EDiM 18: Needs Polish (Silver Tea Pot), ink and watercolor, 7×5 in
I bought this old silver-plated teapot at my local thrift shop. I’ve drawn it before here but now that it’s really tarnished it was even more fun to paint because of the pinkish tarnish.
EDiM 17 Hand soap, ink and watercolor, 7×5 in
I love the lemony fresh scent of this soap and look forward to washing my hands. Normally I’m overly sensitive to scented products and stay away from them but this one makes me happy. I used a green Pitt Artists Brush pen to draw this and then went over it with watercolor and a little black fine point Pitt Artist pen.
EDiM 14 Glass of Juice. Graphite, ink and watercolor, 7×5 in
I got confused and skipped over posting this glass of yummy Trader Joe’s Garden Patch juice yesterday, and numbered the two pics I did post with the wrong numbers, which I’ve now corrected. This is an odd glass, made by Bodum and meant to be used for tea as it’s double-walled for insulation.
This was more fun to draw than to use since I prefer my tea in cups with handles, even if the glass doesn’t get hot. I love painting glass!
I’ve had this wonderful old stapler for as long as I can remember. Maybe it was my grandfathers? It’s heavy and has rusty spots but still works great. I enjoy using it every time I staple something.
EDiM 15 Cookie (Monster), ink and watercolor, 7×5 in
I don’t eat cookies because I’m overly sensitive to sugar; eating one usually leads to eating the whole bag so I just don’t eat that first one. Drawing a cookie would have been too tempting so I drew a fellow friendly cookie monster.
When I was a kid I had a little shell collection and my favorites were Cowrie shells (though I misheard the name and thought they were called Molly shells. I still get confused and have to look them up. They feel so nice to hold, with their smooth, shiny surface and egg-like shape.
Since I was looking up the name anyway, I read a bit about them on Wikipedia and learned these interesting factoids:
The term “porcelain” derives from the old Italian term for the cowrie shell (porcellana) due to their similar translucent appearance.
Shells of certain species have historically been used as currency: The Ghanaian cedi was named after cowry shells and starting over three thousand years ago, cowry shells were used as currency in China and India.
The Classical Chinese character for money (貝) originated as a stylized drawing of a Maldivian cowrie shell.
Cowry shells are used in sacred Objibway ceremonies and the Whiteshell Provincial Park in Manitoba, Canada is named after cowries.
Cowry shells are also worn as jewelry or otherwise used as ornaments or charms and are viewed as symbols of womanhood, fertility, birth and wealth.
EDiM 11 Water Bottle Found on Internet, ink & watercolor, 7.5x 5 in
I love Klean Kanteen stainless steel water bottles. I keep a tall one in my car, the one sketched above lives on my bedside table, I carry a Kid-sized bright blue one on walks and keep a jumbo 64 oz. Klean Kanteen filled with lemony water in the fridge where it surprisingly fits nicely on the door shelf. I use it to make sure I get my 8 cups of water each day. The bottles are light weight and don’t leave a taste or chemicals in the water.
EDim 10 Cracked Cup, Ink and watercolor, 7×5 in
This drawing is just as cracked as the cup! This was my favorite coffee cup for a long time. Now it’s on my still life shelf waiting to pose for a painting.
EDiM 12 Shelf and stuff on it by studio sink, ink & watercolor 5×7 in
I shouldn’t have even started this sketch as I was way too tired and it shows. This is a shelf next to the sink in my studio. I drew quickly and directly with ink and painted just as quickly. Sloppy but it’s done.
EDiM 8 Mirror Image in Copper Pitcher, ink and watercolor, 7.5x 5 inches
This one was really fun to draw. It was a surprise to see that I was reflected twice, right-side-up and upside-down. I had to stack the pitcher on top of a box of kleenex on top of a box of rubber stamps.
EDiM 9 Mirror Image in Copper Pitcher, ink, watercolor, gouache, 7.5×5 in
I drew this in pencil sitting outdoors at a little round table in the sun. I sketched in the shadow of the flower and painted everything with watercolor. By then the sun had moved and there were more shadows so I painted them in too. I didn’t like the way it messed up the composition so I brought the sketchbook into the studio and painted over table and extra shadows with gouache. It only partially hid the “mistake” but I decided I liked the way there’s a shadow of a shadow showing through.
I used rubber stamps for text on the page but got that wrong too (9, not 8) so just used the X stamp to cross out the 8. I love work that is fresh and just right on the first pass. This isn’t that, and shows a bit of the struggle. Sometimes that just makes things more interesting.
EDiM 5 Hobby (Millie), black ink and white Sharpie on Stonehenge brown paper glued in Moleskine, 5×7 in
I filled pages of my sketchbook trying to draw Millie from life but never got more than 1/3 a dog before she moved. So I pasted some brown Stonehenge paper over a couple of the dog scribble pages and then drew this one from a photo. She’s extra elegantly long in my drawing and seems to be prancing through the air (I forgot to add some shadows or a part of her bed so you could tell she was relaxing lying down.
EDiM7-Microwave in the studio beside the sink, ink and watercolor 5×7 in
I inherited this microwave from my son, left behind when I converted the grease monkey garage into my studio. When I use it to heat water for tea in the winter I just have to remember that if I have both electric heaters on, all the lights and the stereo going and a hair dryer blow-drying a watercolor, there’s a good chance I will shortly be sitting in the dark until I visit the circuit breaker box and flip the switch.
Jana Bouc, Artist 