Category: Sketchbook Pages

Paper Clips

Lamy Safari pen with Noodlers Ink wash in square HandBook Co. Journal
I know this isn’t a great drawing, but I’m soooooo tired so it’s good enough.

Tonight I watched the documentary Paper Clips. It’s about a middle school in a small rural town in Tennessee whose students were learning about the Holocaust. When one girl said she couldn’t conceive of such a big number as 6 million, they decided to start collecting paper clips in order to eventually be able to see 6 million of something. This transforms the town and becomes a huge, world-wide project. There are many profound moments in the movie which shows how teachers, journalists, and a caring community can be a force for good. After all the bad news and too many depressing movies about bad news, Paper Clips is refreshingly positive and deeply moving.

Tags Pen and Ink

Animals Drawing Illustration Friday Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Illustration Friday: Smitten

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date October 13, 2006
20 Comments on Illustration Friday: Smitten

Ink and watercolor in Raffine sketchbook
(Click image, select “All Sizes” to enlarge)

This week’s Illustration Friday word is “Smitten.” My original idea was to draw my Los Angeles sister’s rescued dove and parakeet that have formed a loving pair and live in a big cage in her little living room. I was going to ask her to try to send me a picture of them but remembered she doesn’t have a digital camera and I couldn’t really remember what they looked like. I guess it wouldn’t have really mattered since I just made this bird up anyway, without looking at any photos.

I started by drawing the idea this morning on a piece of scratch paper that had all sorts of other stuff on it so I couldn’t use it directly. I put the sketch on my Wacom tablet and drew over it, getting the drawing into Painter. Then I redrew it and experimented with trying to get the lines cleaner, but realized there were too many things I didn’t know about using the bezier curve tool and I was too tired to learn them today. I messed around with it in Painter way too long, trying out different backgrounds, trying to draw a cage, etc. I wasn’t happy with the way it looked painted in Painter (see below) so I printed out the line drawing layer on a piece of paper ripped out of my Raffine sketchbook. I painted that in watercolor (above) and stuck it back into the binding. I’m feeling less “smitten” by digital painting today and much more in love with watercolor.

Digital version done completely in Painter (blah)

Tags Animals, Painter Digital Art

Flower Art Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

White Rose, Long Day

Watercolor in Moleskine large watercolor notebook.
(To enlarge, click image, select “All Sizes”).

When I woke up this morning I opened the living room blinds and saw the sun glowing on my white roses. I knew I’d have to hurry to get a picture before the light changed so I grabbed my camera and ran outside in my purple pajamas, not really caring about the people driving by. I knew it was a little odd climbing around in the rose bushes in my jammies, but sometimes we must make sacrifices for our art, no?

Today was another long day at work–stayed until after 7:00 p.m. to meet all my deadlines. I’m so glad I was able to get all the materials prepared for our organization’s presentations in Germany and Washington, DC. It’s also performance review time so those had to be dealt with this week, in between producing materials for several other trainings and presentations.

After a quick dinner and feeling very tired, I gave myself one hour in the studio, knowing I had a nice photo of the rose that I could post if I couldn’t draw and paint something in that time. One hour later, the rose is painted and I’m off to read more of Matisse’s biography, “Matisse: The Early Years” which I’m so enjoying. I’m up to his early 20s and his association with so many of my favorite artists. Talk about sacrificing for art–these guys lived so frugally and were so poor. For example, when Marquet lost his overcoat it meant going without a coat in the freezing Paris winters for the three years it took to save enough to buy another coat!

People Sketchbook Pages

Sexual Harassment Training

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date October 11, 2006
10 Comments on Sexual Harassment Training

(To enlarge, click image, select “All Sizes”)

Today was mandatory Sexual Harassment Training for supervisors, presented by an attorney who looked a lot like Billy Bob Thornton. It was pretty stressful since I had a ton of deadline projects today.

At first I was anxious, worried about the work waiting for me in my office, knowing the meeting would be a total waste of time (which it was). Then I realized I could spend the time drawing which would be fun and relaxing so I pulled out my little Moleskine, which is so perfect for drawing in meetings.

They served a nice box lunch (not pictured above–this was someone’s snack during the meeting) and we were supposed to sit and chat with each other while we ate about times we felt we felt unfairly labeled or harassed. I made sure my name was on the list of attendees, grabbed my box lunch and excused myself two hours early. I ended up working until 7:30 p.m. to get caught up and be ready for tomorrow.

Micron Pigma ink in Moleskine notebook.
All images can be clicked to enlarge and then select “All Sizes”

Tags Pen and Ink, People

Drawing Flower Art Gardening Life in general Plein Air Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Westbrae Nursery Buddhas

Micron pigma ink pen, watercolor in Moleskine large watercolor notebook
(Click image, select “All Sizes” to enlarge)
(This was Monday’s post–I thought I’d clicked “Publish” but when there were no comments on it at all, I checked and discovered I had never actually put it on line….oops).

After working this morning I rode my bike into Berkeley this afternoon to do some errands. Last time I drove down Gilman I noticed that Westbrae Nursery had a bunch of Buddhas on display so after I finished my unshopping at REI (returning a clip-on umbrella that I thought would work for plein air painting but wouldn’t clip onto my easel) I rode over to the nursery.

I discovered that my new bike seat worked perfectly as a table for my teeny Winsor & Newton watercolor field kit. I stood with my bike just outside the nursery entrance to draw and paint this. One of the workers stopped by between delivery bags of manure and big plants to people’s cars. His comments: “Are you painting?” “Don’t you get tired standing?” “Wow you’re fast!”

Today was warm and sunny but by the time I started for home, the fog and wind had returned. Having not carried a jacket (a foolish mistake in the Bay Area), I had a chilly downhill ride home.

Tags Pen and Ink, Plein Air

Drawing Flower Art Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Sunflowers and Copper Pitcher

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date October 8, 2006
27 Comments on Sunflowers and Copper Pitcher

This was the last of the four little paintings I did tonight.

Kremer Pigments watercolors painted loosely, without drawing; then Pentel Brushpen with black ink loosely drawn over the dry paint. In Handbook Journal Co. square 5.5 x 5.5 sketchbook (purchased from Wet Paint in Minnesota) .
To enlarge, click image, select all sizes)

Today was a gorgeous summery day in the Bay Area and I spent it with a migraine, covers pulled over my head, wearing a sweatshirt over my flannel pajamas, with my electric blanket turned on, waiting for the pain to subside and my cold body temperature to return to normal. Finally around 6:30 tonight I felt OK enough to do something enjoyable and headed to the studio. I decided to experiment with some new art toys and a copper pitcher filled with sunflowers that I’d used as a set up for my watercolor students on Saturday morning.

First sketch: Ink (Pentel Brush Pen) in square Handbook Journal
(to enlarge, click image, select All Sizes)

I did this ink sketch above as a gesture drawing to warm up. I’m loving the Pentel Brush Pen with black ink that I used in the two images above–basically a waterbrush with an ink cartridge. Unfortunately I was sent the wrong one–this one is not waterproof or lightfast, so I need to get the one Roz Stendahl recommended: Pentel Pocket Brush pen with the letters GFKP on it. That one IS waterproof and permanent.

The Handbook Journal Co. sketchbook was also recommended by Roz as an alternative to Moleskine watercolor notebooks. I give it a wholehearted thumbs up! It took ink and watercolor very well, and has all the other nice features of the Moleskine notebooks (elastic strap, hard black cover, back pocket, nice paper; however the pages are not perforated). They come in many different sizes and configurations and have more pages than Moleskines. I really like this square shape.

Third sketch. (Click image, select All Sizes, to enlarge)

Above is the third version I did, first drawing with a Micron Pigma pen in square Handbook Journal and then painted with Kremer Pigments. I worked much more loosely than the second one I did. I like the way the leaves and pitcher turned out. (I decided not to post the second one since it’s icky and overworked–if you have to see it I’ll leave it on my Flickr as Sunflower2.)

Tags Pen and Ink

Animals Illustration Friday Sketchbook Pages

Illustration Friday: Trouble

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date October 7, 2006
21 Comments on Illustration Friday: Trouble

Digital art done in Painter
Click image to enlarge and select “All Sizes”

I immediately thought of my cat Fiona when I saw this week’s Illustration Friday cue: “Trouble.” She’s always getting into trouble: chewing on electric cords, wrestling with my socks until they’re in shreds, jumping on my head when I’m sleeping in the middle of the night, or walking across a painting and tracking wet paint everywhere…I could go on and on. So I decided to get even and give her a little trouble, even if it’s just in a picture. (But don’t worry, I have no cat door, no raccoons, and love little Fiona dearly, even though she is a naughty girl.)

I also thought of raccoons because I know how much trouble they can cause. My friend Susie had a family of them living in her attic, which was a terrible nightmare since they were were not at all house-trained and had no manners when it came to eating walls and other important stuff. If you’ve seen the cult documentary, Grey Gardens you know what raccoons can do to a house. I knew someone who had a pet raccoon when I was in college. It was really sweet, with the softest little leathery hands, but frequently tore the place apart, opening all the kitchen cabinets and feasting on their contents.

A technical note: Yippee! I’ve solved the Painter conversion problem. I bought a new monitor to hook up to my laptop and ran it through it’s color calibration program before painting. When I transferred the file to my desktop PC with Photoshop, the colors transferred correctly. I could see that the laptop monitor’s colors were lighter and duller, thus requiring me to use stronger brighter colors that, when transferred, were way too strong. The new LCD monitor can also be flipped to vertical (portrait) mode which is too cool! What a difference having a 20″ monitor instead of a tiny laptop monitor to draw with.

Tags Animals, Cats, Painter Digital Art

Animals Drawing Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Blind Contour Friday: Spooky (Cat)

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date October 6, 2006
7 Comments on Blind Contour Friday: Spooky (Cat)

Blind Contour Friday has issued the cue for October: “Spooky.” I thought my spooky cats would be suitable subjects, though they barely sat still long enough to draw them. In case you think I’ve forgotten how to draw, a “Blind Contour Drawing” means that you draw without looking at your paper and you do not lift your pen from the paper. You follow the contour of the subject with your eyes and your pen at the same time, and if you have to backtrack or cross over to get back to the beginning you do it, all without lifting the pen. Then when you’re done drawing, you can look at your paper while you splash a little paint on it, just for more fun.

The cat in the top drawing is Busby and the bottom is Fiona, also known as “that spooky little kittie,” since she’s quite odd.

They’re both drawn with ink in a Raffine sketchbook and then painted with Kremer Pigments watercolors.

Tags Animals, Blind Contour, Cats, Pen and Ink

Plein Air Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Cloudy Skies – First Rain

Watercolor in Raffine sketchbook
(Click image, select “All Sizes” to enlarge)

It rained last night and this morning for the first time since winter. Our staff meeting ended at 4:00 and I was back to my neighborhood by 5:00 which was a treat, since I usually don’t get home from work until 7:00 and it’s almost dark by then. The bright sky was full of dramatic clouds, so instead of heading directly home I drove to the top of Albany Hill on Solano Ave. I painted these two quickies there, standing in the street behind my parked Toyota RAV4, using the painting gear I keep in the car.

Watercolor in Raffine sketchbook
(Click image, select “All Sizes” to enlarge)

I noticed there was a full moon when the sun went down. Maybe that’s what all the craziness was about downtown yesterday when I said I wish there was an iPod for the eyes so you could see beautiful things instead of ugly urban grit. Tami cleverly quipped that an “eye-pod” would be great. And then today I read this in David Pogue’s New York Times technology column:

“Apple’s rep gave a little talk that focused on iPod accessories. One of them looked like a pair of skinny wraparound sunglasses that displays your video iPod’s TV shows and movies on a virtual big screen that floats in the center of your vision. What’s cool is that you can still see–by looking around the TV set on either side. Hard to explain, but really neat.”

Tags Plein Air

Drawing Sketchbook Pages Still Life Watercolor

Red Pepper

Watercolor in Raffine sketchbook (to enlarge, click image, select “All Sizes”)

I hadn’t planned to paint this evening, being tired and over-stimulated from day one of our two day annual staff meeting/retreat combined with a little too much urban grit. But I realized that painting was exactly what I needed to calm and center myself.

We used to hold our staff retreats at a lovely Sonoma wine country retreat center where we stayed overnight and relaxed while doing the learning, reflecting on the past year, and planning for the next year. But it became increasingly more difficult for people to leave growing families and other parts of their lives for work retreats so we started having them in Preservation Park, a charmingly restored group of Victorian buildings in downtown Oakland.

Walking back to our office at lunch time, about a mile away from the meeting, the things I saw made me wish that there was such a thing as iPods for the eyes; sort of like rose-colored glasses, I suppose. Just like listening to an iPod can tune out the sounds of traffic and annoying people talking on cell phones, putting on these glasses would allow you to see lovely gardens, the ocean, sunsets…like music for the eyes. Much better than what I saw today: various mentally ill or drug-crazed people ranting; a man peeing on the sidewalk as we passed by, requiring us to step out of the path of the urine heading towards us; an old woman lying on the sidewalk screaming in pain surrounded by paramedics; the many empty, shuttered storefronts. Even in our nice meeting room we couldn’t get away from the grit–a homeless guy in a bright blue wig wandered into our meeting room but fortunately turned around and left.