Category: Watercolor

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Drawing Flower Art Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Ah Sunflower, Weary of Time

Sunflowers

Ah Sunflower
  
  Ah Sunflower, weary of time,
Who countest the steps of the sun;
Seeking after that sweet golden clime
Where the traveller’s journey is done;Where the Youth pined away with desire,
And the pale virgin shrouded in snow,
Arise from their graves, and aspire
Where my Sunflower wishes to go!

William Blake

I first heard this William Blake poem on the Fug’s First Album back in 1966. While it may not be everyone’s cup of tea, this song/poem always plays in my mind when I see sunflowers. The Fugs were a sort of beat, punk, folk, psychedelic, satirical, political, underground rock band formed in 1964 in New York’s East Village. Back in those early days of FM radio and underground rock, the Fugs were breaking all of the taboos and I loved them for it, being stuck in ultraconservative, time-warped San Diego.

I was a high school girl who’d recently ditched her surfer-girl persona to become a beatnik poseur, dressing in the requisite black clothes, black berets, and white lipstick, reading poetry, and trying to look depressed and intellectual. I eventually moved to New York’s East Village myself and was horribly disappointed to discover that the beatniks were long gone, having been replaced by wannabe hippies from New Jersey.

I didn’t think I had anything to say about the sunflowers I painted tonight but there’s a story in everything it seems. These were drawn with a Lamy Safari pen with Fine nib and Noodlers Ink in the large Moleskine watercolor notebook, then painted with watercolor. I like the way the Noodlers works with watercolor. It’s not 100% waterproof so a little of it washes off and disappears and the lines soften just a tiny bit when you paint over them.

Categories
Drawing Life in general Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Old West Gun Room, El Cerrito, CA

 

Old-West-Gun-Room
Old-West-Gun-Room

This very old gun shop is located about a mile from my house, next door to the new Peet’s Coffee. I’m sure that the only reason it continues to exist is that it’s always been here. It would never be allowed to open on the edge of a residential neighborhood in this liberal community now.

I needed a walk and I needed coffee beans and I needed to draw. So I packed my little painting kit in my backpack and headed towards Peets with a plan to get my coffee and paint the gun shop. Every few feet I saw a tree or flower I wanted to draw but decided to come back to those things later.

I walked the mile, got my pound of Peets Special Decaf beans, a cup of mostly decaf, and sat down on the sidewalk across the street in front of Payless Shoes to draw. I felt a little silly sitting on the sidewalk, making the occasional pedestrian walk around me, but I got over it once I started drawing. I drew in ink, added watercolor, decided I was more than finished, and stood up. Yikes! It took a block to work out the kinks in my legs.

When I got home it was earlier than I expected–time just seems to stretch out and expand when I’m in “the zone,” I thought. But as I was scanning the drawing I got a call from Nora asking when I might be arriving for the 6:00 dinner at Michael’s. I looked down at the clock on my computer screen and it was already 6:30! But my watch said 5:30–sometime during the walk my watch’s display had switched to “Time 2,” which I’d never changed to daylight savings time, so it was an hour behind. They were nice enough to wait for me and dinner was great!

I enjoyed the extra hour I had today, even though it wasn’t real.

Lamy Safari pen, Noodlers ink, Moleskine large watercolor notebook.

Categories
Every Day Matters Life in general Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

What Makes Me Happy: My Studio (EDM #80)

My StudioThe Everyday Matters challenge this week was to draw something that makes you happy and write about it.

I love my studio and I love spending time in it. All I have to do to get happy is sit at my drawing table–the one in the far left corner–and start drawing. When I’m drawing or painting I like to listen to a good book from Audible.com or music on my computer. I wired the PC to my stereo system so the sound is great.

My house is a former duplex that I converted into a studio and a home. The studio was originally a living room/dining area so it’s nice and big, with room for me and six or seven watercolor students to meet. There’s even the window seat I’ve always wanted (in the far right corner) which I made by putting a sheet of laminate over a set of flat files and covered it in foam, an old quilt and some fake fur pillows.

The tall table on the left is made from two more sets of huge flat files with a sheet of laminate on top–a good spot for mat cutting, framing or demonstrating in class. People can gather round to watch or three people can use it as a worktable to paint as well. Behind that wall is the studio kitchen and the bathroom.

Behind where I sat to do the drawing is the door to the outside, my stereo, and a door to the rest of the house: two bedrooms, another bathroom, kitchen and living room/dining area.

The neighborhood’s foggy and not posh (oops–I’ve been listening to a wonderful book by Australian Bryce Courtenay,”Brother Fish,” narrated by actor Humphrey Bower and I see I’m picking up the slang) but it’s a friendly neighborhood and not far from all my favorite spots in Berkeley and Albany. I’m happy now from being in here all afternoon but now it’s time to go water the garden–one more thing that makes me happy.

Micron Pigma ink and watercolor in 9×12 Aquabee Super Deluxe sketchbook.

Categories
Drawing Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Preservation Park Fountain

Preservation Park Fountain

The organization I work for held a 3-day institute for 150 teachers at Oakland’s Preservation Park this week. This fountain is in the center of the square block collection of restored victorian homes that are now used for meeting space and offices. It’s a lovely setting and the weather was perfect for lunches outdoors in the gazebo, around the fountain, on the lawn or on benches.

Being surrounded by 150 teachers, I felt such awe and admiration. I know how difficult it is to be a Bay Area teacher these days and how high the turnover is among young teachers. Yet here they were, on the last days of their summer vacation, spending three days learning new approaches to adolescent literacy when they could be at the beach.

Since I was working while I was there, I couldn’t sit down with my sketchbook so I took some photos instead. This was drawn directly in ink and then painted in watercolor from one of the photos. I wanted to add the palm tree that was behind the fountain, but decided for once to go with “less is more”… though at the last minute I did add the building.

Categories
Drawing Gardening Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Nasturtiums

Nasturtiums

(Click on image then “All Sizes” to enlarge)

I picked these for my Saturday morning watercolor class. Nobody wanted to paint them but me so I’m glad they lasted until today. I did the drawing in ink this afternoon and wish I’d paid attention to my niece’s suggestion to leave some of it unpainted as the ink drawing looked really cool. But of course when I returned to it this evening I ended up painting everything.

Today was a long one: I started work at 6:30 a.m. to help get things ready for a three-day institute for 150 teachers that started today. Then I picked up my new glasses (again) and the prescription isn’t quite right (again) so tomorrow I’ll be taking them back to the shop for another try (again). Then my sister and niece came over and we went through my house, collecting all my extra pots and pans, linens and houseware for Sophie’s 1st apartment that she’s moving into next week.

One of the nice things about living in a house with two of everything (including kitchens since it’s a former duplex, now a studio and a home)–is that there’s lots of storage space. I’m so proud of Sophie and happy to see her making a home for herself while she attends college in S.F….and sad because it means she won’t be around when I visit my sister or answering the phone when I call.

Categories
Drawing Illustration Friday Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Play: Meercats for Illustration Friday

Play-Meercats-web

At the Oakland Zoo this summer, the Meercats played continuously while we watched, chasing each other, pouncing, play-fighting, and kicking up dust. Meercats are actually from the mongoose family, not cats, but they play just like kittens.

When I saw that the word for Illustration Friday this week was “Play” I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do anything with it. I knew that the IF site would be loaded with pictures of little kids playing or putting on stage plays and I was having trouble thinking of anything original. Plus I was worried I hadn’t been doing enough playing in my own life and wondered if I should just go outside and play instead of staying indoors trying to come up with an idea. But then I came across a photo I took of Meercats at the Oakland Zoo and decided to paint them.

I PLAYED with the image a bit too, adding the foreground and background Meercats to the picture that weren’t in the photo. I drew in pencil, then inked and added watercolor in Aquabee sketchbook (but probably should have used watercolor paper as I pushed the paper a little further than it likes to go).

Categories
Drawing Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Rose in a bowl

rose-web copy
I’d about given up doing any drawing today. I was tired from an intense week, felt a migraine lurking, had no creative energy and spent the day puttering, sighing, resting, and doing some filing of papers and sorting of photos on my computer. I was about to head to bed when I saw this rose floating in a little glass bowl that someone in my painting group had painted Wednesday night and decided to try a quick painting. I don’t love it, but I’m glad I did it. Ink and watercolor in Moleskine watercolor notebook.

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Other Art Blogs I Read Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Nightfall in my backyard

Night-Backyard-web

The light oval thing isn’t a flying saucer or the moon. It’s a domed skylight on the roof of a nearby building. I started drawing with ink but realized there wasn’t time–the light was going fast so I went directly to watercolors and painted as quickly as I could, in a small watercolor Moleskine notebook, racing the disappearing light.

I had trouble picking a subject to paint tonight. I’d recently bought a Fabriano Artists Journal filled with lovely colored paper perfect for colored pencils, inspired by this drawing and this one by Terri C. on her blog Painted Daisies and decided to give it a try. After a couple minutes I realized I’m just not a colored pencil person–I like the juice and flow of watercolor.

I tried finishing a painting of grapes in a glass bowl I’d started in a demonstration for my class but didn’t feel like painting from a photo. Then I looked out the window and saw bushes and trees silouhetted against the fading light I remembered these wonderful night paintings (to see them click here and here and here and here) by Allison on her amazing blog, 5 K Radius. So I tried doing my own night sketch looking through the window, not outside on a walk like Allison does, since my painting group was here and I didn’t want to miss any interesting conversations by going outside.

Categories
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.

Categories
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.