Category: Painting

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Other Art Blogs I Read Outdoors/Landscape Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Worldwide Sketchcrawl 14 – San Francisco

SketchcrawlSF3

Ink and watercolor in small Moleskine watercolor notebook
To enlarge images, click picture then select All Sizes

Saturday was the 14th Worldwide Sketchcrawl and I attended the one in San Francisco. We met at the Ferry Building around elevenish (people straggled in for about an hour and then we finally left to walk up the Filbert Steps (straight up a huge hill with cute, old, little multi-million dollar cottages perched on it). This is the same area where the movie The Parrots of Telegraph Hill was filmed. The picture above is looking up at the porch on one of those cottages.

SketchcrawlSF2

Next we hiked further uphill to Coit Tower where I drew the view above, looking down at the Ferry Building (the clock tower) in the distance and the Bay Bridge behind that. I was starving–lunch had gotten pushed back a couple hours since people didn’t seem to be trying to follow the planned schedule so I bought an “Its It” ice cream sandwich in the gift shop at Coit Tower. Unfortunately a big piece of chocolate fell off and melted all over my favorite green t-shirt, which I didn’t notice until later.

SketchcrawlSF4

From there we walked to North Beach and met in Washington Square Park. I drew the bell tower on top of the cathedral across from the park (above) while laying on my back in the grass, listening to blasting 70s disco music and the generator powering the loudspeakers. A Communist Party group (mostly clean-cut college kids) were having a May Day celebration with red banners, red shirts, red cups for their drinks. On the other corner of the park a Jesus group set up their own stage and speakers and made random religious announcements.

This was a great day in San Francisco, perfect sunny weather and a festive atmosphere everywhere. One of the highlights of my day was finally meeting the wonderful Martha of Trumpetvine Travels. It was a delight seeing her drawings in person in her custom made sketchbook (that she gives directions how to make on her blog). I had so much fun hanging out, chatting, drawing and hiking with her. We had lunch in a deli near Washington Square and when we learned that people were going to stay at the noisy park another half hour, we decided to move on to Chinatown (next stop on the crawl) where I drew the building below.

SketchcrawlSF5

I know it’s wonky. I started with the part that interested me and just kept drawing with ink until I ran out of space. While I drew one corner of the building Martha drew the whole interesting street with hanging lanterns, and all the different shaped buildings. It should be interesting to compare our drawings since we did all the same subjects, but in our own styles. Chinatown was packed with amazing sights, sounds, smells, and way too many people to find a spot to sketch until we reached the outskirts and found a bench to rest on. We hiked back to the Ferry Building to do one more sketch but once we were there realized we were too tired and called it a day. A very good day!

Categories
Drawing Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

One Year in the Blogosphere

Hammer and lemon

Watercolor in Aquabee Sketchbook 6×9
To enlarge, click image, select All Sizes

Today is the last day of my first year of blogging. I’d hoped to finish the year off with a bang but a combination of day-job overload, exhaustion and aches and pains prevented me from posting the past few days.

I’m hoping that tomorrow (Saturday) I’ll feel up to joining the 14th Worldwide Sketchcrawl in San Francisco. My former watercolor teacher and dear friend Susan is planning to be there and I’m looking forward to seeing her too and having some good sketches to share on my blog.

I’m also doing a lot of thinking about my goals and intentions for my blog and my artwork in general for year two of my sketchblog. More about that on my blog birthday tomorrow.

Here are some blog statistics for the year ending today:
Blog Stats
Total Views: 103,329
Best Day Ever: 703
Posts: 287
Comments: 3,017
Spam comments caught and prevented: 17,625

Categories
Photos Studio Watercolor

In the studio & Wanna be tagged?

Studio - Work in Progress 2

A watercolor in progress (about 1/3 done) on my watercolor table with my helpers standing by, waiting to help (or get in the way). This is a commissioned portrait of a house with the family’s 3 cats in the window.

Studio - Work in Progress 1

An acrylic painting in progress on my easel in the opposite corner of the room.

If you click on the pictures to look at them on Flickr you’ll see little notes of what stuff is.

Tagged

Now, about this tagging business. This week I’ve been “tagged” by three different art bloggers. When you get tagged you’re supposed to list seven little known facts about yourself and then list seven blogs you like to visit and then tell each of those people they’ve been tagged. It’s sort of like a chain letter. Since I don’t know who’s already been tagged, and since I was tagged 3 times in 3 days, I have a feeling people are running out of people to tag…which makes me feel a little like I did in high school gym class where I was always the last to be picked for a team since I was such a klutz.

So instead of tagging other people, I’m going to invite people to be tagged. That way I won’t be imposing on anyone and won’t re-tag already tagged people. Will I get in trouble for breaking the chain? If you want to play and haven’t been tagged yet, just leave me a comment and I’ll toss you a tag…

Here are the 7 random facts about me:

1. I live in a house that used to be a duplex so I have 2 living/dining room rooms, 2 kitchens, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and 2 laundry rooms. (One living/dining room/kitchen is my studio and 1 laundry room is a pantry now.)

2. I have two cats who sleep on top of my computer monitor and tv with their tail hanging over the screen.

3. I love doing dishes and cleaning the cat litter box but dislike doing other housework because it takes too long.

4. I like to read manuals for computer software and electronic gadgets and I subscribe to PC Magazine.

5. I hate shopping for clothes but love shopping for art supplies and books.

6. I download books from Audible.com to my computer and iPod and listen to them while I watercolor (but oil or acrylic painting I listen to music).

7. I have a spinning bike (exercise bike) in my living room and I like to ride it while watching American Idol on my TiVo with the sound played through my stereo.

And here are links to the lovely artists who tagged me:

Claudia of Time Passages whose garden sketches are sensational!

Kerstin Klein of Snowflakes and Black Vampires who has been participating in the portrait party where people trade doing each other’s portraits.

Dinahmow (sounds like “Dynamo”) of Idle Thoughts of an Idle Woman  whose printmaking and photography is stunning.

So, I know I’ve done this all wrong. I haven’t listed 7 new tagged people…but I’m tossing the ball to you and calling out TAG, You’re IT.  If you wanna be tagged, just leave me a comment and I’ll link you in the next post.

Categories
Illustration Friday Painting Sketchbook Pages Still Life Watercolor

Illustration Friday: Citrus (leathery old lemon)

Citrus (old lemon)

Watercolor on Arches paper, 10×8″. To enlarge, click image, select All Sizes

I hadn’t planned on doing Illustration Friday today but when I saw that the topic was Citrus I remembered the giant old lemon from a co-worker’s tree that’s been in my fridge for a week. I’ve been squeezing it on veges and into salad dressings and it was still going strong, though a bit squished. I’m not sure how this rendition ended up being so not-lemon colored. I should have stopped painting sooner though I like the way the little scalloped plate turned out. Too bad the topic isn’t little blue plates.

Last night a combination of back pain and a prank caller ringing my phone five times made for a bad night. This morning I called the number back (thanks to good old caller id) and told off the guy whose house it was. Apparently it was a 10 year old girl fooling around with the phone (but why was she up phoning me at 2:30, 3:30, 5:30, 6:30, and 7:30?). I’ve now blocked their number in case she tries again! Argh! I’m off to try for a better night’s sleep.

Categories
Dreams Painting People Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Drawing dreams: Like being a kid again

Dream-Shirley & Curious George

(above) I dreamt that Shirley (from Everyday Matters) was a graphic designer who had done the covers for some Curious George books that were being published by the organization I work for. I thought of her in the dream as Shirley hemend (the last name is actually part of her email address and it was lower case in the dream too).

Drawing dreams is so much fun. It’s just like being a kid again, sitting around like I used to with crayons and scrap paper drawing whatever came to mind next, like the people in the picture below. Except for me and the singer, the rest of the people just appeared randomly: a guy with a bozo haircut behind the singer, the old lady beside her, a guy with a beret and lady with a big hat, all just random people floating around in my subconscious waiting for a chance to come hang out for awhile.

Dream - Goofy singer

(above) Dreamt I was in a big meeting room at work where a young goofy looking singer-songwriter guy was singing a song so beautiful and heartbreaking that it brought tears to my eyes and I fell in love with him — until I realized he was too young. I’m always 25 in my dreams and then at the end I remember I’m more than twice that.

Dream-Butterflies

(above) Dreamt that Leah and I were on the hike we took Saturday where we saw so many beautiful butterflies, but this time there were hundreds instead of dozens.

All images ink & watercolor in Handbook Company Journal.
To enlarge, click images, select “All Sizes”

Categories
Every Day Matters Painting Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Marbles Again

Marbles

Watercolor on Arches 140 lb cold press paper 8×10″
To enlarge, click image, select All Sizes

I was determined to try again with the marbles. I just wasn’t happy with the previous version that I painted when I was way too tired. I’m not satisfied with this one either, and will try again for the fresh transparency I’m wanting to capture.

Marbles present an interesting challenge — they’re glass, reflective, transparent and round. And it’s even more challenging when a big cat named Busby insists on sitting with his chin on top of the cigar box (covered by a paper towel) on which the marbles are perched. He kept bumping them off or blocking the light, making the reflections from the window keep changing.

I’m not sure if he’s attracted to the little halogen lamp I use on still life set ups that gets nice and warm, or just to annoying me. I finally put a sketchbook between the box and the cat so that he could at least rest his head on something of mine while keeping his distance from the marbles.

On the other hand, this gives me an idea. Next time I want to draw him I’ll set up a still life and then ignore it and capture him instead while he’s actually holding still for a minute. (He actually holds still much of the day, snoozing on a blanket in the closet but it’s too dark in there to draw.)

Categories
Every Day Matters Glass Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

EDM 117 – Draw Something Round (Marbles)

EDM-Something Round

Watercolor in Aquabee 6×9 sketchbook
To enlarge, click image, select All Sizes

All day at work (which has been insanely busy lately) I was thinking about coming home and painting some marbles for this week’s Everyday Matters challenge – Draw Something Round. But I worked until 7:30 pm and then by the time I’d cooked dinner and eaten it was 9:00 p.m. I decided to give it a go anyway. The best thing that came out of it was the fun my cats had chasing marbles around the studio. I should have drawn that!

My intention was to be loose and fresh but I guess I was just too tired. Also, I decided a month or so ago that any watercolor painting I do at home would be on watercolor paper instead of  sketchbook paper since it’s so much better and more pleasurable to paint on which I regretably ignored. But at least I got a drawing/painting done today, even if it’s not great. And tomorrow is another day to try again.

Categories
Acrylic Painting Art theory Other Art Blogs I Read Painting

Practice with Acrylics: Blending and soft edges

Acrylic-blending Acrylic-watercolor

Acrylic on gessoed canvas and watercolor paper (R)
To enlarge, click image, select All Sizes

(I know this isn’t much to look at, but it’s what I did with my art time today — practiced making soft edges using dry brush, blending with wet-in-wet and other techniques, and painting watercolor-style washes using acrylics thinned down with water and “Acrylic Flow Release.” It’s harder (but not impossible) to make the kinds of beautiful soft edges and blends that can be done easily in oil paints (these samples are neither beautiful nor soft as I’d like, but that’s what practice is for). I was surprised how easy it was to make clean flat washes using acrylics as watercolors.

I’ve just started reading “Carlson’s Guide to Landscape Painting,” originally published in 1929. Even though he’s incredibly opinionated and assumes all artists are men, I’m finding his observations to be really interesting and often astute and applicable today. Here’s a few tidbits from the first chapter, “How to Approach Painting:”

“The art of painting, properly speaking, cannot be taught, and therefore cannot be learned. I believe about art, as I believe about music or architecture, that the only way to study is to practice; and that any good teacher can point out certain intellectual or technical “makings,” certain helps that will give a fulcrum to the lever of practice.”

“No one can teach ‘art.’ No one can give a singer a glorious voice, but granting the voice, and emotional sensibility, a teacher can teach a man to sing…”

“A snapshot is a correct rendition of physical fact…but the camera does not have an idea about the objects reflected upon its lens. It does not ‘feel’ anything, and will render one thing as well as another. This ‘idea,’ or thrill is the unteachable part of all art.”

“The beginner in painting begins by copying nature in all literalness, leaving nothing out and putting nothing in; he makes it look like the place or person or thing. By and by he will learn to omit the superfluous and to grasp the essentials and arrange them into a more power and significant whole. And it is wonderful to know that these ‘essentials’ will be essentials to him only (and herein lies the secret of orginality). Another man will choose another group of essentials out of the same fountain of inspiration.”

These hit home for me, especially the last one. Do you find them interesting? annoying? inspiring? helpful?

Categories
Art theory Painting Still Life

Acrylic glazing practice: Pear

Acrylic Glazing exercise

Acrylic on gessoed mat board, 8″ x 10″
To enlarge, click image, select All Sizes

Today I practiced acrylic painting techniques in my new book, “Acrylic Revolution.” This exercise started with a painting done in black, white and grey (known as a grisaille) to establish the form and shadows. I meant to photograph that stage but got too involved and forgot. When it dried I painted over it with transparent layers of paint thinned with glazing liquid). I had to do a bunch of layers to compensate for having made the initial grisaille too dark. Unlike watercolor which dries lighter, acrylic dries darker than it looks when you mix colors. This is because acrylic medium is white when wet and clear when dry. I haven’t gotten used to accomodating that change yet.

I also experimented with using acrylic like watercolor, trying various types of washes which all worked perfectly. I was less successful with oil-style blending techniques and will work on those some more tomorrow.

Categories
Acrylic Painting Painting Plants

Devil’s Tongue (aka Snake Palm) again

Devils Tongue Again

Acrylic on mat board, 27 x 13″
To enlarge, click image, select All Sizes

I hadn’t posted anything for a couple of days because I’ve been working on this painting instead of daily sketches. I was determined to finish and post it today, and did, even though the photo isn’t great. I worked from a watercolor I did on site, and a bunch of photos I took of this odd stinky plant on a walk a few weeks ago. I did some sketches for composition, trying to make sense out of all the crazy foliage happening in the photo and to decide what to emphasize, eliminate or move. I did a couple of small value studies too. Then I just had at it, working very loosely in acrylics. To check values, I set my camera to black and white and took a picture. I could immediately see I need more light areas and where. I painted in layers, using thickened and thinned paint in many layers and glazes.

My main goal with this painting was to experiment with trying to make acrylics work like oils (except without the toxic solvents, lengthy clean-up and slow drying time). There was a ton of learning that went on as I worked on it.

I’ve done a lot of reading on acrylics, much of it contradictory or out-of-date information but finally found an excellent new book called “Acrylic Revolution” by a Golden Acrylics (the brand I’m using) working artist named Nancy Reyner. It’s the book on acrylics I’d been hoping for. Detailed up to date information about how to properly work with the various mediums and paints to do whatever you could dream of doing and more. It’s a great book and tomorrow I’m going to experiment with some of the techniques in it to try to better understand how to do some of the blending techniques and ways to get soft edges, to be able to work more like oils.

Update: This is a Dragon Arum plant (Dracunculus vulgaris), not as named in the title of the post.