Another Christmas sketch

We had Christmas at my sister's house last night and amidst noise of children and everybody playing Cadoo2 I sat and sketched Carla's teapot. Her house was so beautiful last night all decorated for Christmas and I couldn't resist a little sketch to help remember the night. All my family were there and everybody was healthy except for a cold or two - what a blessing!

I used my Niji waterbrush, which thanks to Shirley (http://www.paperandthreads.com/) now works just fine. Thank you so much Shirley for this simple solution to a frustrating problem. You can see the post and her comment at https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=27065226&postID=8546208218731309878

I'm off to a friends house and to another family gathering tonight and hope to have more sketches to share...

Merry, Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!! A beautiful warm day - blue skies - lots of sunshine - high temps in the 60's! A welcome change from the cold and rain of the past few days. I sketched from my living room looking out at my bird feeder.



This is the beautiful ring my husband and daughter got me for Christmas. Very artsy and totally me! So happy!



This is my little corner of the world - the windows look out at my bird feeder and all my "stuff" is spread out where I can play and read, journal, sketch, make dolls, etc. My coffee - now cold, a box of tissues, my sketchbook, a basket of books and other things, my palette, lots of books, my writing journal, my Bible, a devotion book, etc... all atop an old trunk that I restored with decoupage, inside and out. I sit on the loveseat and this serves as my coffee table.

I used my Niji waterbrush and Yarka palette (my favorite) for these sketches, but got very frustrated because the water wouldn't squeeze out easily. It's like it was clogged. Has anybody had this problem before?

A lazy, fun, relaxing, and joy-filled day! I began it at 4:30 a.m. when I got up before anybody else to spend time with God and celebrate and worship Jesus, the true reason we celebrate. I wanted a quiet time before the excitement and noise began. That time of prayer and Bible reading set the tone for the entire day and I am very thankful for that experience. It was well worth getting up early for.

Merry, Merry Christmas everyone.

Books that have influenced my development as an artist

This post is in response to Katy's (http://kathrynestelle.blogspot.com/) question to me in her comment on my post (http://daloweartist.blogspot.com/2008/12/few-of-my-favorite-things-books.html). I thought I might share it with everyone, and pose the same question to you

"Which one of your books would you say has been the most helpful in your development as an artist?"


I've thought and thought about her question, and there is just no way I can choose ONE book. My favorites would be Cathy Johnson's Sketching in Nature and Painting in Nature; and Sketching School and Watercolor School are second to that. Making Color Sing by Jeanne Dobie was very valuable; Tony Couch's Watercolor: You Can Do It, which I don't have anymore; books on Cezanne, especially his watercolors; Christina Acosta's Paint Happy... Wow! I have a lot of books to credit with my development as an artist.

Experience is always the best teacher, that and lots and lots of practice. I'd have to say that when I started keeping a sketchbook in 1996 and sketches on loose sheets even before that - probably around 1990, that is when my art really started to develop. Not just my art, but me in general. Keeping a sketchbook is the one greatest thing I have done toward my development as an artist. And all these books by various artists have been invaluable to me.

These are pages from my new sketchbook, from Barnes and Noble described in an earlier post http://daloweartist.blogspot.com/2008/11/new-sketchbook.html, that I completed today. The arrival of Danny's new book An Illustrated Life inspired me and got me started carrying my sketchbook and working in it again. I have volumes of books similar to these that I picked up at Walden books over the years. This one is a little different, and I think I might even like it better. The pages are thicker and smoother, and even perforated. It doesn't seem like it would take washes well, but it really does.

A Few of My Favorite Things - books!

An Illustrated Life came in the mail from Amazon.com yesterday. I love this book! I just can hardly stand to put it down! Thank you, Danny Gregory for such a wonderful book!
This is two shelves on my bookcase filled with art inspiration. There are more, but this is about half my art book collection.

Inspire Me Thursday

The Inspire Me Thursday challenge for this week is "table." One of my favorite and most used motif is a table laden with tea or coffee cups, fruit, books, or flowers - or all of these. So this challenge inspired me very quickly. I am reposting one of the diptychs I have worked on all day as the inspiration piece for the challenge. This will be for a friend to hang above her dining table.

I will post the finished piece as an update!

Saturday After Thanksgiving

I have had THE BEST day working on these four canvases for a friend. Each canvas is 16 x 20 and I've put them together as 2 diptychs. One will hang over her loveseat and the other over her dining room table - which happen to be on the same large wall. The amazing thing is I am using Anita's All Purpose Acrylic Craft Paint from AC Moore! Now I know a lot of you really hate craft paint, but I just find that it works great for me. It covers well, and it's the perfect consistency without thinning it. I have Liquitex Heavy Body paint and I will probably use that in the last details to give it some body, but these craft paints are wonderful for me. I had a ton of them and they dry out pretty fast, so I decided to use them for these paintings.

What a wonderful Saturday! I have been home alone and while I painted these I listened to jazz to help me loosen up, especially with the flower garden. I wanted it to flow and have lots of movement, almost as if the flowers were dancing in the breeze on a sunny day. I've taken up my entire kitchen for the day and will leave it all out and hopefully finish tonight and tomorrow. Right now, I'm off to my sister's for dinner and to pick up my daughter. I am so thankful for the gift of this day!

Inspire Me Thursday challenge

I am home today because my daughter Grace is sick. I wanted to stay home from work and give her lots of TLC. We've had such a great day! I went to Inspire Me Thurday and did the challenge - for the first time ever. Not because it inspired me more than others would, but because I had the day off to PLAY.

The challenge (see it here: http://www.inspiremethursday.com/2008/11/20/albert-einstein/) was to pick a quote by Albert Einstein that inspires you. This one I could really relate to and agree with. 1 Thessalonians 4:10-11 says much the same thing, "...But we urge you, brethren, that you increase more and more; that you also aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands..." -- work, play, keep your mouth shut. You learn that this is true, especially as you get older; at least I have.

Einstein described himself as an agnostic. I certainly don't share his beliefs about God, and I think it's rather comical that the same idea in his quote is found in Scripture.

Journal Pages

This 2-page spread in my Aquabee was completed today, but originally was an entirely different journal page done in watercolor and pen. I covered everything up with acrylic and just began to play. It gradually evolved until I noticed I had painted dots and shapes that resembled an eye. I began to develop that and add to it. I am so pleased with these pages. I spent about 2 hours tonight completing them. After the eye developed and I refined it, the hymn, "Open My Eyes that I may see," began to run through my mind. I added the lyrics to the pages with gel pen and that finished it off. I really like the eye, the gold acrylic paint and the repetition of circles - all of which just happened. Below is a closeup of the two pages individually...








More pages completed today. (I've really accomplished a lot today! smile...) I picked up a leaf during a walk around the campus at work and did a leaf rubbing the other day (page at right). Then I just stuck the leaf inside the sketchbook to press and dry it. Today during my lunch break I traced the outline of the leaf (page at left) with a cream Prismacolor pencil. The background at that point was a rather dull brownish red color. Tonight I added the gold paint to both pages and added the dark blue background to make the leaf at left pop off the page. The leaf rubbing (with Tuscan Red Prismacolor) was refined with the gold paint and very thin washes of blue and raw sienna. I may add more to these pages - a quote about autumn, some texture, something...



Lastly is this 2 page spread in acrylic. I actually was using up paint from a project at work with most of these pages. This one in particular. On a background that was done prior to this and dry, I painted the left page first and while it was wet closed the book, stamping a mirror image on the right page. This was reminiscent of the butterfly paintings we did in elementary art classes - remember that ? I will definitely add to this, but I like the start a lot!

Macrame Bead sketching

I bought these macrame beads at a yard sale summer before last. A huge box of them.



I decided they would be great for drawing practice. Especially when I need something to sketch at work during a break. It's harder than I thought!



I decided to try it without color - simplify.

Christmas Card-Making

My goal is to make Christmas cards this year. At least for the people at work and church - I'm stuck on JOY right now, as you can see - need some new ideas! LOL It's too early for this :-)

Collage

My daughter will occasionally say, "Let's collage, Mama!" MUSIC TO MY EARS! This is the result of our latest time together. She wasn't entirely pleased with hers, so I may post it later. This was done on an 8 x 10 piece of masonite.

Happy Birthday to me!

I bought myself a birthday gift (my birthday was October 29). I've wanted this book ever since it was published. I love the way SARK writes her books - they're fun, uplifting, inspiring. I highly recommend this one! Get it here: http://www.amazon.com/Make-Your-Creative-Dreams-Real/dp/0743269241/ref=pd_bbs_sr_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1226425988&sr=8-7

Diet Pepsi

This was inspired by Gabi Campanario, Seattle Sketcher www.gabicampanario.blogspot.com/2008/10/regular-coke-please.html

Sorry Coke, but I'm a Diet Pepsi fan! I did this at work (lunch break) in my Moleskine.

New Sketchbook

Sorry if this post is too long, but I'm home today (Veteran's Day) - home alone! I'm taking this opportunity to update my blog and I have lots to share.

The last thing I "NEEDED" was a new sketchbook, but this one caught my eye during a trip to Barnes and Noble recently. The paper is very smooth and thick and the sheets are even perforated. It accepts pen and colored pencil very well.

This is a two-page spread in the new sketchbook, done in Prismacolor pencils. I took photos of Fiestaware at Tamarack in West Virginia http://www.tamarackwv.com/on our anniversary trip. These drawings were made from the picture on the computer screen as I haven't printed the pics yet.

Another sketch in the new sketchbook. Also done from a photo taken in my kitchen and displayed on the computer screen.

Speaking of colored pencils... this is my basketful of color! I just bought from http://www.dickblick.com/ the new colors of Prismacolors that I didn't have: China Blue (yum), Denim Blue, Caribbean Sea, Artichoke, Kelly Green, Sandbar Brown, Espresso, Moss Green, and Nectar. Below is a page in the sketchbook of swatches of color as I played with my new "toys"!

Wild Thang - You Make my Heart Sang

These little paintings make my heart sing. I did these at work with gouache, Pigma Micron pen, white gel pen, watercolor, and even some colored pencil. In other words, I used everything I could get my hands on :-) and oh did I have FUN! This is my true heartfelt art I think - these really wild, bright, whimsical paintings straight from my imagination. -- "Wild thang, you make my heart sang" Happy art!

Watercolor sketches

This was a little still life I set up on the trip to the mountain cabin with my family. I did these watercolors in my Aquabee 9 x 9 sketchbook.

Matthew 10: 29, 31 Collage

"Fear not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows." Luke 12:2 This piece has many layers and many different media. I had a lot of fun with it. 9 x 12 on gallery wrapped Winsor & Newton canvas.