Category: Watercolor

Categories
Drawing Gardening Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

1 Cactus, 2 Cacti Sketches

Cacti-small
On-site sketch in 3.5 x 5.5″ watercolor Moleskine

Cacti-big
Studio sketch from photo in Aquabee 6×9 sketchbook

It was a sunny day in the 70s today and the outdoors was calling. Instead of spending the day in the studio as planned, I took my sketchbook and little paintbox for a walk around the neighborhood, looking for something that would be fun to paint. A few blocks away I found an amazing cacti and succulent garden. I did the top sketch above while sitting on a convenient tree stump but I had problems. My pen had gone dry so I tried drawing in pencil but it just didn’t have the magic that drawing directly in ink has. I found myself repeatedly erasing and starting over which is the problem with pencils–the thrill of just going for it with ink is gone and pencils want to be ever so perfect. So I started over again, drawing directly with the watercolors and (continuing to resist stopping at 75%) added a little more paint when I got home.

I did the second sketch above in the studio tonight from the photo I took there. I think I’m going to try a larger painting also–all the overlapping shapes, shadows, and prickly things are really fun to paint.

IMGP3122 Photo of the cactus


Categories
Watercolor

When Kip was Bingo

Kip-new

This is a picture of a special dog named Kip when he was still a pup. He used to belong to my wonderful neighbors who named him Bingo. (They will sound not so wonderful here, but they really are the most loving family I’ve known–they’re just not pet people.) With three children under 5 and no experience with dogs, Bingo was soon relegated to a life alone in the backyard. He cried a lot and ran in circles, but relished every moment he had with the children when they visited him in the yard.

I took him for walks when I could, gave the family a book on housetraining, and tried to help them understand what it meant to care for a puppy. Then I helped them understand that they’d made a mistake getting a dog, since winter was coming and the dog would not be allowed inside. I couldn’t bear to see him alone all the time, with ants in his food, and no place to poop but the patio. They agreed, sadly, but knowing it was right.

That’s when my friend M. decided to adopt him. She renamed him Kip and they became best friends. She took him to puppy school, and she loved him even though he ate her socks and had to have one surgically removed from his stomach. She treated him like the special little prince he is and I got to join them on walks at the Pt. Isabelle dog park near my house. Then they moved to a small town in Oregon and I haven’t seen him for a long time. I’m trying to plan a visit to them next month.

I painted this from a photo I took of him when he was just six months old. It’s watercolor on 8 x 12 watercolor paper. I stopped before it was overworked (yay!) or even finished — something I’ve been trying to do for a while. The background in the photo was entirely green grass. I wasn’t sure that’s what I want for a background so I decided to just stop and think about it and maybe experiment in Photoshop with some possible background compositions and see what works or just decide to leave it white. I think it needs something–shadows at least–so that he’s grounded and not floating. Any suggestions would be welcomed. You can see a larger version by clicking on the image which will take you to FLickr and then clicking on All Sizes and then Large.

Categories
Drawing Every Day Matters Life in general Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Souvenirs…of Life

Tibetan-Bell

This week’s Every Day Matters challenge is to “draw a souvenir from a place you’ve been.” This is a Tibetan Bell. I’ve never been to Tibet. My father bought it for me at a street fair in Jack London Square in Oakland on one of his rare visits from the many places he lived in the U.S. and Canada. I loved the sound of the bell and he was happy to buy it for me.

I’ve been missing him lately–sometimes when I’m drawing I get glimpses of the amazing cartoons he used to be able to draw on command and wish I could talk to him about drawing and art. He and my mother both painted for a few years when I was a kid and both were talented photographers. I highlighted my mother’s paintings from the 50s here a few weeks ago, but all of my father’s paintings were thrown away by his second wife when he left her for his third wife.

Searching my house for souvenirs to draw, I discovered that my only keepsakes represent different periods of my life and the people and pets I’ve loved. And even those are few: my grandmother’s pearls and glass butterdish, a spice jar with hair from long gone cats and dogs, the books my father wrote, my wedding ring in a little box I painted blue, a folder with my sons’ grade school essays and drawings, earings given to me by friends and family.

Of course I have my journals, drawings, photos and paintings–those are keepers of my memories too. But I wonder what it means that I have no souvenirs or tchotchkes from places I’ve been. Maybe just that I don’t like to dust.

Ink and watercolor in WC Moleskine. I know I said that for a week I would stop painting when I was 75% done, but I was too tired again tonight to notice, and so put in the background when I should have stopped. It was a lot prettier with just a shadow and an all white background. I did stop painting the bell before I thought it was done so that’s a little progress. I’ll try again tomorrow.

Categories
Drawing Life in general Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

A little lemon

Lemon on Quiche Cup

I had so many ideas of what to draw tonight but I was so sleepy that I had to pick something fairly simple. It was fun–so much fun that I kept at it longer than I should have so it got overworked. There’s always that question of “When is a painting done?” I’ve heard it said many times that one should stop when a painting feels 75% finished but I usually go to 125%. So for the next week, I’m going to try stopping at 75% and see how that feels.

I’m experimenting with uploading pictures to Flickr and then linking them as I did here. Flickr has options for posting a small image on the blog and a big one on Flickr that you are taken to by clicking on the image. If you have an opinion, I’d love to know whether you prefer seeing images this size on the blog or a smaller size with a click to enlarge option? Do you know any disadvantages to storing the image on Flickr?

Watercolor and Micron Pigma in WC Moleskine.

Categories
Drawing Gardening Life in general Plein Air Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Sunday in Barbara’s Garden

Barbara-garden-web2

Barbara and I took a great hike in the North Berkeley hills this morning near her house, and looked at people’s gardens and interesting (and bizarre) architecture. When we got back, her garden was so glorious in the noontime sun that I had to postpone lunch and sit down and draw.

It’s overflowing with beautiful flowers and healthy vegetables: spiky cucumbers, heirloom tomatoes (those funny little orange things on the left that look like pumpkins in my picture), corn (at the back), and in the foreground, a huge “volunteer” butternut squash that she didn’t plant.

The weather was perfect, with the bright sun taking breaks behind the clouds so it wasn’t too hot or cold. Compared to my house near the freeway, her garden is so quiet, with only the lovely Sunday sounds of birds, “beneficial” garden insects, breezes on the wind chimes, a neighbor playing lovely violin and her dog Gertie stretching and yawning in the sun.

With the abundance and variety of vegetation and her mosaics and ceramic sculptures, there’s another painting just waiting to be made every few steps. Drawing the amazing leaves and tendrils on the squash plant would have been enough to make me happy, but I decided to try to capture the whole garden today and then come back again and again to paint her garden over the summer.

Micron Pigma, watercolor in WC Moleskine.

Categories
Drawing Life in general Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Espresso Roma Berkeley

Espresso Roma Cafe Berkeley

I picked up my new chartreuse glasses at the optician’s yesterday, but when I put them on I felt a bit off-balance. I have a difficult prescription with lots of astigmatism and even a tiny error in the lens can really affect my vision. I decided to go next door to Espresso Roma before leaving the Elmwood district and try drawing a bit to test them out. I had a little trouble reading the menu on the wall when I ordered my latte and felt clumsy walking to the table and getting out my drawing stuff.

These guys sat there a long time drinking vino and resolving the fighting between Israel and Lebanon. Drawing seemed harder–it literally felt like I couldn’t see straight, I had to tilt my head to line things up. Fortunately these guys didn’t notice that I was repeatedly staring at them, trying to focus my eyes.

Instead of taking the glasses back to the optical shop, I decided to go home, wishfully thinking maybe they just took getting used to. My vision wasn’t any better today so I had my eye doctor check them out. Sure enough, they weren’t made right and need to go back to the lab, which means I have to drive all the way back to the optician’s. Grrrrrrr.

Even though I go through this almost every time I get new glasses, I always remember how lucky I am to have access to medical care and that I can (eventually) get exactly the right prescription.

Lamy pen, Noodlers ink and watercolor in WC Moleskine. Confession: I erased a couple ink lines in Photoshop before uploading. (My faulty vision gave the middle guy what looked like a giant feather coming out of his forehead from when I first started drawing him. He’s recovering nicely from his featherectomy.)

Categories
Drawing Every Day Matters Illustration Friday Watercolor

Clean & Cold (IF & EDM)

Cold-wet-dog

This week’s Illustration Friday cue is CLEAN and the Every Day Matters’ challenge is COLD. I wanted to tie the two concepts together to make one picture. It worked (I think) when I remembered how cold and wet I used to get when cleaning my old dog with the hose after she’d rolled in something nasty and smelly. No matter how cold it was outside, I wasn’t bringing that stinky pooch in the house for her bath. I cleaned her with the hose and she showered me right back.

My thinking went like this: dog’s nose (cold, but not necessarily clean), floating ice cubes in bath water (clean AND cold but a waste of water to fill the tub), a towel turbanned self-portrait after a shower (clean, but not too attractive), a root beer float (cold) and an emptied glass (clean but I’d have to go out and buy ice cream…and eat it!)…and on and on until I came up with getting cold cleaning a dog.

Ink and watercolor (a bit of opaque white on the hose spray) on Arches watercolor paper.

Categories
Drawing Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Poor little spoon

Spoon bigger

I did this spoon tonight in my WC Moleskine but I’m not crazy about it. I wanted to vege out and go to bed early, but convinced myself to just quickly paint one little serving spoon in order to have something to post today. But I was too tired and so is the picture I produced. It’s overworked, which is just how I feel too tonight, at the end of my work week.

I did a drawing this morning on the subway but felt it was too sketchy and experimental to post. I’m going to continue with my commitment to draw or paint daily, but I think I’m going to give myself one day a week to not post when I’m too tired or don’t think what I’ve done that day is ready for primetime.

Categories
Drawing Life in general Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Richard and Florio

Richard & Florio the Parrot

My good friends Judith and Richard have a wonderful parrot named Florio (formerly known as Flora until they discovered she was a he). Florio’s a great bird. When I visit and talk nicely to him he blinks his eyes and dilates his pupils, looking so pleased to be told he’s a good bird. If we ignore him he squawks loudly until we include him in the conversation. Judith prepares lovely meals for him with lots of fresh vegetables and fruits. Judith and Richard are both great cooks. I wish I was lucky like Florio to have them preparing my meals every day, too.

I got the photo I painted from by accident. I borrowed Judith’s camera when we went to the zoo last month (I stupidly brought mine without its memory card) and when I downloaded her card to my computer, this picture of Richard and Florio was on there. The photo is strange and blurry with a weird glow from low light, but as soon as I saw it I knew I wanted to paint it.

I did this in my 5 x 7.5″ watercolor Moleskine, first drawing with a Micron Pigma then adding watercolor, during my painting group’s weekly session at my studio to paint and talk art (and life). While it doesn’t exactly look like Richard, I think I captured a little something of him, and had a lot of fun doing it.

Categories
Colored pencil art Drawing Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Summer Fruit in Watercolor & Inktense Pencils

fruit-wc-webOne hour sketch of a little bowl of summer fruit in watercolor (above)

Fruit-Inktense-web

Same sketch in Inktense watercolor pencils (above)

I finally tried out the Inktense pencils I got last week. They remind me of the really special coloring books I treasured when I was a kid that look normal until you paint on them with water and then color magically appears. With the Inktense pencils, the drawing is about 50% lighter before you add the water. First I tried doing self portraits with them and they came out ghoulish and awful–more like clowns or wanted posters. So I decided to try the Inktense with some bright summer fruit–a more appropriate application.

Once I’d done the ink drawing in my large watercolor Moleskine, I liked it so much I decided to paint it both in watercolor and the Inktense colored pencils. It’s so much fun to draw directly in ink this way– it teaches me about acceptance, I think, in just taking what I get and not fretting if it’s not perfect (a favorite mantra: You don’t have to be perfect to be wonderful and neither does your drawing!).

Since I wanted to use the same drawing twice, I scanned it and then painted the 1st drawing in my Moleskine with watercolor. Then I printed out the scanned drawing, and using a lightbox, traced it onto the next page of the Moleskine. I colored the second drawing in with the Inktense pencils and then brushed on water. One trick to controlling the Inktense pencils with water is to not use too much water and to frequently rinse the brush and slightly dry it. Otherwise you pick up too much pigment and smear it around where you don’t need or want it. Also, even though the pencil looks pale, apply it lightly or you end up with way too much pigment.

Inktense are fun, but they won’t replace my trusty watercolors. I know the Inktense drawing looks brighter and more vibrant, but it seems all tarted up to me somehow.