Tag: Flower Art

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Drawing Flower Art Gouache Ink and watercolor wash Life in general Painting Places Rose Sketchbook Pages

When you forget how to draw…

Hillside Gardens Apartments, ink & watercolor
Hillside Gardens Apartments, ink & watercolor

…keep drawing! After feeling so rusty sketching at the county fair I was determined to get my drawing juju back. I knew the only way to find it was to draw more.

I tried sketching at the El Cerrito 4th of July festival (see below) but was all thumbs again. Since I couldn’t make a decent sketch myself, I bought a really nice one at the festival’s art show from my friend Ikuko who had a booth there.

I decided to try again on the walk  home. The Hillside Garden Apartments (at top of post) is an ongoing renovation project and labor of love by the owner to convert an old rundown motel into beautifully landscaped apartments. He and the apartment manager were driving by and saw me standing on the corner sketching. They parked and came  to see what I doing and we had a nice neighborly chat with much mutual admiration.

Can't Draw; Ink, watercolor, colored pencil
Can't Draw; Ink, watercolor, colored pencil (click to enlarge)

Back home I continued drawing. I was happy with this sketch of a rose from my garden (below) but lost focus and overworked the watercolor. So the next day I played around with adding gouache, not worrying about getting the colors “right” since the rose had completely changed anyway.

Love the (Artist) You're With; Ink, gouache & watercolor
Love the (Artist) You're With; Ink, gouache & watercolor

Then I wrote myself a little pep talk around the rose, concluding that even if my drawing wasn’t all I wanted it to be, I could at least stop being so self-critical and, to re-phrase the old Crosby, Stills & Nash song: “If you can’t (yet) be the artist you love, then love the one you’re with!”

Categories
Drawing Flower Art Ink and watercolor wash Life in general Painting Sketchbook Pages

Birthday Blog: Glads and Gladioli

Birthday Glads and Gladioli, ink & watercolor
Birthday Glads and Gladioli, ink, rubber stamps, watercolor

My blog and I are celebrating our birthdays! My blog turned 4 last month and my birthday was Saturday but I’m celebrating all month. My neighbors gave me this little bouquet of glads (gladioli) which was perfect because I had so many birthday things I was glad for.

Unlike some who expect bling for their birthday, I’m much more down to earth. Some of the highlights of what made me glad on my birthday:

  1. Starting the day with my annual pilgrimage (a 3-mile round trip walk) to Fat Apples for a baked apple souffle/pancake with my sister and my best friend (who gave me a beautiful ceramic bowl she made).
  2. A short nap (because I woke up at 5:00 a.m. like a little kid on Christmas).
  3. A cleaned out garage courtesy of my son Cody (the only gift I’d asked for).
  4. Getting to borrow my neighbor’s truck and then making it to the dump just before they closed to get rid of a truckload of 10 years of junk.
  5. A homemade card from my mom with photos of my grandmother pregnant with my mom and my mom pregnant with me (and a nice check).
  6. A delicious dinner with Cody.
  7. A video, a cup of tea and a great night’s sleep.
  8. A perfect start to my 2-week birthday vacation!

My vacation is a “stay-cation” with lots of time for sketching and painting in the beautiful Bay Area. And along with spending some quality time in the backyard on the chaise lounge with a book, I have also promised (myself) to finally restock my earthquake emergency supplies since all the food and water in there have expired by now.

Blog Birthday: Thank You!

  • 4 years
  • 782 posts
  • 8,259 comments
  • 679,347 views
  • 88,880 spam caught and deleted!
    (WordPress has excellent spam protection, which is why you never have to do that stupid Captcha-type-in-meaningless-letters to leave a comment here)

THANKS to all of you wonderful blog visitors for your encouragement, support and the great conversations! I’m so grateful for every comment and every visit, and for the many friends I’ve made with artists around the world who share their wisdom so generously!

Categories
Art theory Flower Art Landscape Painting Photos photoshop Places Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Study for Tulip Painting in Watercolor

Kaiser Hospital Tulip painting study, watercolor, 4.5" x 6.5"
Kaiser Hospital Tulip painting study, watercolor, 4.5" x 6.5"

I accidentally arrived an hour early for a doctor’s appointment at one of Kaiser Oakland’s medical offices that has an amazing hidden garden. The building is an architectural treasure, built around a courtyard in 1912 by Julia Morgan as a hospital and home for unwed mothers (or so I’ve been told). Instead of reading old, germy magazines, I spent the hour in the courtyard sketching, wandering and taking photos.

After working out the composition and colors, I’ve got two paintings ready to start: a full-size watercolor sheet of the above image and a slightly smaller canvas of another garden scene.

Before starting a large painting I like to do a study first, getting to know the image more intimately, and experimenting with pigments and techniques so when I start the real painting I have a plan of action or at least a sense of direction.

Tulip study and notes for painting, journal spread
Tulip study and notes for painting, journal spread

Since I only recently began experimenting with opaque watercolor pigments after years of using only transparents, I made some discoveries with this study and took notes as I worked. Here are a couple that might be of interest:

  • Opaque pigments (Cadmiums, Cerulean, Yellow Ochre) are great when putting down an area of strong color and leaving it (such as when painting in my journal). But they lift too easily when adding layers over them, and become thick and unattractive when trying to mix darks. As I learned in oil painting, darks/shadows are best when thin so they don’t draw attention to themselves with texture.  Seems to be the case in watercolor as well: better to use staining, transparent darks that won’t lift or get thick. For the dark green areas in the painting I’ll use Sap Green with Sepia and vary with a bit of Indigo, Winsor Violet and/or Alizarin.
  • The Legion/Utrecht 100% rag watercolor paper I’m using in my journal lifts incredibly easily. This is great when you actually want to lift paint but not so good when you just want to soften an edge and a bunch of paint lifts off instead!

Here are the original reference photo and the Photoshopped version. As you can see I got rid of some distractions and changed the proportions a bit.

Original reference photo of tulip in garden
Original reference photo of tulip in garden
Photoshopped tulip reference photo
Photoshopped tulip reference photo

Photoshop CS5 has some great new composition tools, such as “Content-Aware Fill” which I used to fill in the windows, white at top right corner and a tulip on the right margin. You just select and delete sections you want to replace and PS fills them with information from the surrounding area. I also narrowed the image to fit the proportions of the 22×30 watercolor paper using Content-Aware Scaling which preserves the proportions of the important stuff while squeezing in (or stretching) the other stuff.

Categories
Bay Area Parks Berkeley Drawing Flower Art Ink and watercolor wash Landscape Outdoors/Landscape Painting Places Plein Air Rose Sketchbook Pages

Berkeley Rose Garden

Berkeley Rose Garden & Rose Practice, Ink & Watercolor
Berkeley Rose Garden & Rose Practice, Ink & Watercolor

When my plein air group met at the Berkeley Rose Garden last Saturday I arrived even later than usual: at noon, only an hour before the session was to end. I found a spot to sit and quickly sketched and painted the complicated, terraced rose garden, finishing just in time for the 1:00 critique.

Berkeley Rose Garden, Ink & Watercolor
Berkeley Rose Garden, Ink & Watercolor
Rose Grid, Ink & Watercolor
Rose Grid, Ink & Watercolor

After the critique I took some photos of the roses that most intrigued me, while guys set up white chairs for a wedding there later in the day. Once home I made a grid in my journal, and displaying the photos on my monitor, tried to understand their design and draw them.

I’ve bound my next journal and named it “Rosie” and want to decorate her with a rose design so this was practice for the rose I’ll draw on the cover. I’ve finished my journal “Froggie” but still have a bunch more pages to post.

I’ve updated my blog template. What do you think of the new design?

Categories
Drawing Flower Art Ink and watercolor wash Painting Sketchbook Pages

My Mothers’ Day Fuchsias: “Buy Once Use Twice?”

Mothers Day Fuchsias, ink & watercolor
Mothers Day Fuchsias, ink & watercolor

I had a lovely Mothers Day yesterday. After spending a cozy, rainy day in the studio painting, Robin  arrived to chauffer me to Cody’s house for dinner carrying a beautiful fuchsia plant as a gift. Attached to the plant was a tag proclaiming, “Buy once, use twice!” This seemed an odd bit of marketing since I generally expect things I buy to be usable multiple times, not just twice. It also made me wonder how you “use” a plant.

Upon reading further I learned they simply meant it could be enjoyed as a house plant first and then planted in the garden later. Wrapped in festive fuchsia colored cellophane it does cheer up a room. But since my cats try to eat bouquets and houseplants I will probably plant these in the garden soon.

Many of my garden plants were gifts and I always think of the people who gave them to me when I see them in the garden. And they all were “Buy once, Use twice” items too since they got sketched and planted.

The bowl of succulents in my dining room were a gift from my sister.

Succulent Garden in a Bowl, watercolor 9x6"

The penstemon in my backyard was a housewarming gift from Barbara and the rubber tree in my side yard came from Robin.

Rubber Tree
Rubber Tree

The azalea in the front yard was a birthday gift from my next door neighbors.

Front yard flowers, ink & watercolor
Front yard flowers, ink & watercolor

The Japanese maple tree by my front door was a gift from my coworkers in honor of my father’s death nearly 10 years ago.

Japanese Maple leaves, ink & watercolor
Japanese Maple leaves, ink & watercolor
Categories
Drawing Flower Art Gardening Ink and watercolor wash Painting Rose

Can’t Resist Those Roses

Irresistable Roses, ink & watercolor
Irresistable Roses, ink & watercolor

On a day that felt like a marathon of busyness I couldn’t resist pausing this afternoon to sketch roses from my favorite bush which was putting on a glorious show of snazzy blooms.

I like that I can turn my journal sideways and paint across the centerfold to double the size of my “canvas,” but it’s a little sad and distracting having that strong fold line across the middle. I’d thought of painting on a sheet of watercolor paper instead of in my journal but I had the silly idea that there wasn’t time for that and anyway my journal was feeling a little neglected.

I’ve spent the past couple of days catching up on non-art stuff, like cleaning the house from top to bottom, finally dealing with a pile of paper that needed filing or doing, and using the FURminator (best invention ever!) on my two cats, filling an entire empty Kleenex box with fur that would have been shed otherwise. I saved the big ball o’ fur, thinking it might be fun to use in an art project but  haven’t figured out what yet.

Categories
Drawing Flower Art Ink and watercolor wash Painting Plants Quick Sketch Sketchbook Pages Still Life

Two-Minute Tuesday Night Sketching at Cathy’s, Part I

Cathy's Bonsai, ink & watercolor
Cathy's Bonsai, ink & watercolor

Tuesday night we met at Cathy’s house instead of a public place where moving every two minutes with a timer ringing would be a nuisance. We started on her deck to the sound of burbling water and birds singing and lovely sights all around and warmed up with an untimed sketch. Drawing this little bonsai on the table in front of me was just what I needed to unwind from the crazy day. The sun went down and it was nearly dark when I painted it.

Then we went inside and started the timed two-minute sketches.

Orchid, 2 minute sketch, ink & watercolor
Orchid, 2 minute ink sketch (watercolor added later)

Cathy’s Berkeley Craftsman style home is a serene oasis decorated with simplicity and a Japanese zen style. Open space and emptiness balances still-life displays of special objects, art and her wonderful collections.  She set the timer for two minutes and said “Go” and we moved through the house, our eyes and pens devouring tender new morsels around every corner every two minutes.

I added the watercolor at home later for these two sketches.

Cathy's Calla Display, ink & watercolor
6 minute sketch: Cathy's Calla Display, ink & watercolor

After each set of 6 two-minutes sketches we met back at the dining room table to look at each other’s sketches. When I saw Sonia’s calla lily and apples sketch I realized I’d missed that corner. I liked that display so much I chose to ignore the two-minute bells and spent six  minutes enjoying drawing this one.

I’ll post the rest of the sketches after I add color to them. I am soooo lucky to have such great, dedicated sketching buddies!

Categories
Bookbinding Drawing Flower Art Ink and watercolor wash Life in general Sketchbook Pages

Having a Weird Day, Broken Things

Broken faucet filter, ink & watercolor
Broken Pur faucet filter, ink & watercolor

I went to my dance class early this morning but burglars had broken into the studio in the wee hours and stolen the sound equipment and the computer. The teacher tried to switch to a Stretch/Strengthen class since it’s hard to dance without music but the police told us we had to leave.

So I came home to work, determined to get in a lunch-time walk in the sun (it’s spring at last!). But there was more weirdness. In between web-based staff meetings and conference calls I finalized a fancy email newsletter for the organization and sent it out to 2,000 people. Half an hour later I learned that an important link in the newsletter was broken. I learned more than I ever wanted to know about sub-domains and URLs, fixed the link, and sent it out again. So far no complaints. But no walk, either.

Yesterday was weird too. I was determined to finish binding two new journals that I’d started on Sunday, one for general use and one for next month’s International Fake Journal Month. While it wasn’t as hard as the first binding experience, I broke the “measure twice, cut once” rule (measuring only once and so having to cut twice, wasting good binder board and end papers), and ran into a couple of other problems.

Meanwhile outside the sun was shining, the best weather in months, and I was sad that I was spending it indoors. Finally I finished the journal binding and went outside. This little plant (don’t know what it is; got it as a gift for my birthday last year and stuck it in the garden) was flowering and looked happy so I sat on the sidewalk in front of my house and quickly sketched and painted a bit of it as the sun went down.

Front yard flowers, ink & watercolor
Front yard flowers, ink & watercolor

The water filter at the top of the post is another broken thing. It used to live on the faucet in the studio sink but it snapped off one day and I couldn’t put it back on. Procter and Gamble (who make PUR filters) sent me a bunch of adapters but none would stay on the threads of the spout. I called my local hardware store and they told me that I was probably out of luck.

They said if I tried to just replace the spout it was likely that other parts would get broken in the process. And since modern faucets mount on the sink, not in tile on the wall like mine, I would probably have to rip out the wall, and the old sink, and replumb the faucet, and buy a new faucet. And then I would be broke. So I’ll just continue carrying in fresh water from the filter in the kitchen, 40 feet away.

Categories
Flower Art Life in general People Sketchbook Pages Subway drawings Watercolor

Innocent Vixens

First Camellia of Spring; watercolor, painted directly without drawing first
First Camellia of Spring, Watercolor

Yesterday’s rainy-day post was a bit dreary so I wanted to post something bright and cheery today. When the first camellia on the bush bloomed I painted her directly in watercolor, without drawing in pencil or pen first. This little vase looks as intended; it is nearly flat in really life, probably intentionally squished by the potter, with just a sort of slot in the top.

I think this sketch makes good use of the watercolor paper in “The Mutt” (the name I’ve stenciled on the outside of the sketchbook I bound with watercolor paper.) I named it that because it’s a little homely and imperfect but still perfectly lovable.

Innocent Vixens, the full page
The full page

Here is the page where the above sketch resides. I like to make good use of my sketchbook pages. Lately I’ve been grateful for messed up sketches because they become pages that I use for journaling right over the bad sketch. More about that in another post.

Innocent Vixens(?), BART riders, sepia pen
Innocent Vixens, BART riders, sepia pen

And if you were wondering about the post title “Innocent Vixens,” it was from something I heard on the radio. Someone said “innocent victims” and for some reason my mind wandered to “innocent vixens.” It seemed like a concept that might be fun to sketch someday and I wanted to remember it, so into the journal it went, above these innocent (though a bit dorky) BART subway rider guys.

Categories
Art supplies Ink and watercolor wash Painting People Places Sketchbook Pages

Signs of Spring

Blossoms, blue ink & watercolor
Blossoms, blue ink & watercolor

Signs of spring were sprouting everywhere on my walk and I couldn’t resist stopping to sketch and paint. But I stopped so many times that before I’d gone half a mile I was so hungry I had to return home for lunch before heading out again.

The sketch above graces the first page of my new sketchbook, bound with Arches 90lb cold press watercolor paper. It’s quite different from the Fabriano Venezia sketchbooks I’ve been using the past year.

Princess flower bush blossoms, ink & watercolor
Princess flower bush blossoms, ink & watercolor

I’m really enjoying the way the book opens flat, it’s size (7.5″ tall x 5.5″ wide) and weight, how comfortable it is to hold and to hold open for working across the spread, the texture of the paper for painting and the way the pages don’t ripple, pill, or show through to the other side. The paper takes a lot of abuse and layering, which is both a good and a bad thing. Good because it holds up, but bad because it allows endless diddling around which isn’t really the point of sketching (but is a bad habit of mine).

Peets people, ink & watercolor
Peets people, ink & watercolor

And what’s a nice walk on a spring-like day without a stop at Peets for a Cappuccino at a sidewalk table and a bit of sketching/painting.  I’m still finding my way with this paper, trying to get a sense of how much paint to use, and which pens work best with it.

One thing I’ve determined for sure is that I prefer painting on site when I go out sketching, as I did with these, and not just drawing on site and adding paint later as I did last week with my sketching group. I just spent the evening painting the drawings from last week’s outing and it just didn’t have the zing that painting from life on site does.

You can make many more sketches and have more control of the paint when you save the painting for later, but then you either have to work from memory (of which I have too little) or photos (which never capture what you really see in person) or by using a pencil to softly write “Y” in areas that are yellow, “B” for blue, etc.) While I loved those “paint by number” kits when I was a kid, I’m not crazy about painting by letter now.