour with dirty brushes and not mixing specific colors but just using random paint left on the palette I dragged myself away from the easel and went to bed, finishing the painting this afternoon.

I’m pretty happy with this one but would like to try again getting closer with color temperature changes and stronger values. Below are the steps I took along the way, including a change in composition. Although I liked the rich dark in the corner, it was drawing too much attention to itself.

If you click on one thumbnail you’ll be taken to a big picture with another thumbnail to click to go to the next.

Categories
Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Life in general Other Art Blogs I Read Outdoors/Landscape Painting People Photos Plein Air Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Sketching with Martha & Shirley (St. Patrick’s San Francisco)

St. Patrick's Church, ink & watercolor 8x6"
St. Patrick's Church, San Francisco, ink & watercolor 8x6"

Shirley (Paper and Threads) was visiting San Francisco this week and Martha (Trumpetvine) and I had the pleasure of spending the afternoon sketching with her in the park. Poor St. Patrick’s Catholic Church isn’t really falling over despite the many earthquakes it has weathered over the years. It’s just my usual wonky drawing. Martha and Shirley will post their drawings on their own blogs eventually but here is a snapshot of our work lined up together.

Shirley's, Jana's and Martha's sketches
Shirley's, Jana's and Martha's sketches

And here we are lined up, with me a head taller and trying to take a photo and holding my iPhone at arm’s length.

Jana, Martha and Shirley
Jana, Martha and Shirley

We were joined virtually on our little art blogger sketchcrawl by phone  from Lisa in Texas and via Facebook (where I posted an update and photo while we were sketching) by Marta (MARTa’s Art) and EJ (Rose-Anglais) .

After sitting on cold concrete steps to sketch we were ready to warm up. We walked back to Shirley’s hotel, and she treated us to a glass of wine on the 39th floor of the Mariott Hotel (also known as the “Jukebox” building because of its unique architecture). Here’s the view from the bar just before sunset.

View from the hotel bar
View from the Marriott Hotel bar

It was such a treat to spend a Friday afternoon with these two very talented and beautiful women.  After the sun set in golds and pinks, and the lights of the city came on, I had to leave while they went off in search of dinner.  I BARTed to Oakland for the monthly Friday night “Art Murmur” gallery walk where my sister and niece had pieces in a show. Walking from BART I passed the grand old Paramount Theatre and set my camera to “burst” mode so I could capture the changing lights of the neon marquis.

Paramount 5
Paramount 1
Paramount 4
Paramount 2
Paramount 3
Paramount 3
Paramount 2
Paramount 4