local wildflowers

Each of these examples of wildflowers were found within a quarter-mile of our home, while I walked up to a neighbor’s house to check on her dog, Sunni.

There were actually a few more varieties that I didn’t get on this page — recently I found some rare white bluebells!

a bit of me

This weekend is the monthly “Sketch With Me” virtual sketch crawl event, and the theme for March is “self portrait”. I really don’t like photos of myself and sketching myself is out of my comfort zone. So while we were at church I sketched a few things that sort of define my personality: plaid is my “favorite color”, and I love a hot cup of tea and reading books on my iPad Mini. I’m most often found  wearing long skirts and comfortable shoes (or barefoot)! And usually with a sketchbook journal nearby. Most of my sketches have ink smears and the one of my face is no exception — I forgot the ink was not completely waterproof.

I tried taking a photo to sketch from — for some reason, a photo in the bathroom mirror worked better than a selfie — but the likeness was hard to capture. And at almost 65 years old, I actually do have some gray hair now; the gray must be as camera-shy as I am!

trimming roses

Yesterday was a busy day, catching up on house chores and laundry. I also finally got outside to trim our old-fashioned roses. When they never really go dormant in our climate, I’m never sure when is the best time to do so, but a few straggly branches were so tall the birds decided to perch on them like  they were trees! I love the rose hips on this one.

Our roses come from The Antique Rose Emporium in Independence, Texas. (link) They are old varieties propagated from clippings found thriving on abandoned farm steads — some may be well over 100 years old. Very hardy with very little intervention needed.

The torn paper taped on the upper corner are a couple of quotes I found years ago but never entered in a journal:

“It is surprising how much is to be learnt alone . . . There are different kinds of drawing, there is some that may be quite correct, but it isn’t beautiful, it wants the divine spark.” — Sir John Millais

“Plenty of people can draw, but you have observation.” — Sir John Millais, spoken to Beatrix Potter

more wildflower prints

The day’s brightness is not allowing me to take very good photos today, but I have just had prints made of some of the wildflower sketches from a previous journal. I will be selling them on Etsy, just in time for the beginning of our local spring wildflower explosion of color.

The upper picture has Firewheel, aka Indian Blanket, Crow Poison, Bastard Cabbage, and Indian Paintbrush. Bastard Cabbage, also called turnip-weed, common giant mustard, and wild rape, is actually an invasive noxious weed that crowds out other wildflowers. Indian Paintbrush is the most prevalent flower blooming around us currently.

In the lower picture are the Texas Bluebonnet, “Milk and Wine” Crinum Lily, Winecup, and Plains Wild Indigo. While the lily is not native, it has naturalized throughout the area from abandoned farmsteads and cemeteries. It is said to be so hardy, it never dies. Wild Indigo, while a very interesting flower form, can be extremely toxic for ranch livestock.

a messy sketch

Yesterday’s sketch turned out to be very messy . . . . I temporarily forgot that I drew this with a water-soluble ink, which got away from me when watercolor was added. It is meant to be a sketch of the Cross of the Scriptures in Clonmacnoise cemetery, County Offaly, Ireland — or rather, a sketch of its replica. The original cross is housed inside a visitors center to protect it from the elements.

I was wearing a silver cross made to look like one of these stone crosses so I looked them up on Google, curious about the real thing. (What did we ever do without the internet?). Ireland’s high crosses were sometimes left plain and sometimes sculpted like this one, with intricate panels illustrating Bible stories. This particular cross stands just over 13 feet tall and was carved from sandstone around 900 AD.

my next journal . . . times two

Time to start a new sketchbook journal, and I’ve decided to finally break down and work in a larger sized book. Five years ago my beautiful friend Kate gave me this Stillman & Birn Zeta sketchbook, size 7 x 10”. The label on the front had a wonderful watercolor sketch of an old wise woman, painted by Kate (also known as Cathy Johnson). Up till now I’ve been too timid to work any bigger than 5 x 8”; working in a larger size felt more “professional” and might require more perfection.

Such a silly idea!

But for those times when I need something to fit in a smaller purse or pocket, I also started a small Delta softcover journal, also from Stillman & Birn. This is the book I sketched our sharing pieces of pie in on the official PI day this past week.

I’m using the same basic palette for both books, though using larger full pans and bigger travel brushes for the larger journal. Since the ivory paper in the Delta book is nearly the same color as buff titanium, I switched it out to be replaced with white gouache in the small Pocket Palette.

I like drawing my palette or pens on the first page of each journal, sort of a record for what I was using at the time. After taking photos of these, I added personal contact info in case of loss.

celebrating PI day

Our granddaughter Jayna has been spending her spring break with us, working on a display table she designed in Bill’s woodshop. Finishing it up today, we decided to take an impromptu trip into Brenham to take in our recycles and go to the used book store.

Then a stop across the street at Must Be Heaven for pie. After digging in, Jayna mentioned that today is National PI Day. There must be an official day for EVERYTHING!

I haven’t “officially” started a new journal __more on that in my next post, whenever that may be__ but this was too good not to sketch so I skipped the first page in a small Stillman & Birn softcover Delta sketchbook to sketch this.

a bluebonnet star

If you look directly down at a bluebonnet from above you can see a star. Not exactly like the lone star of Texas, but a very fanciful star. Not so easy to draw — but that’s why drawing botanicals can be so easy . . . If your sketch isn’t quite accurate, who will know?

This is the final page of my current accordion journal. As I worked through both sides, I kept the pages in a temporary leather cover. Now I’ve removed it from that cover and glued permanent covers to the front and back. The folded paper was the leftover bits after tearing down larger paper for a full-sized journal. Imagine my surprise when the size not only fit my leather cover — it also perfectly fits these cardboard covers I found at Hobby Lobby!

wildflowers in our yard

While the undeveloped property up the hill from us begins its show of bluebonnets and Indian paintbrush, we have had two types of wildflowers in our own yard for a week or two. A large fairy-ring of meadow asters filled one corner under the fir trees with blue. Normally these asters are more of a deep purple; lighter shades of blue are unusual. Appearing sporadically in other parts of the yard was crow-poison. We sometimes have crows visit our yard but they avoid this wildflower . . . Think they know how it got its name?

Sadly, Bill mowed yesterday so these are only in my journal now.

early bluebonnets

And so it begins . . . Bluebonnets have started showing up in the empty lots near our cabin, along with a few Indian paintbrush. Soon this undeveloped lot with only specks of blue will be a solid sea of bluebonnets . . . with a few Indian paintbrush thrown in.

a continuous line cup of tea

This morning’s cup of tea — I couldn’t find my pencil (I usually sketch pencil guidelines before drawing in ink) so I guess it was time to do a continuous contour line drawing. As long as I begin in a good place where my hand doesn’t block my view and go slowly, it usually works out.

This is a “burnt sienna” color of ink that I mixed from De Atramentis Document inks — a favorite color for this kind of sketch! I think it’s red with a touch of black; I follow the mixing charts worked out by Jane Blundell on her blog.

Macy’s track meet

 Our young friend, Macy, asked Bill if he would come to her track meet held in Giddings yesterday. He often goes to watch her play volleyball and basketball but this is the first track event we attended. In the past 5 years, Macy and her brother Blake have become like additional grandkids to us.

I began this sketch sitting on the end of the bleachers — we were early and things hadn’t begun yet. Macy saw us from the field and came to give us both hugs. But I had to finish later at home as I had forgotten a white pen to do the lines of the running track.

Macy placed # 2 in the Girls Junior Varsity high jump! The # 1 position went to her teammate. In fact, their school, Caldwell High School, did very well overall.

a Pocket Palette collection

Since the first time I saw Maria Coryell Martin’s ArtToolkit, I have loved her Pocket Palettes. I quickly bought the original palette. Then a lighter weight version came out about the same time I was thinking about getting a second one so I ordered one of them. Next came a slight design change __the lower bar was reduced in size so as not to block the paint pans and a slight side edge added to the mixing area__ and I splurged yet again. Recently the palette came out in classic black . . . . This may have been a gift?

The green palette in the lower right position is not actually a Pocket Palette. It’s a Wellspring business card case that I found in a used book store but with the addition of a self-stick magnetic card and a bit of white enamel paint on the inner lid, it works the same.

Each time I did a new arrangement of paint pans, I made a color map to remember it. Now I’m getting quite a collection of those as well!

By the way, I challenged myself to work straight through a journal using the same palette I began with. Most journals contain a variety of palettes. I am now 3/4 of the way through my current accordion-fold journal and, except for a couple of dabs of buff titanium, I am still using the same earthy granulating palette as I started with (shown in the center front).

Brrr! It’s cold . . .

This winter has been the coldest since we moved to Texas five years ago. Normally there might be a day or two of cold between a long length of sunny, moderate days, but it has been consistently below-average cold since early December. Not anywhere close to the frigid temperatures we knew back in Kansas, but it’s sure not the sunny warmth we have come to expect here!

Yesterday was Bill’s final day of cardio rehab in College Station. To say goodbye to his therapists, he took them chocolate peanut butter eggs (he says it’s for them having to put up with his orneriness). Then we went out for a late lunch date at Koppe Bridge Bar & Grill. Great hamburgers and chicken sandwiches! It’s so much colder than normal, the owners have cobbled together this old space heater attached to a tall wooden bench.

I recently found out that Pentel now makes a “flat” waterbrush so I ordered one — only to find out that the bristles have more of a “cat tongue” shape. But I decided to add color to this sketch just using this new waterbrush. Not the flat I was hoping for, but fun to splash color on with.

a non-sketch bit of knitting

Sometimes I don’t sketch. Sometimes I even knit!

Recently I found this awesome little online company, Darn Good Yarn (find them HERE.) I bought a couple of their silk wrap-around skirts made from old saris and love them! Each one was one of the “$20 mystery SKIRTS” — I let them choose, just giving them an idea of colors I like, and they chose very well. One in golden browns and one in deep burgundies.

Then I started looking at the yarns they sell, also made from sari silk. I had an old Celtic trinity knot scarf pin but don’t wear scarves . . . so I bought some silk “yarn” in green shades and made this purse. The strap is made from an old unused leather belt.

Elegant Writer pen

After seeing a recent post by Ros Jenke on Instagram, I bought an Elegant Writer calligraphy pen at Hobby Lobby. When water is applied to the water-soluble ink lines, unusual colors bleed out, ncluding turquoise and pink . . . . At least they do with the old version of the pen which Ros was using. Apparently the company has slightly changed the pen and it “bleeds” with less color variation now. But it’s still fun to play with.

One thing that sets this pen apart from other water-soluble inks is that after it’s been wet, the ink stabilizes. When watercolor is added after the ink has dried, it will no longer continue to bleed. (Any lines left untouched by water will continue to bleed with watercolor; “set” these lines first by a fine mist from a spray bottle.)

Check out the YouTube video on this LINK! You have to scroll down a bit to find it.

a musical angel

Our friend Kim invited us out to Abuelo’s, her favorite Mexican restaurant in College Station. We had never eaten there before, though we’ve often driven past it.

As soon as I saw this musical angel standing in front of the entrance, I wanted to draw it — but being with two non-sketchers, all I did was snap a quick photo.

Then I felt playing with water-soluble inks after seeing a recent Instagram post by Ros Jenke. She drew a bird using an Elegant Writer calligraphy pen that bleeds in unusual ways when water is applied.

I just got one and will soon be playing with it . . . But this statue had an ecru tone so for this one I used J. Herbin’s Lie de The ink.