Category: Watercolor

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Drawing Every Day Matters Life in general Outdoors/Landscape Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Solano Ave Storefronts (EDM #85)

Sweet Lotus Lifestyle Gifts

Please click image and select “All Sizes” to enlarge
Micron Pigma ink and watercolor in large Moleskine watercolor notebook

Today was the 11th International Sketchcrawl and I’d planned to attend. But this morning I decided I really wanted to take a bike ride instead. I believe there are no shoulds when it comes to my art life– I’m the only one I need to please. I feel so fortunate that so much of my time is my own and that, at least for today, the decisions I have to make are about such happy things. So I nixed the official sketchcrawl, packed my sketching kit in my bike bag and took off.

I rode over to Solano Avenue, planning to draw the storefront of Solano Cyclery after getting them to fix my kickstand. But their storefront was boring so I took a little stroll and saw this Chinese restaurant and it’s next-door neighbor, Sweet Lotus Lifestyle Gifts. (This week’s Everyday Matters Challenge is to draw a storefront.)

Sweet Lotus Lifestyle Gifts is crammed with Made in China chotzkes. I’m not sure what kind of Lifestyle they had in mind when they named the store but I don’t think it would be a good one if you owned all that cheap, shiny junk. The name always makes me think of Lifestyle brand condoms which makes me think the store should be selling vibrators and sex toys. I’ve never gone inside, so who knows, maybe they do, way in the back.

I sat on the ground in front of a wine shop to do the drawing. Then I noticed a conveniently placed wine barrel advertising the wine shop which was just the right height to stand beside and use as a table for my paints and notebook. While I was working several different people came over to see what I was doing and said nice things. I know many people feel uncomfortable having someone watch when they draw in public. For some reason I think it’s fun–people are always so nice and seem to be surprised and excited to see their own little world put down on paper.

When I finished after about an hour and a half, I realized I’d missed lunch. I picked up a California Roll from Kyoto To Go, the local sushi bento box store right across the street and sat in a little corner park and with my yummy lunch. Though I planned to make another stop to sketch on the way home, I decided to skip it. It was a fun bike ride home and then I had a little nap. A perfectly enjoyable day!

Categories
Outdoors/Landscape Plein Air Watercolor

Blake Gardens – Trees & Yuppies

Blake Garden Trees

Watercolor painted en plein air at Blake Gardens on Arches 9×12 watercolor block

This afternoon the weather was gorgeous and knowing that plein air painting time will soon be over (at least for wimps like me who hate being cold) I grabbed the opportunity to go paint at Blake Gardens. I love this area of the garden, with the rows of trees and reflecting pond. Unfortunately a professional photographer and a perfect little yuppie family were also using the area to take family portraits.

For the entire two hours I was there painting they were alternately posing for pictures and trying to keep their little son from falling apart as he became increasingly bored and tired of all the phoney posing together. They were all perfectly groomed, in matching blond hair, white shirts, khaki pants (father and son) and khaki skirt (mom). They enthusiastically worked on keeping little Griffin engaged (Dictionary: “Griffin: a fabulous beast with the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion”) in silly songs, teddy bears, slinkies, hugs and tickles, snacks, bribes of lollipops later, and discussion about his favorite tools (he’s got a hardware fixation and prefers monkey wrenches to screwdrivers). They were a really nice, loving family but I had really been hoping for serene communing with nature, not yuppies.

By the time we all left when Blake Gardens closed at 4:30, I had a headache and they were moving on to another park for more pictures. I was happy with how the painting went today–there were many moments of enjoyment as I became more closely aquainted with these grand old trees and as the paint appeared on the paper in ways I liked.

Categories
Drawing Life in general Outdoors/Landscape People Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

It’s About Time: What I learned today

Old Teeth

“Old Teeth” (study for a large painting I’m going to make, drawn today from a combination of photos I took on Broadway in Oakland). Ink, watercolor in Moleskine large watercolor notebook. If you wonder why those hip-hop people want to have gold teeth, you might also enjoy a previous post here about a new invention I came up with in a dream for those baggy-pants boys.

 * * *

I spend a lot of time being frustrated because there isn’t enough time to do all of the things I want to do. Every weekend I start off being optimistic, with exciting ideas to explore for painting, drawing, teaching, learning; things that need to be done to care for myself and others; gardening projects, housework, paperwork, etc. But weekends (and most days) always end the same way: feeling disappointed because I didn’t accomplish half of what I thought I could do.

They say (whoever “they” is) that with age comes wisdom. Well I got a huge chunk of wisdom today, and this is what I learned:

There will NEVER be enough time to do everything. Not only that, there will never be enough time to do HALF of what my busy mind comes up with on any given day, week, month, year.

So all I have to do is accept the reality that time is finite and that my little brain, full of ideas, is not. Instead of fooling myself into thinking I can do it all, I need to reassure myself that I probably can’t do half of it, and just pick what I most want to do that day, do it, and rejoice.

When I told Michael about this discovery, he asked if that meant I’d no longer be living in what we call “Jana’s World” where time is this fluffy substance that is mostly ignored until it suddenly surprises me to discover I’m late, yet again. But I like living in Jana’s World and I’m not looking to relocate; it’s (Jana’s) World peace I’m after.

Categories
Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Farmers Market, El Cerrito Plaza

El Cerrito Farmers Market

Please click here to enlarge.

I packed my little painting kit in my backpack and walked the mile up to El Cerrito Plaza after lunch to sketch at the Saturday farmers market. It was a rare sunny, warm day in this usually foggy, windy neighborhood. Unfortunately when I arrived I learned they would be closing in only 20 minutes. That was just long enough to stand and do most of the drawing, but not to paint. Time was cut even shorter by the various people who came over to see what I was doing and wanted to chat a bit. At 1:00 I took a few photos and headed back home with a pound of Peets Coffee Special Decaf beans.

I wish I could have painted at the Plaza because I knew exactly how I wanted to do it–very quick and fresh, with a light touch. But instead, sitting at my drawing table painting from the photos, I overworked it, eventually making one grand mistake (painting the background red since everything in the fruit stand had a red glow to it from the red shade structure–that is everything except the background which was NOT UNDER the structure–and clearly obvious in the photo!)

The red background looked awful, which gave me the chance to try out my bottle of Aquacover, which is like liquid paper but designed to work with and match different brands of watercolor paper. Supposedly you can use it to reclaim white areas in a watercolor painting without it being noticeable AND you can paint back over them. I used it to hide the red background and then, before it was quite dry, painted some green on top of it, which sort of blended in a bit instead of sitting on top. I think if I’d waited until it was dry, and had used it a little more thickly (I diluted it) it might just have worked better. I can tell that it would definitely work well for small areas without any problem. The Arches Bright White Aquacover matches the Moleskine watercolor notebook well.

Ink, watercolor and Creative Mark Aquacover in “Arches Bright White” in large watercolor Moleskine notebook.

Categories
Drawing Life in general Sketchbook Pages Still Life Watercolor

More little tomatoes

Tomato-basket

Ink and watercolor in 6×9 Raffine sketchbook

Searching my house for something to draw tonight I had to resort to looking in the fridge. Everything in my house just seemed so man-made and dry. I needed something alive and bright to give me enough energy to draw since I’m recovering from a funky migraine and feeling a bit bedraggled. These little tomatoes were shining brightly in the light of my fridge and they were fun to draw and paint.

The highlight of my day today was listening to an interview with novelist and screenwriter Nora Ephron (who is also a blogger) on the NPR program Forum (where it’s available to listen or download). Her new book, “I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts On Being a Woman” is a funny take on the insults of aging. She is one of my favorite witty writers. Her book “Heartburn” (about a failed marriage) has one of the most hilarious passages I’ve ever read about picking the one person to end up with who’s going to drive you crazy. She is so brilliant and funny!

Categories
Colored pencil art Drawing Other Art Blogs I Read Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Drawing Friends

Judith by Me 2

Judith by me, Ink and watercolor (Micron Pigma .08) in 9×12 Aquabee sketchbook.

Painting group tonight in my studio but only three of us could make it. Susie wanted to work on a still life so Judith and I decided to draw each other. We took turns posing for a 5 minute sketch (below) and then drew each other’s faces as we were drawing each other (above).

Judith by Me 1 (Click image to enlarge, pick “All Sizes”)

Above: Judith by me, 5 minute ink sketch in Aquabee 9×12 sketchbook.

Me by Judith 2 (Click image to enlarge)

Above: Judith’s 5 minute sketch of me (colored in afterwards).
Ink and watercolor pencil in 12 x 16 Aquabee.

Me by Judith 1 (Click image to enlarge)

Above: Judith’s longer sketch of me, slightly cropped (sorry Judith, I removed the “cocks comb” as Susie said it resembled, that you drew growing out of my head that was really a weird pillow behind me)
Ink and watercolor pencil in 12 x 16 Aquabee.

I find that drawing someone’s face is like caressing them, getting to know them on a deeper, more intimate level. My mother always told me it’s not polite to stare, but drawing gives you a chance to stare and really see, and among friends, it is a real gift!

Categories
Drawing Gardening Life in general Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Little Green Tomatoes

Tomato plant

Haiku for my little tomato plants

Poor green tomatoes
Planted too late to grow red
Reach for fading sun

I guess I planted them a little too late. Everybody else has harvested theirs and removed the plants from the garden. Mine are still striving to grow up and become nice big juicy red tomatoes but summer is over. Unless we get a month of Indian Summer (fingers crossed) they will never grow up to become edible fruit.  Just sad little green tomato babies.

I drew this as a meditation after a frustrating day (more about that in a minute). I sat down outside and started drawing the middle of the plant, looking at it like a jigsaw puzzle, where each intersecting shape was a puzzle piece. Every time I reached another intersection I followed that line to the next. Eventually the puzzle started fitting together. But the sun went away and it was getting windy so after I did about 80% trying to accurately capture each little leaf and stem (amazing variety of charming leaf shapes on tomato plants!) I quickly sketched another 20% to fill it in so I could go inside. This Jigsaw Puzzle method of drawing I came up with is really helping me to understand better what I draw–especially when there are layers and layers of shapes. (Raffine 6×9 sketchbook, Lamy Safari pen, Noodlers Ink, watercolor)

My frustrating day involved typical contractor bad behavior– not finishing a job, not calling when they said they would, leaving holes that were supposed to be patched, making me stay home all day waiting for their return to finish which never happened, leaving a mess. Drawing helped me let it go, as did this quote I found in one of my old journals:

“Cheer up! Life isn’t everything.” (Mike Nichols)

Categories
Every Day Matters Outdoors/Landscape Watercolor

View from San Quentin Prison (EDM #83: Water)

Bay View from San Quentin Prison

When I was driving home from San Anselmo (Marin County) Friday I pulled into the entrance to San Quentin Prison to watch the sunset on the San Francisco Bay. I took some photos to use for this week’s Everyday Matter’s Challenge: draw a body of water.

This afternoon it was really nice to get back to watercolor after spending yesterday struggling with the Painter software. I did this on an Arches 12 x 9″ watercolor block without doing much drawing first. I’m not sure if I should have simplified more–maybe deleted the foreground fennel plants or the electrical tower (I think that’s what it is) in the background. I also discovered when I finished that the reflection in the water doesn’t line up with the sun in the sky. (Ooops!)

Here’s the reference photo and a picture of the sign in front of the prison. It’s so weird that there’s a funky old prison on some of the most beautiful and expensive land in the country, if not the world. (click photos to enlarge on Flickr).

Bay vew from San Quentin Prison San Quentin Prison

Categories
Drawing Outdoors/Landscape Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Monastery in San Anselmo, CA

Monastery in San Anselmo

Today was a much better day. I visited a friend in San Anselmo (Marin County) and have always been intrigued by seeing the top of this castle-like building peeking out over the trees in her neighborhood. So today on the way to my next stop (the gym) I parked at the bottom of the dirt road leading up to the monastery (or so I thought). And put my quick sketching kit in my backback and started climbing the road…which ended in a hillside covered in poison oak and weeds. I spotted a tree trunk halfway up, climbed up to it, dodging the poison oak, and used it as a little table to put my paints on.

While I was doing this quick watercolor sketch, two nursery school teachers and their brood were having an adventure, walking up the dirt road (but not climbing the hill). It was fun listening to the teachers calling out “Peanut butter!” and the kids shouting “Sandwich!” along with the whines, “It’s too hard…” and demands “Put down the stick!” and questions “What do we do when we cross a street?” (“Look for cars!”). It’s funny how the music, conversation or stories that are happening while painting somehow get embedded in the painting.

If I had taken just an extra minute before I started drawing, I wouldn’t have put that one tree centered right in front of the other, even though that’s how they were in real life. Ink, watercolor in small Moleskine watercolor notebook.

Categories
Other Art Blogs I Read Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

We painted each other

Susie by Me

Susie by me (no risk of anyone recognizing her from this picture!)
(ink & watercolor in 9×12 Aquabee sketchbook)

Tonight my painting group had planned to take turns posing for each other for a life drawing session. Then life intervened and only Susie was able to come. We were both so tired we decided to just paint for half an hour or so. We sat across from each other at the table, and painted each other’s faces as we drew each other.

me-by-susie

Me by Susie (maybe recognizable with my new green glasses and red hair–love the way she did the hair!)
Watercolor on 4x 9.5″ block

While we painted Susie told me about the two huge, beautiful semi-ferral cats that she just adopted and some outrageous tales of blogger misdeeds that I won’t repeat here. It is an interesting subject though, what one choses to share on blogs for the world to see (as if the world is so interested) and how it can affect one’s life when it goes too far.