Easter Sunday Evening Sketch

Caran d'Ache watercolor crayons, watercolor, oil pastel for highlights

Happy Saturday before Easter...

I did this in my 4 x 6 sketchbook sitting in a parking lot Thursday afternoon. I applied the watercolor washes to the Pilot G2 pen sketch this evening in the studio.



Did this at Mama's tonight in my 8 1/2 x 11 sketchbook. It's her glass bird that my sister gave her. My favorite color - blue!

Happy Easter, everyone!

Today's Creative Endeavors

NOTE: Update on earlier post http://daloweartist.blogspot.com/2009/04/sketches-books-and-stuff.html - I am very sorry to report that the book I ordered from amazon.com "How to Make a Journal of Your Life" by Daniel Price, totally fell apart after only about 2 days of owning it. The pages came unglued from the spine and just began falling out. Very disappointing. A very poorly made book. I did finish reading it before I sent it back for a full refund. It was a good book, but I do not recommend it unless you can get a better copy. I am now reading Living the Creative Life and it is fantastic. I highly recommend it! So full of inspiration.

On to today's work...

Did this journal page right after lunch today. G2 pen and colored pencil. FUN little sketch!

"Each cup of tea represents an imaginary voyage." - Catherine Douzel


Tonight for supper I made homemade (from scratch) biscuits!!! and Gravy! This is only about the 2nd time I've made homemade biscuits. No biscuit is very good for you, but frozen commercial biscuits are full of things I can't pronounce, so these have to be better.
I was so very proud of how they turned out that I made a photograph and decided to share. Simple Country Life at its finest...

Sketches, Books, and Stuff

I got these two books from amazon.com a couple of days ago. I started reading Living the Creative Life in Borders the other day and almost couldn't put it down, but my codependency caused me to give my coupon to my mama to buy a book and then I put this one that I REALLY wanted back. I've kicked myself ever since. So I bought a copy from amazon. I haven't had the time to delve into it yet, but I am reading the one at right by Daniel Price. You have to order $25 worth (of course) to get amazon's free shipping and I'd been wanting this book by Daniel Price for a while. I was a little disappointed when I got it because it was such a very tiny book, similar in size to a moleskine (see picture and comparison to G2 pen). But it is the best book! It's funny, down to earth, it's as if the author is sitting with me having a chat about journals. I'm entertained and learning a lot. I recommend it highly.

EDM Challenge # 215 Draw Your Thumb






And tonight's quick little drawing of a horn hanging up in Applebee's, which I realized after I just HAD to draw it, perfectly fits an EDM challenge:


EDM Challenge # 17 (Draw a Musical Instrument)




Tomorrow I'm taking my daughter on a mother-daughter shopping trip! Maybe I'll have more sketches to post. Happy Weekend, everyone!

Tiny Teacup

Pilot G-2 Pen, Yarka St. Petersburg watercolor and white gouache w/Niji brush pen, colored pencil
This is a piece of handmade pottery that sits on my desk at work.

New Work and Art Show News

colored pencil, watercolor, oil pastels
5x7 on Fabriano Artistico Hot Press

I began this painting last night from a photo I took a few summers ago. I finished it up this evening. I keep wondering what would happen if I concentrated on just one medium or combination of media. All my life through this artistic journey I have continually returned to watercolor and colored pencil either alone or in combination. I tend to combine watercolor with something else to give it more solidity - it seems too vague and watery without something to anchor it down with detail and line. I like using acrylic on canvas, but my small space makes that difficult and I love the portability of watercolor and drawing media on the small size papers or in sketchbooks.


This afternoon I attended the reception for the Mount Airy Art League's (http://www.ma-artleague.org/) Annual Art Show. Pictured below are Donna Jackson, The Gallery Group (http://gallerygroup.biz/) Director, and Jan Lucas, Mount Airy Art League Coordinator.



Below are my two paintings (top and bottom) hanging on the panel. The bottom painting "Morning Joy" won Third Place in Mixed Media! Juror for this year's show is Dr. Leslye Bloom (http://www.leslyebloom.com/).







Below is the beautiful refreshment table with one of three flower arrangements by Art League Member Judy Gammons http://gallerygroup.biz/judygammonsbio.html and picked from her own garden.

An Update at Last

I've been going through a bit of a transition/down-time with my art and blogging. Maybe it's the arrival of spring. I spent one weekend organizing my art supplies and cleaning out a closet to store seldom used supplies so that my kitchen/studio would be less cluttered. I've been feeling wonderful and able to stay busy, which has kept me off the computer. The migraines have all but stopped thanks to a new doctor and new medicine. I am so very thankful! I have my life back!

I spent this Friday night and yesterday entertaining my twin nieces, who will turn 7 in July.

Saturday their cousin joined them. He will turn 7 in October.

They pretended I was their teacher and called me Miss Deborah. We had a day of art, playing, and learning.

They were amazing students and were completely enraptured by art for most of the day. They created masterpieces on every white piece of cardstock I had in the house!

I did the little sketch below in my Aquabee one month ago today. I sketched it in sepia colored pencil and added watercolor with touches of white gouache. It's such a simple sketch of the corner of my bookcase done while watching TV in the living room with my husband.

This sketch started me in a whole new direction. I am growing tired of collage and feel the need to simplify and go back to my first love - watercolor and colored pencil, or watercolor and pen sketches. Simplify... which is one of the reasons for cleaning out and organizing the studio a bit.

This is a sketchbook I started a couple of years ago on trees. I collaged the leaves on Saturday. In this photo they are just randomly laying on top.

Tonight I did something I haven't done in a very long time. I packed my Yarka watercolor palette and my colored pencils and went driving on the backroads, pulled over and sketched this. I realized how very out of practice I am. I felt hesitant and nervous when I began. But the end result was that it was relaxing, exhilirating and so therapeutic.

It's as if I'm caught between two styles and I can't decide which to claim as my own; which to concentrate on. I think they're both me. But entirely and completely different. The drawing below is the result I get when I have no model and I'm just drawing from my imagination. I love both styles and can't imagine leaving one for the other, so there you go...

On PITT Big Brush Pens - a wonderful new discovery

Barb Hartsook (http://paintedgenerations.com/blog/) asked about the PITT Big Brush pens. They are wonderful additions to Faber-Castells line of PITT pens. They are available from my favorite art supplier at http://www.dickblick.com/products/faber-castell-pitt-big-brush-artist-pens/

I only have purchased the black ones, but Laura Frankstone (http://laurelines.typepad.com) uses other colors in her amazing sketches! See her post Cooking with Gas! at http://laurelines.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/02/cooking-with-gas.html

I think I've decided how I want to spend the afternoon - sketching and watercoloring, what else! Maybe I'll have some postings after a bit.

Wishing you all a wonderful Sunday afternoon...

Faber-Castell Pitt Big Brush Pen sketches

Fun sketching one evening after work.

Pitt Big Brush pen and watercolor.

This pitcher sits on the top of my cabinets in my kitchen/studio. I drew this in the studio with my PITT Big Brush Pen - I was holding my sketchbook and so the lines are a little wobbly, but I like how it turned out. See photograph of pitcher below. I used gouache for the blue and then the white flowers are done with white Prismacolor pencil. The gouache gave a nice ground that held the pencil well. The watercolor background and table are done with Prismacolor watercolor (which is now Grumbacher) in Naples Yellow (table) and Sap Green mixed with Naples Yellow for the green. I love these colors - they're two I've never used before in this combination. The flowers on the table are done with, I think, a Nectar Prismacolor pencil.

A stamp --- Celery of all things!

A friend at work brought me the end of a celery bunch with all the individual stalks cut away, and suggested I use it as a stamp with fingerpaint for my students at work. I had seen this just recently on a Quilting Arts episode - an artist used all kinds of fruits and vegetables as stamps in her quilts. They were beautiful! These pages were some that I had already started by glueing the words from a devotion. It needed texture and lots of color, so I used acrylic paint and stamped with the celery with no particular pattern in mind - just to see what it would do.

The yellow is acrylic paint mixed with Liquitex Gloss Medium and Varnish for a beautiful transparent glaze. I had never tried this and I couldn't believe how it made cadmium yellow light so completely transparent!

The page on the right was very plain and needed something. So I used oil pastels to draw the seagull, which I think truly illustrates freedom.

I realized after doing these pages that the shape of the stamp was very clearly a flower or rose. So next I stamped out these pages, which again already had the text in place.

I used the acrylic mixed with gloss medium and varnish again on this page. I love both the gloss and the transparency of this! The flowers are quinacridone magenta. I adore this color!

I stamped the left page at the same time, but didn't do anything else to it. I was really just using leftover color on the celery so as not to waste it. I did these in my office at lunch so I was running out of time. Later that night in my studio at home I finished the left side with watercolor. SO MUCH FUN!!