Almost All Week Long

Well, except for Friday, I managed to draw every day this week. How about you guys? I even fit in a quick colored pencil sketch today from a photo taken yesterday when we went to ... wait, that comes later ... The sketch was done on Stonehenge paper with Aqua Monolith pencils.(Yes, those pencils that Laura got me hooked on some time back -- so much so that I recently upgraded my set from the 24 pencil version to the 72 pencil BONANZA! No new shoes for me for a while ... ) I haven't done any water brushing on this yet, but might some time this week.

You've already seen the paintbrush section of this page, but here are some flowers from the back yard last Sunday. Over the past week, the Virginia bluebells and the Celandine Poppies began blooming under the trees. The redbuds are coming out, and the dogwoods buds are getting fat. The Bradford pears are losing their petals, making it look like it is snowing when the breeze kicks up.

Monday I drew the dish soap. I don't know why -- was it because it was blue? On Tuesday I got my new video camera! It is just like Diahn's -- I was so impressed with hers that I had to get one -- but it turns out that she is a much better videographer than I am. Okay -- this is little and light and I have plenty of opportunities to practice.

BTW, the camera is listed as being blue -- but it's not really -- more purple when the light hits it just right. My car is like that, too -- I actually thought it was dark blue when I bought it, but as I was driving it home the sun came out, and the hood was PURPLE! I was thrilled. I mean, who has an occasionally purple car? Me, that's who!

Wednesday evening I gathered things together for a silent auction at work to benefit the Alzheimer's Association. During my gathering together of things, I found this raspberry pink jacket that I got last year and had forgotten about. Darn it -- and the cold weather is nearly gone. I decided to keep it or give it to my daughter. On Thursday, I just drew a candle that sitting there handy. My enthusiasm shows. But -- I got Janey's new Zine -- and it is GREAT. So Thursday was good.

Friday, after an incredibly, um, long and challenging day at work, I went out to eat with my parents, who had come into town for the weekend. It was late when we got home, so I skipped drawing. To make up for it, I drew a clementine Saturday morning while I waited on my parents, my sister, and our friend Marcia to come over. Then, along with DH, we went to Dollywood for the day to see the Festival of Nations. It was cloudy most of the day, and rainy at the end, but we had a blast. Not a good day for rides, but great for shows. We heard loads of different types of music, took a lesson on how to play the Bodhran, saw all types of dancing, and nearly every country did some version of Rocky Top. This sent certain members of our party over the edge, particularly when it was done in Russian, so that by the end of the day my sides hurt from laughing so hard. Once we got home, I took a hot bath and drew my slippers. I mean, really -- you just can't top a day like that.

Again, I have to say that I'm impressed with those of you who REALLY fit in the time to draw every single day. I tend to "quick draw", so it isn't that time consuming -- but making the habit stick IS.

All Week Long

Last Sunday Diahn and I went out on a sketching expedition. We didn't find any lighthouses, but we did find plenty of dead bodies! After a stop at Jerry's for some essential shopping, we moved on to the McClung museum, with the idea of sketching the latest exhibit, only to realize that the exhibit was not all that ... um ... sketchable. It was fascinating -- an exhibit of forensic anthropology featuring the Body Farm, the first of which is here in Knoxville at the University of Tennessee, and which you have probably read about if you are a Patricia Cornwell fan. Fascinating -- unsettling -- and while parts of it are not for the weak of stomach, I would recommend this exhibit especially to anyone in the health care field -- it is an eye opener.

So, we made our way over to Panera -- nothing like decomp to make you crave a cup of hot coffee and a chocolate croissant -- and did some sketching. It has been way too long since I sketched, and it shows!

The realization that my drawing skills have quickly deteriorated, and inspired by Danny Gregory's recent podcasts of interviews with artists about their sketchbooks, I made the decision to try to draw every day this past week. So it was an iPod shuffle and mandarins on Monday ...

Blooming flowers on Tuesday and raincoats on Wednesday -- when you have nothing else to say, you can at least write about the weather...

Accessories on Thursday and shopping trips on Friday. And still, the weather is a topic. Such an interesting life... (let's roll our eyes -- all together now!) I may add some color to this page today, and I might not. It just depends.

Saturday we shopped even more, and then I cleaned the house, which includes a thorough washing up of all the watercolor brushes. I'm ashamed to say that I'd put some of them away dirty...

Well -- I did it, drawing daily, for one week -- maybe next week, too!

Far Far Away

Far, far away from here is a lighthouse. In Oregon, actually. But I saw the photo in my watercolor teacher's pile of vacation pics, and it was a gloomy day with no lighthouses or seashore in driving distance, the rocks looked interesting, and DH has been wanting a lighthouse painting for over a year -- ever since I gave one away to a friend of ours. So, I painted it. I THINK it's finished. The "unfinished" shoreline at the bottom just feels right to me, and I really want to leave it that way.

The plans for today are to meet up with Diahn to make a trip to Jerry's and then go do some sketching. Lighthouses are not on the agenda, but if we HAPPEN to run across one in Knoxville, we will most certainly document it!

And on a side note -- I've long thought that one can tell a great deal about a church by the way its members drive as they are leaving the parking lot. Think about it, people.

Music of the day -- Jack Johnson "Sleeping Through the Static" and "In Between Dreams" . Lovely laid back stuff. Thanks Diahn and others for the recommendation!

Small Sketch

Well, our weekend was cold and wintry with light snow flurries all day Saturday. I brought a stack of work home Friday, thinking that I would probably be snowed in and could use that excuse to finally get caught up. The big snow never came, but I decided to put off procrastinating and get my REAL work done anyway. I went so far as to skip Saturday morning's watercolor class and managed to finish off all the work I brought home -- so even though there is still a stack left on my desk at work, I am much more prepared to face it tomorrow morning.

And I managed to knock off this little watercolor, ink, and pencil sketch of some salt marshes from a photo on Wet Canvas. There's something about this kind of quiet, empty, almost desolate landscape that I really love. It will go into my box of imaginary travel sketches!
:-)
I hope your weekend was a good one, and that you stayed warm and dry.

Value Studies for Michael

Post disclaimer: Non-art people will be bored. Most art people will be bored. This is for Michael, who may also be bored with it, but ... oh well.

Further disclaimer: I'm LEARNING, not a teacher. This post is the result of a conversation that just needed pictures. :-)

This is a prime example of why you look at the colored pencil POINT rather than the color painted on the barrel of the pencil to see what color it is. You shouldn't completely trust those sly colored pencil manufacturers!

(This is Prismacolor Scarlet Lake - 923)

All of the following examples are done with prismacolors.

What I did -- took my jumble of colored pencils and semi-randomly made some nice colored squares on a small piece of Stonehenge paper.

I scanned them in color, then switched the scanner to grey scale and rescanned to see the actual color values.

The top two rows -- Pink (929), Orange ( ), and Rosy Beige (1019)
then Pale Vermillion (921), Canary yellow (916), and Apple Green (912)

It's easy to look at the colors and see how the Pink and Pale Vermillion and Orange are near values, but when you look at the grey scale you can also see how the Orange and the Apple Green are nearly the same value even though they are very different colors. So we can figure out that if an entire drawing is done in colors of all similar value, it is going to feel kind of washed out, even though the colors themselves are really nice.

These are the bottom two rows. I was a bit surprised at how light the blue in the upper middle showed up; I would have thought it was a darker value than it appears here on the grey scale.
The colors are: An Olive Green That I Just Dropped Which Then Rolled Under The Desk So It Is Now Irretrievable, Electric Blue (1040), and Scarlet Lake (923)
The bottom row: Violet (932), Imperial Violet (1007), and Dahlia Purple (1009)

This really shows how, even though the red is BRIGHT, it is a dark-ish value. It can brighten up a dark passage without changing the value a whole lot, but if you're going for RED IMPACT, it might get lost in near values. And, comparing the temperature of the colors on the bottom row, you can see how there can be a neutral purple, cool purple, and warm purple.

Sigh. At least that's how I figure it is. Books, books, books, study, study, study, and practice, practice, practice. That's the trick.

And for those of you who always want to know what music I'm listening to, I've got Jeff Buckley's "Grace" album playing now -- I'd forgotten all about how wonderful he was until I caught that cute kid with dreadlocks on American Idol singing the Buckley version of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah". Yep, I decided to watch a little American Idol this season to finally see what all the fuss is about. Not near as good as the Rock Star shows have been, but getting reminded of this beautiful album was well worth the time. So iTunes scored a sale off of me because of the show -- they should be happy! :-)

Fickle

Fickle, I tell you! I'm talking about pastels. Sometimes they will, sometimes they won't, you just never ever know.

Let's talk about MARCH MADNESS. I don't mean silly basketball, but the real thing. Well, I had this bright idea that I was going to give myself the challenge of trying to do a pastel landscape every night except Thursdays in the month of March. Sounds like a good idea, right? So, of course, on Saturday March 1, I have to prep a bunch of boards and paper to do it all on.

I start out with a stack of archival mat boards, and using a pre-cut mat, measure off an 11" x 14" area on each of them. Then I sketch in a border around THAT, just to give a little wiggle room. That way matting anything that happens to be framable will be simple -- it is already on the right place on the board ... yada yada yada.

The boards are prepped with a mix of acrylic matte medium, a squirt of brown acrylic paint (thanks, Zelma!), and a few spoonfuls of something-or-other-oxide-I-think grit, which I got from Paul at one of his workshops. I do all of this on a table out in the garage, with the door open for ventilation. Something about that grit makes me not want to inhale too deeply... Basically what I'm doing is making my own inexpensive sanded surface. Tons cheaper than Colorfix or Wallis, and you can customize the color and amount of grit. I accidentally mixed up more stuff than planned, so I was able to prime six mat boards AND about six 11 x 14 pieces of 300# watercolor paper. You can basically use this to prep anything for pastel use, or so I hear.

Notice the baggie of white powder in the bottom right corner? That's the grit. It stays out in my garage, and it just occurred to me that I should label it. (I wonder how many hits I'll get on this site because of the phrase "baggie of white powder"?? Sorry, guys -- wrong stuff!)

Well, of course the boards had to dry. And I had to gather some reference photos.

Sunday, March 2. If I'm going to do a painting every day but Thursday, I'm ALREADY a day behind.

Oh well. I'm using a photo from Wet Canvas that has had my eye for a long time. I think this is my favorite part of it all, and something I've started doing because it just feels so fun. I sketch out the drawing with a medium charcoal pencil - just a few lines -- and then take a filbert paintbrush and water and start making - you guessed it -- CHARCOAL washes. So much fun. I get to block in the medium darks, and then the real fun begins. While it is still wet, I draw back into it with the charcoal pencil. It makes the blackest black you ever saw. I could just do this all day long. Once it dries, the fickle pastel work starts.

A short while later I'm here. There's only a couple of places where I used the wet brush on the pastel -- on the dock in the lower right corner, on the very dark area in the upper right, and on the blue boat. Of course, it's bed time and I know I'm going to have to finish it on Monday. That means that as of March the 3rd, I will be TWO pieces behind.

At this point it occurs to me that a boat caught in the weeds along with a bunch of debris is not exactly a landscape. Huh. Next step -- modify the self imposed challenge from a pastel landscape every day except Thursday to several pastel pieces a week with a focus on the landscape. That feels better.

I don't know if it is finished (at the top) or not. It has to percolate for a week before I know. I may try to make it smoother, and I may want to leave it rough. I would love to hear thoughts about that -- ideas about the composition -- anything to help! My real goal for this month is to explore this medium, explore this new (to me) sanded surface, and learn what it might or might not do, so input is a good thing!

WHAT I LEARNED: This one was done on 300# cold press watercolor paper (prepped like above.) The watercolor paper is hard and bumpy, and the acrylic medium did not smooth it all out like I had thought it would, so the texture showed through on everything, making detail really difficult. However, look at how very very dark I was able to go -- I think that was because of the texture. So there were pluses and minuses.

And I was reminded that pastel is FICKLE!!! Will I make it through this March madness, or will I return to my senses? We shall see ...

Good to be Loved

Isn't it good to be loved? Diahn gave me this fun award the other day. (Back at ya', babe! Thank you!) It took me a couple of days to finally figure out why I wasn't able to upload it (Attention Picassa users - see note at the bottom) -- which is probably why nobody ever gave me the "Smartest Blogger Award."

So -- now I'm to pass it on to a few folks, and think I should do it quick, before February, the month of LOVE is totally gone.

Annie of New Life Rising -- I just love her art and writing and her wonderful sense of humor. Her photography of butt shots would make a wonderful exhibition on its own.

Janey of Janey's Journey -- because, who DOESN'T love Janey? She has the best sense of color in the world.

Lin of View from the Oak -- who is always there to encourage and who also possesses a magic time machine that lets her do 28 hours worth of stuff in 24 hours. Magic, I tell you.

Teri of Teri's Painted Daisies -- who has really grown as an artist and who always encourages me, too. PLUS SHE LOVE THE PACKERS. Need I say more?

Laura of Laurelines -- who is just the best in all respects, although we are all on the edge of our seats, waiting for a drawing of a FOUNTAIN from Hawaii.

There are so many others ... just look at that list of links over there on the right. There ya' go. All those guys ...

(And, hey. If you notice that your blog is NOT listed over there, give me a bit of time. I'm working on updating my list from my bloglines, and am doing it s-l-o-w-l-y. Those little housekeeping details are not my strong point...)

Are there blogs out there that you love? Play along...
1. If you get tagged, write a post with links to your favorite blogs.
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the creator of the award, Emila.

Note to Picassa users. To view and use small images, you have to click on the toolbar and check that you actually want to see small images. I dont' know why. But there you are. See, this post is not only warm and fuzzy, but educational. You ARE getting your money's worth after all!

Personally, I think Picassa rocks!

Weedy Bay

I could just play and play with pastel landscapes right now. This one probably needs to be tweaked over the next week, but basically I'm happy with it. It's simple.

I have an idea for a self imposed landscape challenge for the month of March or April. Maybe. I'm thinking about something ...

Again, the camera seems to emphasize some colors and ignore others. In reality, it's not quite so ... purple. I mean, there IS purple, but it's more blended than it appears here. Anyone with ideas on how to photograph pastels so that they look right the first time? I don't want to mess around in a photo editing program. I'd rather spend the time on the art. :-)

Sun Kissed

Playing with pastels for a little bit today. The actual piece is about 11" x 14", but I really like this crop of the upper half of the piece.
Here's how today went ...

Starting with a piece of prepared mat board , with lines measured out to use a pre-cut 10 1/2" x 13 1/2" mat. (Board prepped with a mix of acrylic matte medium and very fine aluminum oxide grit, tinted with a drop or two of liquid acrylic paint. I wish I'd gone over it a second time, brushing the opposite direction with a bit more grip and matte medium, so that the surface was a little more even.) The photo is from Wet Canvas and was taken by Carlanna. First, I laid in the basic lines with a medium charcoal pencil. Now that I look at this, I wonder if I should have just stopped here... :-D

Within about 10 minutes I've laid in basic darks and lights. Again, maybe I should have stopped here, at least to consider my lower right corner ...

One hour and 20 minutes later I'm as done as I'm willing to be right now. It was nice and fresh an hour ago, but now it feels a bit overworked. Darn it.

Can you tell that there is a path that leads up the hill, or does it just read as a stripe? There's still a lot of work to do on this one, slowly, though.... slowly!
I think it might be fun to try this in watercolor, too. It's a great reference photo -- lots to learn from it!

(And for you music lovers -- I'm listening to Cat Power's Jukebox CD. Amazing!!!)

Saturday Workshop

I attended a pastel workshop given by Paul deMarrais today. Something clicked, I think. I love that feeling. Now if I can just KEEP that clicked feeling ....

Something about pastels and the camera don't mix. For some reason neither photo is exactly right -- too much orange. The one of the cedars (top) came out okay, but none of the photos of this one of the river came out right. The orange and rich blue are not NEAR so pronounced in the original pastel. It looks better in person.

I had originally planned to work on another piece when I got home this afternoon, but MAN am I tired! I hope everyone else had a fun Saturday!

Raw Chablis

I was not EVEN thinking when I started this. Okay, maybe I was thinking, but I sure don't know about what. I've decided that I love doing detail in pen and in colored pencil, but don't enjoy it near so much in watercolor. Really. On the up side, this one was fun for playing around with a good variety of greens and nailing some interesting darks. It looks a good bit better in person, and I think it feels kind of summery, which is nice on these below freezing days. Working on it 15 -30 minutes at a time in the evenings has been relaxing. It needs to just sit on the work table for a week or so, and then I'll feel back up to finishing it.

Work is busy, and that's a good thing. I was thinking today about how fortunate I am to have a job that I really love. I sometimes think I have the MOST fun job in the world. Sometimes. ;-)

Diahn and I got to meet up the other day and do goal reviews, but I'm not going to go into that now -- later on this week, okay? I got my new eliptical, and am LOVING it. It feels GREAT to be actively working out, and I'm up to 30-45 minutes and so far have stuck to doing it every day. Woo hoo! I'll be ready for a bathing suit in ... oh, phoooey ... in 2009. I'll just have to stick to wearing a swim suit only on the boat when nobody's around in 2008, I'm afraid!

(Watercolor on 140# Arches 9" x 12" block. And for those of you interested in music -- I listened to A Fine Frenzy's album, One Cell in the Sea, while I worked on this. Great music!)

Interlude

Well, I made a big milestone today. That is, if I last another 15 minutes or so.

Two years ago today, at 2:15 in the afternoon, after over 30 years of smoking, I QUIT. I haven't had a cigarette since.

I'd been wanting to quit, and had tried several times without lasting success. This time, however, I had the _____ scared out of me, when I couldn't breathe and the doctors all thought I was having heart trouble. YIKES! I'd been miserable all that previous week, and had really cut back on smoking, but this was enough to make me STOP. For the first time, I clearly saw/felt/KNEW that the pain far outweighed the pleasure. (That's the key to changing any habit, by the way -- pain vs. pleasure -- and if you want to know more about THAT, I suggest that check into this guy's stuff. )

I did it cold turkey, too. No patches, no nicotine gum, no nothing but willpower. I still have my half a pack of cigarettes in the drawer, by the way -- and I can start back any time I want to, but I have to start with THOSE cigarettes. Needless to say, they are pretty stale and nasty by now. I hadn't smoked in the house for many years, so I didn't have the problems of adjusting my habits by the computer or in front of the TV too much. My hardest time was in the evenings, around 8 p.m. -- I figured out that what I really missed was the hot bitter taste of smoking then, so I would make a strong pot of decaf coffee and take it out into the garage, sit down in my "smoking chair", and get my hot-bitter fix. It worked for me.

Other than remembering how TERRIBLE it felt to not be able to breathe, day by day I reminded myself that EVERY day I didn't smoke really did make a difference in my health. I kept these kind of facts in mind:

• Within 8 hours of your last cigarette, your carbon monoxide levels drop to normal and oxygen levels in the blood increase to normal.


• Within 24 hours of your last cigarette, your risk of heart attack decreases.


• Within 48 hours of your last cigarette, your nerve endings begin to regenerate, and your ability to smell and taste is enhanced.


• Within 72 hours of your last cigarette, bronchial tubes relax, making breathing easier. Lung capacity starts increasing.


• Within 2 weeks to 2 months your circulation improves, and walking becomes easier


• Within 1 to 9 months, coughing, sinus congestion, fatigue, and shortness of breath all decrease. The cilia RE-GROW in your lungs, which increases your ability to handle mucus, clean your lungs, and reduces the chance of infection.


• Within 3-5 years your risk of dying from a heart attack decreases to that of a non-smoker.


• Within 10 years your risk of dying from lung cancer decreases to that of a non-smoker. Precancerous cells are replaced with healthy cells. Other cancer occurrences, such as cancer of the mouth, larynx, esophagus, bladder, kidney, and pancreas all decrease.

Pretty impressive, huh?

I did gain weight. So what. I knew I would, because the actual effects of nicotine on your body cause it to work harder and burn more calories. It's like you suddenly aren't burning the calories you once were. Eating wasn't a big deal -- I made sure that I didn't substitute mints and gum for the cigarettes -- I substituted nothing but my evening coffee! I increased my water intake, increased my healthy foods, decreased my processed foods. I was more interested in generally getting healthy than in whether or not I stayed skinny. Plus I had this mysterious breathing-but-not-and-heart-but-not whatever going on, and it made strenous exercise difficult. Actually, about that time, I would have said that strenous exercise was IMPOSSIBLE for me. Something was going on and I was exhausted down beyond my reserves. It was just a matter of rest and recouperate. *

Now I'm no longer the skinny girl. I'm the chunky one. I'm feeling much better though, and am ready to kick it up a notch! Remember my goal of losing 10 pounds by the end of April? Well, I've lost 2 so far. Not bad, considering that, due to really nasty weather and a fairly annoying knee problem, I haven't been able to meet my exercise goals of walking 3 times a week and doing yoga 3 times a week. Still, I'm determined, and am really blessed with a hubby who likes me the way I am, whichever way I am, but is super supportive of healthy lifestyle changes. So, in support of good health, we bought an elliptical machine this weekend (a nice chunk of change, thank you honey for the early birthday present!) and I'm ammending my goals to using it daily, also walking the 1-2 miles whenever the weather allows, and getting the doc to take a look at my knee so I can get back into yoga without modifying most of the poses and squealing "ouch" a lot.

And, I've managed to type the 15 minutes away -- so, as of right this minute -- I have been TWO YEARS -- smoke free.

Cool.

(* I now think it was a case of mixed stuff -- chest wall pain, a sprained sternocostal joint, hormonal changes, and adrenal fatigue. It took a lot of research to figure all that out, and I had to do some arguing with my doc to NOT be on a bunch of medications that I know now I wouldn't have needed. Sometimes you NEED to rest, and I still believe that I was right.)

Likes Fish for Lunch

Do you know what you call someone who says they are a vegetarian, but who, then again, isn't REALLY a vegetarian, because they actually eat fish, too? A Pescetarian. Or pescAtarian if you're British -- or are from Oxford -- or something like that.

Amazing the things you learn when you get on the web and type phrases like "who eats fish" into those little search boxes.

I actually already knew the the American Bald Eagle eats fish, because the above eagle sketch is based on a photo I took while in a fishing competition with this particular bird. I was doing a search because I was wondering if those giant pink birds* I like so much also eat fish; unfortunately, I kept coming up with pages about flamenco dancers and Brazilian soccer teams...

(*just kidding -- I know it's spelled "flamingo". Sheesh.)

(Gouache in my Moleskine, and I can't get the color in the scan to read right. Pooh.)

The Artist Is Exhausted

Well, it's been a busy weekend. Recently several other friends have shared photos of their art spaces, so I thought I would do the same, now that it's halfway presentable.

In my living room, where I also am set up to paint, I had a piano that I didn't play very often. This past Wednesday, it found a good home, giving me a little extra space and some good re-arranging options. I cleared everything out of the back half of the room, getting rid of a lot of junk and the art supplies I don't use anymore, sorting and shelving and storing the supplies I want to keep in a way that lets me get to them when I need them, and then started re-arranging furniture. I moved my drawing table to the wall where the piano was ...

... I moved the double sided bookcase straight across the room (it also kind of divides the room -- a custom job that I really like) and cleared most of the supplies OUT of my work area, saving the space for pens and pencils and whatever I'm actually working on at the time. The bookshelf used to be so stuffed full of stuff that I couldn't really get to anything. I was so surrounded that I couldn't think to paint. Now I feel like my head will be a bit clearer, and I'll be able to FOCUS better.

Here's the wall behind me, where the drawing table used to be. I got the two large pieces of foam core (they are 60" x 40") to clip artwork to so that I can see it and worry about it .... I mean, PONDER it. They are light weight enough that I can move them around easily and were cheap enough to throw away or cut up if they don't work the way I think they will. Psssst ... Laura ... see the stereo? :-)

I'll try hard not to giggle when I call it my gallery area.
(giggle)

Just around the corner is a large hall closet where I used to sketch and draw and wandered the dark side of scrapbooking, etc. I've reformed.

It had been piled with extra stuff, and tended to be the closet where things got tossed when people didn't know what to do with them or when company pulled unexpectedly into the driveway.

You do it, too... admit it.

It is still in the process of being cleared, but is mostly done and a lot of supplies have been put in here. I also have a place to plug in my laptop for work and do (shudder) "real" work.

Half the drawers are full of rubber stamps, souvenirs from the dark side. They are going up for sale, so if you are interested, e-mail me! I'm talking cheap!

The plan is to have it all neat and organized by the end of next weekend.

Still, I'm going to have to do a non-fish painting tonight or tomorrow -- but for now, I'm exhausted!

(Note -- I just call rubber stamping "The Dark Side" because it kind of "gets you". Some of my best friends are rubber stampers. And I'll be keeping some of my favorite stamps, I don't care if I ever use them again or not! ;-)

Likes Fish for Breakfast

With many thanks to the great blue heron who flew up into the branches of a large sycamore tree outside the window at work where we were having our daily morning meeting. He sat in the early morning sun, stretching and preening and watching the creek below, and we had a nice diversion from our routine.

I sketched him on my meeting notes (which I can't show, because it's, well, work stuff, too, you know...) and then found a reference photo on Wet Canvas which matched so exactly that I checked the name and date of the poster to be sure that it wasn't somebody from the meeting. Odd, but true. (It wasn't, of course - it was by a wonderful photographer, Dave Slaughter - you can go to Wet Canvas and check out his work.)

I'm finding gouache in the Moleskine to be an interesting experience. Kind of like watercolor, but not. I keep wanting to treat them like oils, but not. They are their own thing. I'm liking them!