Blind Contour Friday

Blind Contour Friday, hosted by the tres talented Diahn.
Well, except that today is Tuesday.
And only a few of these are blind. (The others just kind of look that way.)

Hmmm... what else?
I made soup tonight.

That's all I've got.

Deserted Cafe

I used to just love the looks of this little cafe. When I passed it today, I stopped to photograph it for another project and saw that the door was partway open. There was enough light streaming in to see a little of the inside, and it looked a total wreck. I didn't get too close to the door! It just felt creepy.

I painted this last year when it was still open, when it was colorful and lively and smelled like frying bacon and fresh coffee -- and now I'm very glad I did!

NaBloPoMo 2009

It's November again -- already. And you guys know that means it's time for NaBloPoMo for those of us unwilling (or unable) to spend thirty days trying to write a novel*.

I'm planning on doing a bit of a blog re-do (some of those labels over there are pretty stale) and really need to blow the dust off the header this week. I'm also planning on doing some art this month. I'm going to be taking Kate Johnson's new on-line course this November, and am also working on a couple of paintings that may or may not be fit for public viewing -- we'll have to see how they turn out.

Of course, today, instead of painting I decided to spend a little time making homemade pesto. To make it extra creative, I took photos. Just for you guys.

You're welcome.

Happy November!

*By the way, for those of you who ARE doing NaNoWriMo -- here's some handy links:
Strunk's wonderful book The Elements of Style
and, of course, a Thesaurus, for those occasions when you realize you've used the same adjective six times in two paragraphs.
For those busy late nights when you need to stretch things out to make your word count reach that magic number that lets you shut down and finally drag your sorry ass to bed:
LyricsCafe -- you can squeeze a few hundred words from a good song, and
Every Poet if you would rather resort to classic poetry references to burn up some verbiage.

Again, you're welcome.

Blind Contour Friday

Diahn has re-awakened Blind Contour Fridays over at her place, and I couldn't resist. For the uninitiated, blind contour drawing is an exercise, and the results are rather, um, not pretty. These drawings are done by looking at the object being drawn, NEVER PEEKING at the paper, and, if at all possible, not lifting the pen from the page. They are done as a way of training the eye and hand to work together. Mine are numbered, and I could really tell that #5 felt better than #1!

I did mine in my junk sketch book. Hmmm. I guess I should explain about my junk sketch book, huh?! I was at McKay's (used books) one day a couple of months ago, and as I was leaving I glanced into the reject bin, where they put out books that people have left behind when they didn't meet the criteria for buy back. Free for the taking, these books are thrown out every evening, I guess ... essentially they are destined for the trash. One of my other errands that day was to run pick up some book board for a sketchbook I was binding -- and you surely see where I'm going here... Of course! There in the bin was a trove of perfectly good book board, in pairs that were already cut in handy matching sizes ... I grabbed two books, threw them into the front seat of the car, and finished up my day. I forgot to take the books in, and a few days later needed to make a quick note, so I just picked up one of the books and scribbled in it. Not bad paper. That's when I got the idea to make one of the books my "junk sketchbook" -- the sketchbook that is in no way "precious, precious "and was just for practice and drawing exercises. Recycling, don't you know...

And here's a little something for any of you who need to see a drawing that makes sense. Why did I choose this to paint? I don't know. I live nowhere near a lighthouse. I don't collect lighthouse stuff. In fact, I've never seen this lighthouse at all (other than in a photograph that somebody had) and have no idea where it is. I have no meaningful lighthouse history. I guess lighthouses ARE kind of cool, and it would be neat to drive around and look at them. I live in a light colored house that has lights in it, but that's not the same thing. Really, I just like things silhouetted against the sky, and I really like to occasionally use my red paint. That's it, people ... nothing more than that.

Okay, when you look at them, they ARE cool.
And this was fun.
AND I GOT TO USE MY RED PAINT.

Fallen

BOOM!
Fall has fallen
right into our laps this weekend
with cold and rain and wind.
Oh yeah...

Totally Just Goofing Around

The prodigal pear
...leaving the "pearants" behind...

Hope you all have had a wonderful weekend!

Shadow Shot Days Ago

I'm glad I got out last Sunday afternoon and did some shadow shooting, because we "ain't seen the sunshine since I don't know when.* "

Want to see more sunshine and cheery shadows? (With all this rain I sure do!) Go visit Hey Harriet! and see what other Sunday Shadow Shooters have found. And if you like to play with a camera, why not join in? Come on. You know you want to.

*Okay, well, actually since sometime mid-afternoon on Monday, but that isn't near as musical or poetic.

Farmville

A little sketchie of a farm in the Midwest done on a small piece of illustration board.* This worked nicely to hold in my lap or on the sketchbook and took layers of paint and ink and pencil and whatever I threw at it pretty well, as long as there wasn't too much wetness all at once. I like the idea of using the illustration board to supplement the paper in the sketchbook, and just know that it would "travel well."

And now I'm fighting my old computer, which is hooked up to my wonderful scanner. At one time neither the scanner nor the favorite printer would work with Vista (when Vista first came out), so I've kept them attached to the poor tired old computer which runs XP. What will I do when it dies, as it seems determined to do before the year is out??? I guess I'll be spending hours researching whether or not they've come up with Vista compatible drivers for my favorite peripherals! Do the rest of you also have to think hard to remember if all this technology really makes life easier or not?

Anyway -- I got this one scanned, and then the connection died again. Not the best in the lot, but the computer is flickering now, so I'm posting this anyway since it may be a while before I get the scanner working again. Sigh. More to come later. Hopefully. Meanwhile, I promise ... I'm still painting and sketching!
:-)

*Several experiments on larger pieces of the board were total flops -- I paint way too wet!

Shadow Shot Together

At the end of summer. How many more days at the lake?

See MORE shadow shots over at Hey Harriet!

9 11

I remember.

Shadow Shot Mushrooms and Mosses

Hey! It is Shadow Shot Sunday again already.

Mushrooms and mosses and lichens in the woods in Ontario. Visit the other Shadow Shooters at Hey, Harriet! and see what they've been up to.

*Note -- yep, in the "self portrait" shadow I'm still wearing the life jacket, even though we're in the woods. We'd just pulled the boat up to the shore, and I didn't walk far in, and the life jacket just stayed on. I felt like I was crushing the growth underfoot, and couldn't imagine how long it had taken for those tiny plants to grow that thick and deep.

Shade of Grey Day

A snippet from my travel sketchbook* of a grey day on vacation. I "broke the rules" and painted almost entirely with BLACK gouache. In the one square on the page I finished up with a few swipes of color.

Why have black and grey pigments gotten such a bad rap? Okay, so I see where people could (and do) over use them and end up with flat blah paintings ... but here and there ought to be okay. And, hey. Sometimes the world IS flat and blah and grey. Except for one red fishing boat. Yeah. You know what I'm talking about.

(Here's the other 3/4 of the page. Undecipherable, unless you know in advance that it is of a foggy, rainy, grey day on a lake... )
:-)

* my travel sketchbook is handmade from #140 hot press watercolor paper in a horizontal landscape format. We had to do all we could to avoid excess weight on this trip -- a good idea for any trip, actually -- so I chose to leave it unfinished with plans to do the covers after we returned home. I tried a new binding (to me) and feel like there are some technical issues with the construction of the book; therefore, I'm putting the covers on hold until I can talk to my friend, Bob Meadows (Book-Binding-Bob!) for HELP. I also have much more tweaking of hasty sketches before it is ready to be called done. And, of course, there will be some watercolor work from photos, as I sit at my table in the heat and humidity and think about the north... sigh. Oh Bother! I need to get over it!
:-D

Shadow Shot McVicar Lake

Not only a shadow shot, but you also get to see my really fashionable shoes ...

Okay, so I knew you wouldn't really want to see my shoes, so here's one were I zoomed in a bit better. Go visit Hey Harriet! for more sunny shadow shots.

Tools of the trade. Nice, huh? Who knew that a tackle box could be so colorful?

Even the oars in the boat were useful tools for fishing...

Needing something that measures fish up to 50 inches is more practical than optimistic if you're fishing for Northern Pike on McVicar Lake.

Hmmm... not that I caught one that big, but it does happen! I don't actually seek those big things out, preferring to go for walleye. (Yum!)

To be perfectly truthful, once dinner was reeled in, I was more interested in catching some photos and enjoying the scenery. I guess, for me, fishing is just a good excuse to be outside looking around...

Have a good week, you guys!

Some Birdie

... has a birthday today.

Happy Birthday, Diahn! (You guys need to go check out her cool bird paintings...)

Been Fishing

Well, I've been off fishing and MORE!

Doug and I drove from Knoxville, Tennessee up to International Falls, Minnesota, where we met up with my parents, their friends, and my sister. We all piled into two cars with our outdoor gear and sleeping bags and some food and headed up into northern Ontario, to Ear Falls, where we stayed the night at Gawley's Little Beaver Lodge. From there, we were flown in a teeny tiny little plane that ended up landing on a remote lake* -- leaving us to fend for ourselves for a week in a lonely cabin in the wilderness.** PERFECTION!

While we were there I did a little bit of sketching and painting, but not as much as I'd hoped. We had quite a bit of rain (the blue skies in the photo above were infrequent and intermittent, except for a couple of days) and small boats on windy lakes just aren't the best environment for comfortable (or accurate) drawing. Still -- I took LOADS of photos (in the thousands) and have many months of inspiration for painting. I have some sketchy "stuff" started in my sketchbook, and I'm going to sit down and finish things up to show you guys as I review my vacation and wish I was still there, Up North.

Can I just say, folks -- if you love the outdoors and if you even just kind of like to fish, THIS is the vacation to take, at least once in your life. Seriously. You don't have to know how to fish to catch them, just throw in a hook and wait a few minutes. There are no TV's, radios, telephones, NOTHING. Peace and quiet and wind and eagles and stars like you wouldn't believe -- and if you're lucky, Northern Lights and caribou swimming across the lake.. The Gawleys run a great operation, and I can't recommend them highly enough.

After we returned to International Falls, Doug and I headed out the very next day and took a winding back road tour home, including a nice side trip along the northern shore of Lake Superior. We had the best time traveling both ways, including doing our own version of Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives ... what a fun way to travel! I feel so grateful to live in such a beautiful country, and to have had this opportunity to see it up close.

So stay tuned. It is taking me a while to sort things out -- I still haven't found my paintbrushes, but there is still a bag or two to be unpacked. But very soon -- I'm ITCHING to paint!

*Woman River Fly-In -- Lake McVicar
**sounds very dramatic, doesn't it! :-D
*** OH! and very special thanks to my sis for taking the picture of me taking pictures of eagles
:-)

P.S. does anybody know how I can map our route and embed it into a post? I tried on Google Earth and Google Maps, and can't get what I was hoping for. Sigh. I may just have to take a marker and draw the lines on a map, and then scanning it in!

Shadow Shot Somewhere

A shadow shot from somewhere other than where I normally am.* Please note that I am a bit plump, but not as plump as I appear in this shadow. I'm actually wearing about 3 layers of long clothing (in August!?!) and a life jacket.

So, if you haven't guessed yet, I've ventured off for a bit and am on my way home now. More details later on!

And a note to any of you shadow shooters who may be in the Duluth area -- I missed a great shadow shot from 535 south at about 7:30 in the evening where a gigantic chain casts the most lovely shadow onto the side of a ship in dock -- (the ship is the American something or other ... can't believe that I can't remember!)
For shadow shots that WEREN'T missed, go visit Hey, Harriet!

(Shhh, all you grammar teachers out there! I know that isn't the way to end the sentence!)

Shadow Shot Stair Rail

Going up? Going down? Zig zag shadows make your head go round.

Fabulous shadows over at Hey Harriet! this week for Shadow Shot Sunday. Hope it is sunny and bright where you are!

Sidestreet

I got a 15 minute break this afternoon between errands, and stopped to try out a new drawing pen by Prismacolor (heads up, people -- THEY make a 0.05 in sepia!) in the Handbook Journal. I parked in an attorney's empty parking lot, directly under the Do Not Park Here Unless You Are Visiting This Attorney sign and sketched the patio of Sidestreet Tavern over the top of the fence. (Shown darkened here, just to view a bit better.) For some reason I find sunbrellas compelling ... maybe I need to do an actual PAINTING of them. Novel idea.

Okay, back on track ... so then I took it home and added watercolor washes ...

... okay. This particular brand of sketchbook really ISN'T for me -- for watercolor at least. Big yuk on the colors and the wimpy values I get with this paper! I just work too wet and with too many glazes.*

Later this afternoon I picked up a couple of pieces of #140 Arches hot pressed and one piece of #90 hot pressed (just for variety, you know) and am going to be sewing something up. Quickly. Toot-sweet, don't you know. I have an outing planned ...
:-)

* I ended up trying to work in some darks with my handy-dandy carbon pencils... WAY overworked.

**Uh, another note. Why in the world did I sketch in the patio light on a pole? Sigh. I knew as soon as I did it that I'd made a mistake. If I was a clever Photoshop-er I would have taken it out of the scan and you would never have known.

ISO Perfection

A mandarin orange, one of two that I picked up yesterday at the Fresh Market. Either that, or a lumpy orange circle. You choose.

I'm busy searching for the perfect sketchbook for an outing and thought I'd go ahead and give the Handbook Journal (that so many of you love) a try. Not what I'm looking for, unfortunately. The paper just doesn't stand up to the abuse I offer, although I love the 5 1/2" square size. Hmmmm... just the size to use if I decide to bind my own ....

I really like all that nice space out to the side of the orange (or lumpy circle, whichever you chose.) It looks like a nice place to jot down all those complex physics equations that rattle around in my brain. Or grocery lists. Or describe the weather. Whatever -- Funny thing is, this book makes me want to use it to sketch people -- it feels friendly, and not precious, precious. Just not right for my outing, I don't think.

For a beautiful INSPIRATIONAL sketchbook video, go visit Cathy Johnson's web site and find her youtube videos of her April/May sketchbook -- these are really wonderful, and I'm so thankful that Kate shared them with us!

Shadow Shot Bench

Shadows really are different in different parts of the world. This was taken in Wichita, Kansas -- and the shadows there are incredibly sharp compared to what we see here in hazy east Tennessee, which must still be hazy even when we poor locals think the sun is out full force!

Go visit the group at Hey Harriet! to see how other shadows all over the world looked this week!

A (LONG) SIDE NOTE:
Sometime in early June I looked at how busy the summer was going to be and gave myself permission to skip sketching when I was pressed and to skip Saturday morning painting if I needed to -- it seemed like the only way to maintain balance. Unfortunately, the undisciplined kid in me took that to heart, and therefore I have barely done any sketching or painting in two months. NOT what I thought would have happened! So the sketchbook is back out, and I'm adding the rule of no matter how busy I am, I at least sketch my coffee cup. The Fifteen Minute Rule is what I call it -- I can at least find 15 minutes!

As to my unexplained absence from the world of blogging -- it has been a crazy busy fun summer for me so far, folks. We drove to Wichita in mid July to celebrate my husband's parents' fiftieth wedding anniversary. As a surprise treat for them, the invitation included a request that people send in their photos and stories about Doc and Mary, and I got to compile them all into a scrapbook. It has been a long time since I did anything "scrapbook-ish" and turned out to be a rather time consuming project, taking up most of my art time for over a month. I really felt privileged, though, to be the one to first read some of the wonderful stories about how my in-laws had touched so many lives.

Other fun "stuff" that has gone on this summer:
Work madness ensued and then resolved (yay! -- but isn't that always the case?);
An absolutely WONDERFUL week-long visit from my niece, starting and ending with a few days of my sister and other niece thrown into the mix -- what a BLAST!;
Time spent on the boat enjoying the sunny weather (when we got it);
The house remodel continues, with the kitchen and downstairs bath being halfway complete (I've put them on hold temporarily because I have to change planned colors now that I see the new counter tops in the room -- sheesh -- I'd never make it as an interior designer!);
There's more that I've probably left out and EVEN MORE fun stuff is planned that will take me away from the computer here and there over the next month.

But even if I'm away from the computer -- I WILL BE SKETCHING AND PAINTING!