Tag: Pen and Ink

Dream drawings

4/14/07 In bed in a hotel where the roof was leaking through the chandelier and in the closet so the hotel staff came in and hung a blue tarp over the chandelier.
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Today’s post are the little drawings I do each morning upon awakening of my dreams the night before. These are all from the past week. I draw them in what I call my AM/PM notebook (a square Handbook Journal Co. notebook that I write/draw in each AM & PM) using a Liquid Expresso pen. I bought three of these notebooks and a bunch of these pens and don’t much like them but for morning scribbling they’re fine. The ink dissolves if it gets wet which I forgot when I colored these tonight with water-soluable colored pencil and then couldn’t wet them without the ink running.

4/15/07 Marcy and I were in Santa Cruz jogging along a path by the beach. She got ahead of me and I kept calling, “Wait up!” but she got ahead of me and disappeared and I was all alone.

4/16/07 (The night before the Virginia Tech shootings) Dreamt a gunman came into my office and at gunpoint demanded I type some names into the database. People kept coming into my office and I mouthed “Call 911” so they did but the police were idiots and the gunman got away.

4/18/07 I thought a bad guy had broken into the house but it turned out to be the boyfriend of a Swedish roommate (don’t have one) and the jingling noise I heard was his ID tags on a chain around his neck. When I went in the bathroom the sink was full of little cubes of his shaving cream which I threw in the trash and then discovered it wasn’t the trash but was my roommates clean laundry which I’d now messed up.

4/19/07 (a super busy dreaming night!)

1. At a Japanese restaurant with a pool running through it that the waitresses walked back and forth in to serve food with their skirts pinned up in their waistbands.

2. Giving a talk in a high school class about why students shouldn’t smoke marijuana before school.

3. Riding my bike side-saddle carrying a boy from the class who was a friend of my son.

4. A bunch of Brian’s friends in an old car pull up in my driveway to spend the day hanging out in their car while I’m cleaning house.

5 . (below) I’m trying to get home and wander into a Siddha Yoga retreat center where they’ve just locked all the doors and they won’t let me leave while they’re doing their chanting.

6. (below) I’m still trying to get home and walk through a little boutique but the only way out is to climb up a shelf and go through an opening in it but my feet are too big to fit on the shelf/steps.

7. (below) Still trying to get home…there’s two high chain-link fences I have to get over. I literally fly over the first one and lose momentum and have to climb over the second one.

4/20/07
1. I meet a cute guy at a Catholic church where I’m sketching in a back pew.

1B (above #2) I invite the guy home for dinner but then he turns up his nose at my spaghetti made from a jar and complains about the cat hair on my table cloth.

2. Cody has a funny robot thingee that makes me laugh hysterically. Then he’s selling my supplies of toilet paper and other stuff from Costco that I keep on a shelf in the garage to a friend of his. I spent a lot of time laughing in my sleep last night.

If you’re still here reading this (amazing enough in itself!) I’d love to know:
(1) whether you find the dream explanations of interest or if I should just post the drawings (or neither); and
(2) whether my dream explanations feel like “TMI” … too much information…too revealing or personal, even though I leave out WAY more than I share here.

Tags Pen and Ink

Every Day Matters Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Shopping Cart (EDM 115) for Plein Air Art Supplies

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date April 18, 2007
13 Comments on Shopping Cart (EDM 115) for Plein Air Art Supplies

Ink and watercolor in Aquabee 6×9 sketchbook
To enlarge or see annotated details, click image and select All Sizes

This week’s Everyday Matters drawing challenge is to draw a shopping cart. I spent about an hour drawing my funny grandma shopping cart that I use to haul my plein air supplies around and then added a bit of watercolor. Before I got my new easel that has a shelf attachment, I needed something to use as a table when painting outdoors so the clip towards the top of the supplies in the cart is attached to a piece of foam core board. Once I’ve got my junk out of the cart I clip the foamcore board to the top of the cart and it makes a nice little table. Other items include a folding stool in a bag, my palette, brushes in a brush holder, a floppy hat, block of watercolor paper, a pad for sitting on the ground. I also usually throw in my small painting/drawing bag that has pens, erasers, teeny squirt bottle, kleenex, view finder, and other miscellaney. I either go out sketching with only what fits in a 6 x8″ bag or with my cart and everything but the kitchen sink. I like my comforts.

I experimented with Flickr’s annotating capabilities by noting all the items in the cart so if you’re interested you can click the image to hop over to Flickr and as you move the mouse over the little squares they will tell you what each item is. (Not that it’s so interesting, but I had fun playing with the technology). You can also see it bigger there.

Tags Pen and Ink

Flower Art Life in general Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Jana’s Emergency Clinic and Hotline

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date April 13, 2007
11 Comments on Jana’s Emergency Clinic and Hotline

Ink and watercolor in 6×9 Aquabee sketchbook and ink in my AM/PM journal
To enlarge, click image, select All Sizes

Since my studio time got thwarted by emergencies this afternoon (read about it below), I just took a few minutes to do this watercolor using the little sketch on the right as a reference (a branch of the tree outside my bedroom window that I did this morning in my AM/PM journal). I was really surprised as I drew the flowers how many different shapes there were since at first glance all I saw was a bunch of little round flowers.

I’d planned to have the whole afternoon and evening in the studio but right after lunch, Brian, the young man who lives across the street, came over and asked me to call an ambulance for him, that he was having trouble breathing, felt dizzy and faint, had a headache, and that something was wrong with his vision. At the same time, I got a call from work with technical problems that urgently needed my help.

The good news is that I went through this a week ago with Brian. I had called 911 for him, knowing that strong young men don’t knock on the doors of total strangers asking for that kind of help unless they really need it. My living room was soon filled with half a dozen incredibly handsome and hunky firemen and emergency medical techs while their fire engine and ambulance waited outside. They checked him out and took him to the hospital where he was told he was having an anxiety/panic attack, they gave him a pill that put him to sleep. When he woke up he was OK and was sent home.

I know people who have panic attacks and I get stress-related migraines and I was sure that’s what was happening with him, so I knew what to do. Instead of calling an ambulance I sat him down, gave him a brown paper bag to breathe into (to reverse the effects of hyperventilating–dizziness, faintness and the sensation of not being able to breathe). While he sat on my couch doing that I sorted out the problems at my office by conference call.

Then I asked Brian (who I’d only met last week) what had been going on in his life (other than being a job-hunting African-American male in the U.S. which is stressful enough). He said that a year ago he’d had a good job, was writing and performing music with his girlfriend and was happy. Then they were in a horrible car accident in which he’d had a head injury, fractured a vertebrae, had a collapsed lung and had been in a body cast for 3 months. Right after he got out of the hospital his best friend was shot 17 times and killed. He and his girlfriend drifted apart and he misses her.

At this point work called me again and so did his mother. Switching back and forth on the two lines, I solved the work computer problem and explained to his mom what was going on. She said she didn’t know why he was stressing right now, since everything seemed fine. I told her how he’d never dealt with all the trauma he’d experienced and listed the traumas. She said, “That’s true…AND we had a house fire and lost everything–that’s why we moved to this house in September.” While we were sitting there a bill collector called him on his phone, and I’m sure that’s getting to him too.

I explained to him what I know about depression, anxiety, stress, migraines, medication, grieving, the importance of counseling, etc. and then I gave him the phone numbers for the local free clinic with volunteer doctors and peer counselors and also the number of the Suicide Prevention Hotline where he can call anytime to talk to someone when he’s in that panic attack condition. I hope he will use those numbers. I’m glad to have been able to help him but I can’t be doing this regularly!

He’s such a bright and sweet young man who’s been through so much! I know if he just had help working through everything he’s gone through and a chance to cry and grieve his losses he’d be able to get on with his life. It’s such a crime that there’s no public healthcare in the U.S. If you know of any good (free) counselors who would be interested in helping him in the East Bay area, please let me know.

Tags Pen and Ink

Gardening Life in general Outdoors/Landscape Photos Plants Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Sister Spa Day

Watercolor & Ink in small Moleskine watercolor notebook
To enlarge, click images

Yesterday I treated my sister Marcy to a sisters’ spa day at the wonderful Osmosis Day Spa in Freestone, CA and then dinner at the Union Hotel in Occidental.

We started with a tea ceremony in their Japanese garden and then had enzyme baths which was the most relaxing experience I’ve ever had. After putting on lovely Japanese robes, we were escorted to a private room with a glass sliding wall facing another zen garden and pond.

In the room were two large cement tubs piled with fragrent cedar sawdust, soft rice bran and enzymes imported from Japan. After climbing in, we were each buried up to our chins with this warm, heavy stuff. It was like being in the most comfortable recliner ever, and like being in a womb. Beautiful music played while we relaxed and for once my mind went completely blank. Every five minutes our beautiful attendant arrived to refresh the cool washcloth on our forehead, gently wipe our faces with a cool cloth and give us sips of water. Because of the enzymes, the sawdust gets warmer and warmer until it’s time to get out after 20 minutes.

Thoroughly baked to just the right temperature, our attendant helped us out, brushed us off and then we showered before moving on to our heavenly 75 minute massages. Speaking of baking, across the street from the spa is the Wildflour Bakery, where Marcy bought a loaf of “Sticky Bun” bread which was hot out of the oven filled with rich, melting cinnamon and nuts.

After the massages we retreated to the zen garden and sat in the open air meditation gazebo (seen in the photo above). Marcy sat on the provided meditation cushions watching the Koi and meditating until she dozed off and almost fell over. Then she joined me on my bench where I was making the sketch at the top, of the view from the gazebo (photo below).

By then it was nearly four and since we’d skipped lunch we headed a few miles west to Occidental for dinner at the Union Hotel. The second sketch at the top is what was sitting on the bar in the cafe at the hotel along with several more large clay bunny statues. Then it was a lovely 1 1/2 hour ride back home through the most brilliantly green fields covered in yellow and white wildflowers. For city girls it was fun seeing all the horses, cows, sheep, lambs, llamas, a few deer, a squashed skunk, and many hawks out in the beautiful country.

“Pull over, I have to pet those horses,” Marcy said. So we drove down someone’s dirt road to pet the horsies, who were only interested in us long enough to determine we had no food for them and then went back to eating grass. The car above is in the side garden at Osmosis–a bit incongruous but I’m sure there’s a story behind it.

Tags Pen and Ink, Photos

Dreams People Sketchbook Pages

Goofy sketches and dream tidbits from AM/PM journal

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date April 5, 2007
5 Comments on Goofy sketches and dream tidbits from AM/PM journal

AM: Dreamt Tim was holding up an eggplant and painting it.

PM: Memory drawing of old Chinese lady I saw today who’d converted her umbrella into a carrying device (known as a shoulder pole I learned by googling “Chinese over shoulder carrying”)

AM: Dreamt I was sitting in front seat of truck with Blake from American Idol and another couple. We were watching a movie displayed in the air in front of us and I kept fiddling unsuccessfully with the remote trying to fast forward.

AM: Dreamt that this doorman named Jack got a phone call and they dropped the phone out the window to him, almost hitting two lady shoppers.

PM: Memory drawing of Richard from the back as he worked on my computer wearing a jacket and cap because he was cold and so was I but didn’t think of turning on the heat.

Tags Pen and Ink, People

Animals Gardening Plants Watercolor

Hummingbird nest

Ink and watercolor on Arches paper, 10×8″ drawn from actual nest
To enlarge, click image, select All Sizes

I’ve been watching some little brown birds make a nest under my neighbor’s eaves the past few days and this morning I pointed it out to them. It was fun to see the smiles on the little kids’ faces. Then they showed me this hummingbird’s nest that they found in a tree they were trimming last week.

Yessie, their little girl, had brought it to school for sharing but since their house is very tiny, with no room for anything extra, they’d just put the nest in their recycling bin. It was nicely packaged in a thin plastic container with holes that originally held 4 pounds of red table grapes–just the right size for the little branches and nest to fit into. They were happy to give the it to me and I will treasure it.

The nest is a marvel of engineering, only 1 1/2 ” (3.5 cm) in diameter. The inside is wonderfully padded with what looks like dryer lint and a few downy feathers. The outside is made of tiny pieces of moss and lichen. I can’t tell how they attached it to the branches but it’s firmly attached. It looks so cozy I wish I had one my size to curl up in.

Here’s a photo of a similar hummingbird nest with babies in it and a link to a site about hummers.

Tags Animals, Pen and Ink

Gardening Outdoors/Landscape Plants Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

A Morning Walk

A neighbor’s beautiful front garden and purple house

Ink and watercolor in small Moleskine watercolor notebook
Click images, select All Sizes to enlarge

The creek by Peets Coffee and Albany Hill

Today I woke to a beautiful spring day and went for a walk with my sketchbook and little paint set, planning to end up at the creek for another try at painting it. I find it quite challenging (impossible, really) to make something that looks like a creek amidst trees and spring greenery. But a few blocks from my house I spotted a beautifully landscaped yard in front of a tiny blue and purple house and had to stop and paint the blossoming fruit (?) tree surrounded by what I always think of as Martian plants (a little painting of one kind here). But they’re really called Euphorbia (photo of this kind), which is almost “euphoria” and always makes me wonder how it got named that.

So being a word-loving dictionary nerd I had to look it up. It wasn’t very exciting: “From Latin, euphorbea after Euphorbus, first-century Greek physician.” Also, “Euphorbiaceae: very large genus of diverse plants all having milky juice.” I think I’ll just keep calling it Martian plant since it’s so otherworldly looking.

But euphoria — what an interesting definition: ” A feeling of great happiness or well-being, commonly exaggerated and not necessarily well founded.” Hmmmmm, that makes me stop and ponder. If I’m feeling unfounded happiness or well-being, I’m not about to question it! Bring it on!

Tags Pen and Ink

Drawing Life in general Sketchbook Pages

Goodbye Old Hoodie

Memory Brush Pen in Aquabee 6×9 sketchbook
To enlarge click images, select All Sizes

Ink in my AM/PM sketchbook

These are ritual goodbye drawings of my ratty, old, gray hooded sweatshirt. I’ve been wearing it as a sort of housecoat/bathrobe for years. I put it on over my pajamas in the morning and wear it year-round to stay comfy in my house day and night, where it’s usually a degree or two cooler than I’d like.

My cat Busby chewed up the zipper months ago, so zipping it requires lining up the teeth in three different places where they’re missing. A few weeks ago the tab on the zipper fell off, making it even harder to close. It’s full of holes and threadbare spots, paint stains, bleach stains, and a grease stain from when I slipped carrying the barbeque and the grease never washed out.

Last week while my car had an oil change I visited the Target next door and bought two new grey “hoodies” on sale. They’re soft and clean and warm with perfect zippers and no stains. But I’ve been ignoring them, choosing to wear my old one. To help me part with what’s become a bit of a security blanket, I did these drawings to honor the ratty old thing before I toss it in the trash.

By the way, when did sweatshirts become known as hoodies? I somehow missed that moment in time. For years they were sweatshirts and then all of a sudden they were hoodies. It seems like such a cutesy name for such a homely item of apparel.

Tags Pen and Ink

Drawing People Sketchbook Pages Subway drawings

Subway Drawings (BART)

Some drawings from my morning and evening BART rides today in ink in my small Moleskine sketchbook.

To enlarge click images and select All Sizes.

A.M. Waiting for the train

AM Riding to Work

PM Riding Home

Tags Pen and Ink, People, Subway drawings

People Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Another portrait sketch request

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date March 25, 2007
11 Comments on Another portrait sketch request

Brown ink and watercolor in Moleskine large watercolor notebook
To enlarge, click images, select All Sizes

A few days after I posted the drawing of Dane I received an email from Aileen, the beautiful woman in the photo below, who sent me her photo and asked me to draw her too.

I planned to do a quick sketch of her today as a warm up before doing some “real” painting (I put that in quotes because it’s silly of me to think that one kind of drawing or painting is more “real” than another). But instead of it being a warm up I spent all of my painting time today working on sketches of her.

I drew the first one at the top quickly in ink and then painted it. The drawing was goofy so I decided to do it again, using pencil and eraser, still working in my large Moleskine watercolor notebook and came up with the this one:

I wasn’t happy with the way the ultramarine blue I used in the shadows looked and the drawing still wasn’t quite right so I did it again, this time using the last page in my Moleskine notebook:

In this one I did a fairly dark pencil drawing first, planning to leave it mostly as a pencil drawing, just adding just a little paint, but I got carried away and forgot my plan.

The funny thing is now that I’m done, I like the very first one I did the best. It may not look like her, but it was the most fun to do and is the most Jana of all of them.

Which do you prefer and why?

Tags Pen and Ink, People