May 13 Train Station

Sketching at the old L&N Train Station down by World's Fair Park yesterday. I used the carbon pencil again this time, and tried applying it a bit heavier for the darks than in previous sketches. Maybe a little too heavy in spots (yeah, one place shouldn't be dark at all, but I'm not going to be the one to point it out...), but it sure worked out for the deeper shadows! Hey, does that mean I'm not REALLY painting with just a triad? And then, cheating even more -- I tweaked it further with some ink.

Speaking of triads -- this was a pretty good one for this type of painting, I thought -- French Ultramarine, Indian red, and Raw Sienna. The straight up colors are clearer and more transparent, and made for more interesting mixes with a wider range of darks than some of my earlier experiments.

Today I went back down to the park to try and sketch this building again, but while looking for a parking space noticed that the museum had free admission. DETOUR! I guess tonight's sketch will be something lying around the house ...

May 12 Punkin Shack

I think you actually have to know what this place is to even recognize what the objects are on the page. That's how you know it wasn't a great day sketching ... kind of like having to explain the punch line of a joke, right?

Sigh.

Started with purple pen, watercolor triad of New Gamboge, Permanent Rose, and French Ultramarine -- then touched up with carbon pencil and some more watercolor -- then, in a final fit of desperation, tightened up with .005 black micron and and accidental wash of phthalo blue in the back. The more I muddled with it, the more it got, well, muddled.

Sketching from the car is hard.
Only three colors is hard.

May 11 Vic and Bills Deli

The experimental sketches after work continue this week. I had to take my car in for a little bit of work and when I went to pick it up, paused for a few minutes to sketch Vic & Bill's Deli across the street. This is the home of the famous "Vol Burger", heaping orders of huge steaming hot steak fries, and a really REALLY good Falafel. Sigh. And me on a diet... Oh well!

Today I switched to a regular 0.3 mechanical pencil for the sketch. I liked how it gave me better control for the sketch, and the lines held up well under the watercolor wash, but I feel like it is a bit wimpy compared to the carbon pencils that bleed and run. Maybe a combination of pencil is the trick? Hmmmm...

I tried Friday's triad of cobalt and cad red and yellow ochre* again and am still not happy with it. Love how the cad red makes the nice accents, and I mixed a spot-on "University of Tennessee Orange" for the squares on the side wall (Go Vols!), but I never could get darks or light value greys that satisfied me.

So, I'll be playing more with cerulean blue and french ultramarine this week. I'll be trying burnt sienna for my red one day. I don't know -- if we get some sunshine, I'll try some of those sunny triads I have on hold right now. Also in my bag for experimentation this week is a 0.1 brown micron, a .005 purple micron, and a 0.1 (?I think) orange micron, so we shall see what happens with the line. It can only get better. (grrr)

And, as Forrest Gump would say, "that's all I have to say about that."

*(I say yellow ochre, although now I'm not sure I didn't accidentally use raw sienna -- they look SO MUCH ALIKE! Aaaargh!)

May 7 and 8

Yesterday afternoon I started this sketch of a church in the Fourth and Gill neighborhood in Knoxville, and finished the last wash on it tonight ... so, this will have to count for both days! I was off work today and we worked on the house (a much needed facelift!) with my parents' help. No time for drawing at all!

This triad is Cobalt Blue, Cadmium Red, and Yellow Ochre. I like the greys and nice warm tones, but was surprised at how difficult it was to get a medium / light green. The skies are still cloudy and the day was overcast, but these colors made it look more like an early morning in late summer.

I'm making notes of your suggestions for future triads, so please keep them coming!

May 6 Sun Sphere and Clouds

Sketched from the parking lot across from the Knoxville Museum of Art, while the rain fell, the clouds rolled in, and the wind rocked the car from side to side. I didn't even take the time to run into the museum today, thinking more that it would be smart to head home before all you-know-what broke loose!

I was very happy with the sketch before the watercolor washes. Today I tried the triad of venetian red, french ultramarine, and yellow ochre. I really thought they would combine to make richer greys and provide much more color mixing options than the earlier triad*, but they felt weak together. I need to refer to yet another book I have checked out from the library (on Bill Renzulli's advice), "Blue and Yellow Don't Make Green" by Michael Wilcox to see what I missed here. Perhaps I should have used cobalt blue?

So, to all, er, both, of my readers, what primary triads do you recommend?

(*Indian red, cerulean blue, and raw sienna)

May 5 Starbucks

From the parking lot at Starbuck's this afternoon, still playing with the triad of cerulean blue, Indian red, and raw sienna. This wasn't where I'd originally intended to go after work for my quick sketch today, but the sun came out for a moment on the way home, and I detoured to some spots where I suspected I might find good shadows for Shadow Shot Sunday. The forecast is for rain, rain, and more rain all this week, and I had to grab the sun and shadow opportunity when it presented itself!

Now. I have to clear up a little mistake from yesterday. The book I referred to was "The Joy of Watercolor" ("...A Complete Course in Watercolor Using Your Sketchbook as a Workbook") by David Millard. The problem with art books is that I start out reading them and then, fairly quickly, get distracted by ... oooh ... the pictures! And in this wonderful book, clearly stated on page 8 -- yes PAGE 8! -- "Since carbon is soluble in watercolor to some degree, it can contribute rich darks in your washes in the form of a modest granular deposit." Hmmm. I'd say he pretty well DID TOO mention that the carbon pencils ran with a watercolor wash, don't you think? And on page 8 -- the saddest part is that pages 1 - 7 were title page and table of contents. Sigh. He basically said it on page ONE.

May 4

A rainy and dreary day in Knoxville today! I'd decided that today I would stop somewhere -- ANYWHERE -- on the way home and sketch for the Every Day in May challenge. When I realized that I'd forgotten a pencil (and I really wanted to try pencil with a watercolor wash because of yet another art book I'm reading) I just stopped and Jerry's on the way home and picked up a couple of pencils, then drove two parking lots over and sketched the nearest building. I'd recently read a recommendation that carbon pencils rather than graphite are much better for sketches, so I chose a 2B carbon for this sketch. Even though the author discusses using watercolor wash over the carbon EXTENSIVELY I didn't see where it was noted THAT THE CARBON WOULD SMEAR with the wash! Nice to know for the really dark passages. Might have been nice to know before the sky wash ... although, since it was pouring rain this might actually be pretty accurate. I'll blame the perspective on sketching in the rain while huddled over the steering wheel.

Plan for the rest of the week? Stop on the way home every afternoon after work and sketch, then do the watercolor washes later on.

Other plan for the rest of the week? I saw where Sandy was looking at playing with simple primary experiments, and thought that experimenting with triads was a great idea. This triad was cerulean blue, Indian red, and raw sienna. Lovely dull colors for a lovely dull day, don't you think?

May 1 and 2

So, I really AM doing Every Day in May, along with all the rest who are following French Toast Girl's lead. I'm just not doing anything spectacular! The goal is to get back into the groove of things, which is proving to be difficult already, as we are doing some major facelifting on the house right now, along with working full time.

These peony buds are so pretty in real life, and photographs don't begin to give the right feel of them. I actually think I had this one RIGHT when I first did it. Then today, on the way up to the scanner, I went back and added the darker bits in the upper (viewer's) left corner, and all of a sudden it feels heavy rather than light and suggestive of the buds. Rats. That's what months of being out of practice will do for one!

I'm reading some wonderful art books right now, trying to put a bit of what I'm studying into practice. I'm really enjoying "Painting Light & Shadow in Watercolor" by William B. Lawrence, especially with passages like this one:


"...The point is you do have a choice. Charles Reid wrote a book titled Painting What You Want to See. My friend Don Stone said his title would be Painting What I Thought I Saw. I would include in this library I Couldn't See What I Was Painting."

He talks about a way of organizing value in what he calls the "2 Against 1 Approach" where you paint your subject in 2 values -- light and medium, light and dark, medium and dark, whatever. The third value is what your main subject is against. I've simplified his explanation so much here that I've probably blown it, and my little painting proves that I haven't quite GOT it, but it felt like an "aha!" moment when I first read it. So far this is one of the best books on watercolor I've read in a long time.

Yesterday I was thinking about my daughter in Florida and decided to do a sketch from a photo taken from one of our visits down there. I keep messing with the composition on this one, trying to get the yellow umbrella just right for a "real" painting, and this is the third or fourth version of this. It still isn't the one. Not by a long shot.

Practice practice practice...

Vase de Deux

A pair of daffs sitting in a little bud vase -- now sitting forever in my sketchbook.
Just goes to remind me that I really can find fifteen minutes to sketch a little something fun. I need to remember that!
:-)

A Glimmer of Light

Out in the back yard, cloudy and cold, I spot a glimmer of white and realize that the daffs are pushing up already. There hasn't been anything happening out in the yard for some time, but now spring is here, and we know that there will be more and more things happening until the yard is back into full swing again.

Nice metaphor, huh?

Sorry I've been absent. I've been literally twice as busy as normal with work for the past eight or nine months, and it just got busier at the beginning of the year. By the first week of February I'd wrapped up a lot of stuff, and life is now getting back to what used to be the norm. Quite frankly, for the last two or three weeks I've spent my evenings resting and getting my non-work life caught back up! But now the balance is coming back and it's all good. Thanks for all the inquiries about where the heck I'd disappeared to, and, believe it or not, I'll probably see you again sometime this week.
;-)

(P.S. And busy was FUN -- I've had a GREAT time! If you read this, Cindy, Nikki, Michael, Shannon -- extra thanks to you guys for picking up the slack ... Dennis, Kari, Renee, Allison, Steven, Rachel, Sole, Julie, Stephanie, Leslie, Anita, Christy, Maggie, Andrea, Amber, and Bill ... you all rock! I'm very happy to be part of such a great team!)

The Improper Use Of Gesso

My bet is that this is NOT the way to go about doing an acrylic painting. I never was much good at rules, and will probably reap the consequences of breaking them with this one.

I forgot to show you my initial sketch, which I've been pondering over for the past few days. If you look closely at this, you can see the light outlines in white pastel pencil. I'm now "sketching" in the flower with white gesso. I really don't think you're supposed to sketch with gesso.

So here it is so far. The petals are a little bit skinny, and I'm planning on plumping them up on the second coat (of gesso, of course). Now I'm going to let this sit for a bit so I can watch it some more before I go any further. Um, and I'm waiting on you guys to give me any suggestions for corrections before I go beyond the point of no return!

Meanwhile, today was a beautiful sunny day, with clear blue skies and a light breeze. Perfect, and a very nice break from the rain, which we needed badly.** This watercolor sketch is from the rehab room from the facility where I work in Knoxville. I just love the old apartment buildings next door. The plantings are evergreen, mostly great big old viburnums, with ivy that climbs up around every corner and window, and the light on the brick in the evenings is great. I'm still figuring this new palette out, and got my greens got a little bit dark. That mineral violet can be waaay stronger than I thought, too - but I love it! (Please see the giant purple splotch. Yeah. That one. That's what I'm talking about...)

** Grammatically, it is difficult to tell if I meant we needed the rain or a break from the rain. I guess the answer would be yes. Both.

Stand By

Musical moment for the day ... seen on Artvisionz (Angie in Arizona) blog, which has been added to my blog list on the right! This is really worth taking the few minutes to watch. Especially if you've ever collaborated with someone on a project.

Meanwhile, today I painted the background on a 24"x24" canvas, with the plan to do a painting of a frighteningly gigantic dahlia. In PINK. It's enough to give one nightmares. Since I couldn't move straight to the pink tonight, and since the weather today has continued to be so dreary and rainy that any landscape painting would just be a bunch of indistinct Payne's grey shapes, I decided to sketch it out in the watercolor Moleskine that I'm using for January. This paper takes a little getting used to, especially after using #300 hot press for so long. The plan is that by the end of January I'll love this book as much as everyone else does. Either that or I'll never get another. One or the other!

And I finished "Eclipse" -- the third book in the Twilight series. Sigh. Between Vampires and Werewolves and Guitar Hero I think I've regressed to age 13. But with wrinkles. And a driver's license. And only marginally more cash.

Pencil sketches

I'm back! And although I said there would be art today, I'm only showing pencil stuff. I'm playing with some mixed up acrylic stuff on watercolor paper, and it is waaaaay slower going than I'd expected and there's nothing to show with it but a bit of a mess right now. Meanwhile -- I realized I was letting my day planner Moleskine go to waste, so I started using the paper for pencil sketches. I think that I'm going to find a way to carry a little one and a pencil with me from now on -- I'd forgotten how fun quickies with a 2B or 4B could be!

Of course I have to figure out how to keep the pencil from getting all "smeary" as I don't relish the idea of spraying fixative every day in a sketchbook. Not that it matters....

Anyway, maybe I'll manage to do something Christmas-y tonight! How is everyone doing with their shopping? So far I've managed to avoid the mall COMPLETELY.

Green Vase

I'm enjoying getting back into the habit of drawing something daily. It isn't the chore now that it was the first day or two, and I actually feel some inspiration returning. For me I think the trick has been to do a drawing every day, but not post it until the next afternoon when I get home from work. In the past when doing daily drawing / posting, I've always drawn, scanned, and posted in the same day. For some reason, doing it this way has taken the pressure off. Go figure.

I'm also drawing just whatever the heck is in front of me, without getting too worked up about subject matter. Like this green urn or vase or whatever you would want to call it -- let's call it a vessel for the sake of artistic sounding conversation. It's a really old piece ... I mean, kind of an old piece that I snagged from my Mom when I was a kid and she was going to throw it away. I've kept it all these many years ... I mean for the past few years, and just love it for some reason.

I drew this while listening to part of the debate last night. I don't normally talk politics, but... Okay ... this time.... I thought one of the candidates sounded good and presented well, even if not accurate on all points, while the other started off a little bit slow but then blew me away with her straightforward talking, attitude and intelligence. I'll let you guess who I liked best.
:-D

Silly political thing I heard said today (on a podcast, so it was probably really said a day or two ago and I'm listening to it late..) from a respected person talking about the economic situation:
"Why doesn't McCain or Obama do something about this?"
Uh ... because neither has been elected president yet? You think? Why, indeed... (Is there an emoticon I could use for eye rolling? Imagine. I'm rolling my eyes.)

Ornamental Peppers

A little sketch of a little pot of ornamental peppers for Maggie's birthday. They look just like Christmas tree light bulbs...
:-D

Duh

Well, the scanner is up and working. I can't tell you guys what was wrong with it ... let's just say it was fine and it had operator issues. (If I told the truth, the computer police would come to my house and take all my electronics away. Sheesh. Some days I wonder if I deserve a computer...)
:-D Anyway -- here's the quick sketch of the geraniums hanging on the back deck Sunday -- what a beautiful day!

I now drive out into the country to a little town (Loudon, TN) about three times a week. There are all these great old metal towers along the way. I'd been calling them water towers, but now I'm not sure that they're not some kind of silo. I may have to drive a little closer to one to see what it says, or maybe somebody out there could enlighten me. I love the way the light hits them in the evening. Good light can make something ugly into something spectacular.

Shell

So... if you ever want to accidentally challenge yourself, try drawing a shell. Yikes! Still, a drawing was done and all that good stuff...
(The colors scanned very oddly, too. That big orange stripe isn't really there in the original, although I suppose something is there. Funny!)

When Totally Stuck

When totally stuck -- draw the pen.
Yep. STUCK. Diahn and I met up at Panera last night. We've done that regularly, but have spent most of our time drinking coffee, eating, talking, people watching ... you get the picture. Drawing has been sadly neglected and we realized it, so last night we promised ourselves from the onset that we would draw. Diahn did beautifully -- I struggled.
SO. Yesterday I made a promise. It went like this:

"As of TODAY -- I promise to draw every day for the rest of the month. That's six more whole days. And I will post them."

Tonight I drew a leaf. I drew the cat asleep on the sofa. I drew this pomegranate. I'll not bother showing you the others ... this will have to do!

And I'm going to blame part of it on the pens ... I kept having to throw them away and dig into my bag to get another! Seems that when they just sit for a while they dry up. Sheesh.

And I just HAVE to share THIS clever little idea from Design Sponge -- found via a link on Lorna's blog.

Awesome April Azaleas

My azaleas in the back yard bloomed TODAY. Not gradually over the week, no, they bloomed TODAY. Yesterday there were a some buds peeking out, today there are blooms. I'm amazed.
(By the way, I cut this sprig of azaleas and did the drawing this afternoon from home while I was on a conference call for work. Shhhh!! I call it multi-tasking, and it just means I'm an efficient individual...)

RuPaw BluPaw

Look who's home from the vet! A blue bandage still on his left leg and still not totally healthy, and I'm going to have to give him fluids for a week; then we'll see after some more tests. But for now, I'm just happy that he's back home. He's such a silly guy -- he's an outdoor cat, but is very tidy. When he catches a bird or bunny he runs straight into the garage with it so he can eat it out of his bowl (gross, but a fact of life with outdoor cats.) Some years back, he had to be kept in because of some stitches, so we put a litter box in the garage. He's used it ever since -- it's hilarious to see him run into the garage, jump into his litter box, stick his head out and MEOW with relief. What a nut. He's not a very good model, though -- not one who will sit still, so I didn't capture the elegant shape of his paw.