Category: Sketchbook Pages

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Colored pencil art Drawing Illustration Friday Life in general Sketchbook Pages

Don’t Get Old and Confused — Get a Clue

Get a Clue Necklace (detail); click images to enlarge
Get a Clue Necklace (detail); click to enlarge

Memories! Everyone I know is losing theirs including me. Ater repeatedly walking into a room and then forgetting why I’d gone in there, it occurred to me that if I carried clues with me, I’d save lots of time and extra steps.

So I invented the “Get a Clue Necklace” complete with a key ring, a tiny flashlight, sticky notes to jot down reminders, an attractive small pen to write them with, a magnifying glass for small print, an optional “My name is…” tag with a reverse side note “If found return to…” should I ever get REALLY forgetful, and a little pill box for those vitamins I always forget to take.

Below is the full page which you can click to see bigger to read some of the funny quotes about aging, as well as my list of the pros and cons of aging back when I made this.

Get a Clue Necklace; 12x9", mixed media
Get a Clue Necklace; Mixed Media, 12x9" (click to enlarge)

Here are a few of the choice quotes from the piece:

Gloria Steinem:

I’m at the age when remembering something right away is as good as an orgasm.

Whenever I meet a woman over 55 who’s just fallen in love, I always ask, “Are you taking hormones?” I tell her, “If it turns out you’re in love in a way that’s not good for you, stop taking them.”
[Addendum: Gloria Steinem, the feminist icon who once dismissed marriage as an institution that destroys relationships, became a first-time bride at the age of 66, a few years after that quote was printed.]

Peg Bracken, 81 at the time this quote was printed, said:

“These are your declining years and you can jolly well decline to do what you don’t feel like doing!”

Right on Peg, wherever you are now!

P.S. When I saw Illustration Friday’s prompt this week was “Memories” I had to share this, even though it’s from my journal several years ago.

And one more Pro to add to the Pros and Cons of aging is that when your memory goes, everything old becomes new again. Stories and jokes you’ve heard (or told) before sound vaguely familiar but since you can’t remember the punchlines, they’re good for a whole new round of laughter.

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Drawing Faces Life in general People Sketchbook Pages Subway drawings

Doodleheads, Subway Sketching, Patience

Sketches of people meeting
Meeting, thinking, waiting (click images to enlarge)

Practicing patience while doing for others the past week has meant less time for painting. A dear friend broke his leg and has required 2 trips to the hospital and other chauffering. The computer I gave to my wonderful neighbors came down with a variety of ills, including a dead power supply and a huge load of viruses (or is that virii?). And work was a non-stop series of meetings, trouble-shooting and brainstorming sessions that completely wore out my brain.

Subway sketches of people on BART
Doodleheads: Subway sketches of people on BART

Today instead ofpainting I’ve spent hours trouble-shooting and (hopefully) restoring my former computer (the virus scan is still running and zapping hundreds of virus files). Lesson: Never let a 12 year old boy use a PC without first installing virus software! A friend told me about the free (for home users)and downloadable Avast Antivirus and he is right: it is fantastic!

Subway sketches of people on BART
Doodleheads 2: Subway sketches of people on BART

I need to start a new sketchbook. This one is nearly full and I seem to be postponing the dreaded blank sketchbook, instead cramming everything on the remaining few pages.

Another thing I discovered this week is that Amazon offers all sorts of free music mp3 downloads, (click this link then scroll down) from whole albums to songs from a variety of artists. I’m listening to the ones I downloaded yesterday and really enjoying them. Everything from Billie Holiday, the Butchies, and Firewater to the entire album “Very Best of Naxos Early Music,” which is heavenly.

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Oil Painting Painting Sketchbook Pages Still Life Watercolor

Persistently Painting Potatoes

Feeling frustrated from failing to form a faithful facsimile of a silly spud I sought some solutions. (I’ve always loved alliteration.) Displayed below in reverse order (last version first) are my efforts in trying to understand the shape of one homely sweet potato (and a can of beans).

Oil painting #2, after sketch and watercolor study, 6x8", on panel
Sweet Spud #4 , Oil on panel, 6x8" (after watercolor study and sketch below)
Sweet Potato watercolor study, 6x8" on Arches wc paper
Sweet Spud #3, watercolor on Arches cold pressed paper, 6x8"
Pencil sketch to try to understand planes and volume, 6x8"
Sweet potato #2 (Pencil sketch to try to understand planes and volume), 6x8"
First oil painting before doing the studies, 6x8", on panel
Sweet Spud #1, (First oil painting before doing the studies) 6x8"

I think I like the watercolor best, what about you?

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Sketchbook Pages

I’m still here but my PC isn’t…

My computer is still in the shop and my loaner computer is so slow it’s impossible to work with scanned images and photos in Photoshop. I tried to post some recent plein air paintings tonight and the open programs all crashed when I tried to open the photos of the work.

I apologize for not keeping up with responding to comments or posting anything new. As soon as I get my trusty laptop back I’ll be back online again. In the meantime I’m painting and getting a little more sleep than usual since I’m not online late into the night.

See you again soon…
Jana

Categories
Flower Art Glass Painting Sketchbook Pages Still Life Watercolor

Roses in a Bottle

Roses in a Bottle

(Larger) Watercolor on hot press paper, 5×7″

This was intended to be a study for an oil painting the next day, but during the night the kitties knocked over the bottle, and all the water spilled out, pooling on the studio’s hardwood floors overnight. After their rough night, the lovely roses were no longer such perfect specimens. So this is both their opening curtain and their final curtsy. Mine too, for today. Amazingly (for me) I can’t think of another thing to say!

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Drawing Faces Life in general People Sketchbook Pages Subway drawings

Waiting and waiting…BART and meeting sketches

He didn’t really have 3 extra heads. Those heads are the first people who sat in his seat but each got off after one stop so I had no time to finish them. Maybe they are his guardian angels watching over him as he sleeps.

20080720-5

(Larger)

WAITING

I’m getting good at waiting… My very lame loaner computer is teaching me patience because every step takes so long. Hopefully mine will be back from the shop soon. It’s amazing what a difference 2 GB of memory in the exact same computer makes compared the 500 MB in this loaner.

These are some sketches over the past couple weeks while waiting for the subway, waiting for my stop, waiting for a meeting to end….

20080720-4

20080720-3

20080720-2

20080720-1

Categories
Art theory Flower Art Glass Painting Plants Sketchbook Pages Still Life Studio Watercolor

Painting popcorn ball flowers (hydrangeas) instead…

Hydrangeas (popcorn ball flowers)
Larger

Have you ever been so sleepy you’re just slap-happy silly? That’s how I was yesterday. I’ve been trying to change my schedule to get up early and go to bed early but after a few days of doing the former but not the latter, I was so sleep-deprived yesterday afternoon that I just stopped making sense, even to myself.

When I get over-tired, instead of thinking, “sleep,” I think I’m hungry and crave carbs (and now research is showing that sleep deprivation causes weight gain and other health risks…see here and here).  So instead of eating popcorn (or going to bed at 7:00), I decided to paint these “popcorn ball flowers” (as my sister and I used to call hydrangeas when we were kids…and I thought everybody did until I Googled “popcorn ball flowers because I can never remember their real name, and discovered only recipes for making flowers out of popcorn and no references to hydrangeas!).

First I had to refill my watercolor palette because a couple weeks ago I’d washed out all the funky old paint that had been in there for too long. Some of it was getting moldy and all of it was dirty.  Before refilling my palette, I did color tests of all my paints to decide which pigments I wanted to use now. I love organizing things, so this was a perfectly soothing task for a tired mind.

Finally I was ready to paint, and grabbed my homemade 6×8” sketchbook filled with hot pressed Fabriano Artistico paper, and this bouquet of hydrangeas from my yard that I’d plopped into a drinking glass the day before. Instead of starting with my usual ink drawing, I used pencil and then painted using more of an oil painting technique, starting with the darkest darks instead of the lights.

Maybe it was because I was so tired, but I had so much fun, just being playful as I painted and not worrying about the outcome. As usual I wished I’d stopped about 10 minutes sooner and someday I’ll learn that “when you’re 75% finished you ARE finished!”  Some day….

If you’d like to know which pigments I settled on, click “Continue Reading for the details….

Continue reading “Painting popcorn ball flowers (hydrangeas) instead…”
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Sketchbook Pages

Smoky, Sunny, Windy Day at Albany Bulb

Windy Day at Albany Bulb

Oil on panel, 10×12″ (larger)

With over 1,000 wildfires burning in Northern California, the air has been smoky, reducing the visibility and giving everything an eery pinky-grey tint. Instead of sunsets, a small, fire-red sun slowly sets behind curtains of gray. Even the moon appears small and red.

On Sunday morning there was a breeze blowing in from the ocean which seemed to clean the air a bit so Peggy, Dennis and I went to paint down at the “Albany Bulb” (a small chunk of land that sticks out into the San Francisco Bay). About 1:00 the sea breeze turned into a wild wind. The gusts were so strong that brushes and palette knives blew out of my painting box and the wind kept jerking my arm, making it hard to paint any details (maybe a good thing, in my case?).

Before the Albany Bulb became a waterfront park, it was a landfill (euphemism for dump). Years later,  artists used the area to create sculptures (like these below) from driftwood and drift-trash that floats in from the Bay or was dumped there during the landfill years. Now it’s a rough-hewn park and a sort of outdoor anarchist art gallery and a part of part of the San Francisco Bay Trail.

These sculptures at the Bulb were created by Oakland artist Osha Neumann. If you click to enlarge and look closely you’ll see the Golden Gate Bridge in the background. Jason was just finishing the sculpture of the dog on a roof(?) when I took these photos last year.
Dog sculpure woman and dog Woman sculpture

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Sketchbook Pages

New blog: Postcard A Day

I heard a story on NPR about a father who sent his daughter a postcard every day that she was in college — 1,000 all together. They contained random stories about his day, questions and advice. It occurred to me how much that was like blogging (a daily post) except that he was sending actual tangible items through the mail instead of posting them online.

That gave me the idea to do the same, except as an artist (he was a bus driver) I create my own postcards and send the messages to anyone I feel like, whether dead, alive or imaginary. Instead of Googling for answers to questions I send virtual postcards into the blogosphere and channel the wisdom of the recipients to send myself responses. Some days it’s just a “wish you here” note and picture from my world. Other days it might be a dream message. Who knows? Anything goes…

I’m still going to regularly post here on Jana’s Journal (my sketches, plein air paintings and work in progress) but my daily postcards will be on PostcardsaDay.

The picture above was posted it to J. J. Audubon on PostcardaDay.com with this message:

Dear Mr. Audubon,

Why is the robin called “Turdus Migratorius?” Turdus doesn’t sound very nice. And where do they sleep? Do they sleep in nests or just sitting on a branch int he tree? How do they not fall off? Probably the same way we don’t fall off our beds. Or do they sleep on the ground? If they fall out of the tree while they’re asleep do they fly in their sleep?

Love,
Jana

The very next day I received a message from J. J. Audubon and you can see it now on www.PostcardaDay.com.

Categories
Glass Painting Sketchbook Pages Still Life Watercolor

Better than Plastic: Blue Glass Water Bottle

Blue Bottles
(Larger)

While eating dinner, reading an art book and drinking water from this bottle I became fascinated by the bottle and had to immediately go paint it. The bottle came from from Trader Joes filled with sparkling water. It makes a great reusable water bottle. I washed off the label and just refill it with filtered tap water and a squirt of lemon from my lemon tree and then refrigerate it.

To avoid buying and throwing away tons of plastic water bottles (you’re not supposed to reuse them because they can’t be cleaned properly) I’ve tried a variety of lexan, Nalgene, and stainless steel water bottles. I like to use this glass bottle at home (it’s too heavy and breakable to be portable) and a Kleen Kanteen stainless steel bottle with a sport cap when I go out.

What did we do for water before water bottles and car cup holders? I guess there were thermoses but those weren’t for water. I remember carrying a large purse to middle school in order to carry my big can of hairspray, but I know I never carried water.

When I was a kid, doctors didn’t recommend drinking 8 glasses of water a day like they do now, but they did recommend cigarettes. One cigarette brand ran ads in medical journals with the claim that its cigarettes were “Just as pure as the water you drink.” One of the most infamous cigarette advertising slogans was associated with Camels:”More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette.” That ad appeared in medical journals and the popular media for eight years.

About the painting: 6×8″ on Arches cold-press 140 pound watercolor paper in my handmade sketchbook. Mostly Winsor Newton paint plus the bright turquoise on the right side of the big bottle from Kremer Pigments. The funny shadow on the right actually looked like that but it made me happy because it reminded me of the amazing pot and shadow studies, which I adore on Alison’s blog, Scribbles Adagio.