Categories
Flower Art Life in general Watercolor

Bouquet Play

sumi-bouquet

Watercolor and FW acrylic ink in 9×12 in. Aquabee sketchbook.
(To enlarge, click image, select “All Sizes.”)

QUESTIONS:
1. Are the images on my site taking too long too load? I’ve been saving larger sizes to Flickr and putting their medium size here but they are nearly 200K. I used to keep images to around 60K.
2. Do you like being able to click to enlarge or is this size big enough?

Now back to the regular post….

Playing with watercolor and ink again… I painted the flowers loosely without drawing using Kremer Pigments watercolors and then used a sumi brush to apply the ink over top. When it was dry I added a bit of Winsor Violet to the irises on each side because I couldn’t get a good purple with the reds and blues in the Kremer watercolors.

3 notes from Jana’s World today:

1. It was a beautiful sunny day but I spent the whole day behind closed blinds (to keep the glare off my computer) in my office working.

2. On the way home, I was delighted by a parade of humanity exiting the BART train at downtown Berkeley: an aging bearded hippie folk singer in gold see-through vest and red pants, followed by two Tibetan Buddhist monks in saffron robes, a handsome young African-American guy decked out in expensive designer hip-hop apparel and electronic accessories, several Asian students with fully loaded book bags, a skinny pale white woman with dyed black dreadlocks piled on top of her head, an obese woman who could barely walk, a very muscular woman with a crewcut wearing a sleeveless shirt whose arms were covered with tattoos, a young Latina mom pushing a stroller in which sat a round-faced tot wearing what looked like an organza lavender prom dress that ballooned out around her. I have to draw this! (but too tired now)

3. My silly cat Fiona seems to have spent her day in the cereal/pasta cabinet. She shredded open a box of Special K and two packages of spaghetti noodles (but only the white ones–she didn’t bother with the whole wheat, which is good because I needed them for dinner.)

Categories
Drawing People Sketchbook Pages Subway drawings

Sleeping Subway Cyclist

Subway sleeper

Micron Pigma Ink in small Moleskine sketchbook
(To enlarge, click image, select “All Sizes”)

This morning on BART I saw this lovely man as soon as I got on and purposely picked a seat one row past him. I was lucky that nobody sat between us until halfway through the ride. My ride to work is only 13 minutes and he slept the whole way, only changing his left arm slightly. When people sat in the seat in front of me I had to keep scrunching around, trying look over their shoulders or in the aisle–but then my viewpoint changed so that wasn’t too helpful. The guy sitting next to me reading didn’t pay any attention to all my gyrating, nor did anyone else.

One thing I noticed about my process was that before I started drawing I sort of drew the picture mentally first, moving the pen above the paper, picturing how I’d place the image. Then I was ready to start drawing but had this rebellious moment where I decided to start with the hand that was closest to me (which doesn’t appear in the drawing because it was the only thing he moved) even though I had a feeling it was not the “right” place to start. It worked out ok anyway. I just kept my pen moving and the ride was over before I had time to overwork it. I considered adding some colored pencil when I got home, but decided to just leave it alone.

Categories
Flower Art Life in general Plants Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Zebra Plant

Z<p>ebra Plant

Loosely painted without drawing first using Kremer Pigments watercolors; then FW Acrylic Ink applied with Sumi brush. In 9×12 Aquabee sketchbook. (To enlarge, click image and select “All Sizes”)

At last, a day without a headache! Every time the weather changes I get migraney. It’s really frustrating here in the S.F. Bay Area because we sometimes go through three seasons in a day, especially in spring and fall. But there’s nothing like the absence of pain to brighten a day and remind me to feel grateful.
I visited my local Dick Blick (did his parents really name him that?) Art Supplies today, to pick up some ink and a sumi brush to carry on with my experiments with loose painting and adding ink. They were playing some weird music in the store that made me feel like I was getting another migraine–it had some kind of repetetive pounding sound, not a drumbeat, something chinky-chunky sounding, that was driving me nuts. I mentioned it to a fellow shopper in the ink section and she, irritated, “thanked” me for bringing it to her attention so she could be annoyed too.

I’m very sensitive to my environment, which is good for being an artist but bad for being out in the world where I easily get overstimulated when it’s busy and noisy and then need quiet downtime (preferably in the studio) to recover. Also not good for driving since I’m constantly noticing everything around me but the road. I try to make myself pay attention to driving so I’m not too much of a hazard–though I did back out of my driveway right into a parked car today (barely touched it, no harm done, but a good reminder to pay more attention!).

Categories
Outdoors/Landscape Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Cactus on Carlson

Cactus on Carlson

Pencil and Kremer Pigments watercolor in 9×12 Aquabee sketchbook
(click image to enlarge, select All Sizes)
Why am I painting in a sketchbook instead of on watercolor paper? I asked myself this a hundred times while I was painting this afternoon (well maybe 20 times). In my watercolor class Saturday I emphasized the importance of using good paper, especially when one is learning to paint, since it will give better results, and will assist you in making beautiful washes and glazes instead of impede you.

I should listen to my own advice! Today I wanted to paint these cacti I photographed on a walk last week. I was able to compose and paint the image I had in mind, but it would have been a lot nicer had I used watercolor paper. The Aquabee Super Deluxe Sketchbook has decent paper for watercolor sketching, but so what! I have a drawer full of watercolor paper I could have used.

Did I go for the sketchbook instead of good paper because I like filling up sketchbooks or because knowing I’m doing a “sketch” is a lot less intimidating than making a “painting” and if I’m using “real” watercolor paper, it must be a painting, and if it’s a painting it has to be good? (erckkk–that’s just plain stupid!)

Before I started blogging and sketchbooking, I only painted on good watercolor paper. But I also worked on paintings for weeks before declaring them finished. I had a belief that a painting done in one afternoon wasn’t a “real” painting. I’m putting things in quotes because these concepts aren’t ones I want but seem to have and don’t know why or when I internalized them.

I can do this one again on watercolor paper, and maybe I will. But I’m also going to start painting on good paper again unless I know for sure I just want to do something small and quick. I miss the lovely texture and flow.

cactus-photo

Here’s the original photo I was working from. When I first saw the cacti they were glowing in the setting sun but by the time I got to them with my camera the sun was just about gone so the light wasn’t great.

Categories
Drawing Sketchbook Pages

Paper Clips

Paperclips

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.

Categories
Animals Drawing Illustration Friday Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Illustration Friday: Smitten

Watercolor version

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.

Smitten-Digital version

Digital version done completely in Painter (blah)

Categories
Flower Art Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

White Rose, Long Day

White Rose

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!

Categories
People Sketchbook Pages

Sexual Harassment Training

Sexual-harassment-training1
(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.

Sexual-harassment-training2
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.

Sexual-harassment-training3
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”

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

Westbrae Nursery Buddhas

Westbrae Nursery Buddha

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.

Categories
Drawing Flower Art Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Sunflowers and Copper Pitcher

Sunflower4

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.

Sunflower1

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.

Sunflower3

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.)