Color

Janey of "Janeys Journey" (see the link to the right) and I have started a discussion about buying art supplies. This is a little WC sketch I did a couple of years ago using just Burnt Sienna and WN French Ultramarine. (Well, except for the obvious red and yellow triangles.) I keep it around to remind me to "Keep It Simple". The scan doesn't show the variety of colors, but gives the general idea. A lot can be done with just a few supplies!

Strawberries and Sugar

We got the first good strawberries of the season today. While cutting them up (then coating them in sugar and swirling in whipped cream ... yum!) I just had to leave a couple to do a little WC sketch of them. DH walks by and looks disapprovingly at the three strawberries still on the plate:

DH: Are you eating those?
Linda: No, I'm drawing them.
DH: What if I want to eat them?
Linda: You can eat them later.
DH: What if I want to eat them now?
Linda: Did you already eat all the ones I cut up?
DH: No, but I might.
Linda: Well, you can have these then.
DH: Seems like a waste of good strawberries.

I decide that he has a point, and eat them myself before I finish drawing the seeds. Sometimes a girl has to do what a girl has to do.

Star Magnolia

This star magnolia bush blooms early every spring, shortly after the crocus and just before the jonquils fill out. I cut a few pieces this morning to do some quick sketches, knowing that they will not last long in the house, even in water. The blue bottle looks quite wonky on this page -- I did it directly with watercolor, and had my sketchbook flat on the table. Really, it looked perfectly straight from my perspective at the time ... it gave me a huge laugh when I picked it up and saw all the weird angles. The bottle looks like IT is blowing in the March wind!

Having read a great hint about using an imaginary clock face for drawing roof angles on buildings on Richard Bell's site -- Wild West Yorkshire (see link to the right) -- I used the same principle on the petals of the flowers, and had the easiest time I've ever had drawing them. If only I had used the same technique for the bottle!

Dopey: EDM Weekly Challenge

The Everyday Matters Weekly Challenge this week is to draw a toy. Not being much of a toy person, I considered drawing my skis, my bike, my jeep ... then I remembered my old Dopey doll somewhere up in a cabinet. Not really my style of drawing, but it was fun to visit with ole' Dope a while. Dopey is a well worn, truly dirty and loved old toy! Molded plastic face with soft head and body -- Gund Mfg Co, ca. 1958-60.

Friday: Starting home

Friday we headed south and east from Frisco, back down to Colorado Springs. On the eastern side of the Rockies I am fascinated by the short, twisted, tangles of trees that grow in clumps on the flat plains. They are nothing like the tall hardwoods of home!

Wednesday: Vail

Wednesday we skied at Vail. The mountains are tall and the ski resort is large; my favorite ski spot was the "China Bowl." No photograph or attempt to capture memory with pen or paint can begin to convey the size and beauty of this place.

Thursday we skied at Keystone. It is a favorite with the locals and has a dedicated following of "out-of-towners" who return faithfully every year. It is one of the harder resorts, and I will readily warn anyone who goes there that the blue (intermediate) slopes would be, for the most part, considered blacks (advanced) anywhere else. Despite all that, we had a good time, and after resting for a while in the afternoon went back out for a bit of night skiing. It was a magnificent ending to the ski portion of the trip!

Tuesday: Breckenridge

Monday we skied at Copper Mountain -- a small resort, but one of my favorites! There hadn't been snow in the area for about a week and a half. Still, the skiing was good.

Tuesday we went to Breckenridge and a snow storm came along with us. I sat it out for a bit while DH kept skiing. He (and several others in the bar where I waited, happily, I might add) reported near white out conditions up on the peaks for a short while. The news reported later that the upper part of the mountain got 6 inches of snow that day.

Sunday: Historic Georgetown, CO

Sunday drive from Colorado Springs to Frisco: We stopped at Historic Georgetown on the way, with the hopes of seeing some Bighorn Sheep. It is a quaint little Victorian mining town, full of buildings with false fronts and gingerbread, and little shops carrying imported "fancies" from Russia and Sweden.

Uncle Stan

We went to visit Uncle Stan in Colorado last week for a few days before and after our annual ski trip. He is one of the funniest people I know! He's tall and thin, and as long as I've known him has had long white hair and a white beard and moustache.

Cup: EDM Weekly Challenge

Coffee cup for the Everyday Matters weekly challenge. I did several, but this one was my favorite, even if it isn't technically good. For some reason it most looks like a cup of tea really looks sitting on the table in the early morning!

Fruit Stand (in Progress)

It has been slow going this past week. Due to a rather strange incident involving too much coffee, a stack of interesting papers, and a ladder, a week ago this past Sunday I broke my toe. Therefore, every evening after work I spent my time lying on the sofa with my foot obediently propped up on pillows and packed in ice. Hard to paint in that position.

I'm at the scary part of the painting -- time to proceed very carefully because if the values are wrong here it will ruin everything! It's been much trickier than I had imagined to work in color from a black and white photograph. (I'm still trying to figure out what some of the fruit is supposed to be.) I have a sneaky feeling that the white coat on the shopkeeper will be too light for the painting, and had even considered changing it to a darker or more subdued color; then I looked at the high shine on the gentleman's shoes and knew -- his coat would be WHITE.

Oh, if no one ever sees this painting again we'll all know it was a bust. Good learning, but a bust none-the-less. This has been my first attempt at anything "real" with oil pastels and I've loved how they are a "globby" and vague rather than detailed. Fun stuff.

Bag: Everyday Matters Weekly Challenge

My ugly brown purse -- least favorite, but the one I carry when the week is really busy and I have to carry a bunch of stuff back and forth from work. Inked drawing colored with Berol Verithins.

Sketches. 

Compulsion

Last week at work a friend brought in a book of old photographs of Knoxville (one of the Images of America series by Arcadia). Leafing through the pages of old black and white photos, several jumped out at me as candidates for possible paintings, but most captivating was a photo of an old downtown fruit market taken at the turn of the 20th century. I'm starving for color these days, and the possiblities this image provided filled my mind for the rest of the week.

Friday night I started tentative sketches of the photo in preparation for a big "watercolored-Saturday." Saturday morning I pulled out my giant pad of Borden & Riley marker paper and started the big sketch. (note-- marker paper is my favorite tool for making planning sketches. It takes pencil well for starting marks, then I use grey marker to refine, then black marker for strong final lines to use for transfers. The paper is thin, so light shines through it very nicely to allow transfers by taping to a window or other light source; it also is great for graphite transfers since not much pressure is needed to make a mark.)

Several hours later, with an unsettling feeling that some of the proportions are just WRONG, I remember that somewhere, buried in the back of a closet, is a "project-o-scope" (or some such name) that I got years ago. Now, this thing is the cheapest low-end model available, and was never of any help at all (see comment about cheapest low end model...) so I've only used it once before. Nevertheless I pull it out and set it up and begin beaming fuzzy distorted outlines of the photograph onto my drawing. DH walks by.

DH: That's cheating.
Linda: That's checking.
DH: Looks like cheating to me.
Linda: (pointing at the already done drawing) That's planning. I'm having trouble with my ellipses.
DH: (looks at me blankly) Sometimes I don't understand what you're talking about.

My proportions must be OK after all -- at least they seem to be from what I can tell by the wobbly out-of-focus image on the paper. How does anybody use one of these things to draw with anyway? Even if I WANTED to use it, the minute my hand goes up to the sketch to make a line the light is blocked and the image is gone. I decide that people who use these things to draw with should be awarded some special prize.

1:00 p.m. I'm finally ready to transfer the sketch to WC paper. Normally I tape the sketch to a window at the back of the house, then tape the WC paper over that. Since this drawing is horizontal it won't fit in the window unless I put it sideways, so I settle on using the glass storm door at the front of the house.

IC: Boy, the neighbors are going to love this.
Linda: I don't care.
IC: Look, R. and her dog have stopeed and are looing at you like you're crazy.
Linda: I don't care.

I hurry anyway.

5:00 p.m. After going out to a late lunch and errands with DH -- time spent with me smiling and trying not to be inpatient to return to the painting, we're finally home. DH does not understand the compulsion that accompanies a new painting, and I've learned over the years to consciously curb my urge to spend every waking weekend moment indulging that particular compulsion. It isn't easy, but it IS only fair and right. Of course, the moment we walk back into the house I'm back at my worktable. Several hours away have given me new perspecitve on the piece, and I'm now feeling that I'm trying to be too tight with the watercolor. So I change my mind and scan my first small sketch, enlarging it into pieces on regular paper, and begin making a graphite transfer onto oil pastel board. I'm at the table making tracing lines through the paper when DH walks by.

DH: That's cheating.
Linda: That's checking.
DH: You're tracing.
Linda: (grinning and triumphantly waving a grimy graphite backed paper at him) I'm tracing my OWN sketch. That's planning.
DH: Looks like cheating to me. What happened to the other one?
Linda: I changed my mind. The watercolor was going to be too tight.
DH: (looks at me blankly) Sometimes I don't understand what you're talking about.

9:00 p.m. DH wants to watch a DVD. I fight the compulsion and go into the den.

11:05 p.m. The ending credits of the movie are rolling. I'm back at the worktable laying down the first strokes of oil pastel. Finally.

11:40 p.m. DH: I'm going to bed.
Linda: OK. I'll be up in a minute.

2:00 a.m. I finally go to bed with one corner of the painting done. Or at least started.

Lamp: Everyday Matters Weekly Challenge

Lamp: Everyday Matters Weekly Challenge This lamp sits on my computer desk. I like the rather "wobbly" effect of linear pen and ink, although I don't do it very often.

Harvey: Bringer of Joy and Protector of All Hearts

Harvey is a maltese mix that owns Jan, a friend of mine. He is one of the best dogs I've ever met.

Shoe: Weekly Challenge for Everyday Matters groups

I got these shoes over twenty years ago and have worn them maybe three times. They seemed a good choice for the Everyday Matters weekly challenge.

From my Garden Journal, painted last spring.

Hello World of Blog

This is my first venture into the "world of blog." I'd thought about it for some time, but anytime the thoughts got serious, my inner critic would speak up --

Linda: I think I'll start a blog.
Inner Critic: That's silly and stupid.
Linda: OK.

This time, however, I have a REASON. On the "Everyday Matters" yahoo mailing list we just began weekly drawing challenges, and I wanted a place to post my drawings. So the conversation went like this --

Linda: I think I'll start a blog.
Inner Critic: That's silly and stupid.
Linda: I know, but I do all kinds of silly and stupid things that I really enjoy anyway.
IC: Boy, you've got that right. But nobody's going to look at it. You're just wasting your time.
Linda: I don't care.
IC: (can't think of an answer) well ... well ... fine, then. But you'll never be able to figure out how to set it up, so knock yourself out, girlie. Go ahead ... give it a try.

a little later --

Linda: See. That was easy.
IC: Yes, it was! And I'm strangely comforted by the presence of the big red button that says "delete this blog."

Me, too.