my current copy-palette

Currently my Demi Palette is holding a knock-off copy of Jose Naranja’s limited palette, which has held my fascination for quite some time. I wasn’t entirely sure what colors he actually uses in his amazing detail-filled journals, but he recently posted the color names on Instagram.

But then he did not mention what brand(s) of watercolor he has. I tried to put together a similar set using the paints that I already had — my Payne’s gray is much bluer than his, making it almost the same as the indigo I had a small bit of. The only turquoise I have is the paler cobalt turquoise light. His red seemed like a mid-range red, not very warm or cool, so I tried perylene scarlet.

The easiest way to see how my substitutes work is make a color chart . . .

I’m thinking I may still tweak this set a bit more. Maybe a turquoise that is more of a teal. And rather than a gray or black, perhaps I will add lunar violet? It’s a bit gray but with a slight violet cast; violet is a very hard color to mix with this palette.

assorted seating

Our normal furniture is still at the cabin, being “staging” for potential buyers to see the space as lived in. Which means we find whatever works to sit on at the new place. Our daughter and son-in-law brought over their old IKEA chairs. I remember “rocking” our granddaughter Mikala in one of these when she was a baby — she is now 16 years old!

We also brought over an overstuffed chair from Bill’s grandmother — it takes up more space visually than my favorite Morris chair we left at the cabin. We brought a Swedish rocking chair from the same grandmother and my own grandmother’s sewing rocker, which has been in my bedroom since I was a teenager myself!

our new longhorn

Just playing around with water-soluble ink in my Kaweco Liliput fountain pen . . .

I love this tiny pen — fits anywhere and wonderfully engineered! But the ink converters that fit it aren’t the best to work with so I buy pre-filled cartridges. Most inks in cartridges are not water resistant so I use them like this.

However, I just bought some international short cartridges from Goulet Pens that contain my favorite De Atramentis Document ink! So far they only have black but I’m hoping they soon offer brown as well.

random sketching

Just randomly drawing a bit here and there in my small purse-sized sketchbook . . .

. . . and playing with a limited palette in my Demi Palette from Expeditionary Art.

Sketch With Me: favorite things

In our log cabin, I found myself spending very little time in my art studio. With its location being in the loft, accessible by a steep ladder-stair, it wasn’t the easiest place to get to for these old legs. 5 1/2 years ago those steep stairs didn’t seem such a big deal but now my legs protest! There is a good amount of mostly-north natural light, but being up against the steep roofline is uncomfortably hot in the summer. So my studio became more of a place to store art tools rather than a place to paint.

At Kristen’s house, where we will be living temporarily while converting the barn into a house, there is a wonderful little office in the northeast corner — lots of light from 2 sides! Now that my art table is set up with tools set out ready to use, I’m spending a lot more time there. Now it’s so much easier to leave and return, taking care of other things while letting ink or paint dry.

This weekend is the Sketch With Me virtual sketch crawl with the prompt “FAVORITE THINGS”. So what better than my favorite art tools? I have two more additional brushes not included that are favorites: my Lowe-Cornell ultra round #8 and #10.

In the Prang box are my most-used watercolor choices:
Quinacridone rose, pyrrol scarlet, quinacridone gold, hansa yellow medium, green apatite, perylene green, cerulean blue chromium, ultramarine blue, transparent red oxide, raw umber, and a mixed gray (ultramarine and burnt sienna, also sold as “Jane’s Grey”).

My new Demi palette holds whatever new combination I’m currently playing with; at present, that is José Naranja’s limited palette he uses in his fabulous mostly-ink sketchbooks. I’m not so sure about having both indigo and payne’s gray, both so similar.

My favorite Pocket Palette is the black one, filled with every one of the 28 colors that I keep in my large Schminke studio palette. Most colors are actually from Daniel Smith; I just keep them in a Schminke box.

Choosing favorite brushes is easy — these are the ones I grab most often. Choosing favorite fountain pens is a bit more challenging, but these are the top 3: a Lamy Safari, my new Pilot Namiki Falcon, and a tiny Kaweco Liliput.

Below is a color chart of all the colors of watercolor I keep in my studio.

our new pool-pet

I laughed when our daughter Kristen bought a Roomba to vacuum, though it does actually keep the pet hair at a minimum and doesn’t seem to bother their three cats.

Now they have bought a similar “creature” to clean the pool. Bill nicknamed it Wall-E and it is now our “pool pet”. Actually does a great job . . . we still have to scoop out the magnolia leaves that float on top of the water though. Wall-E’s work is strictly underwater.

Here he is in action, cleaning up the side of the pool — about to get temporarily stuck on those steps.

a little garden clean-up

Early in the morning when we’re at our new property, I work a bit on the very overgrown landscaping around the pool. A very short bit — the heat and humidity have been unusually horrid this summer! I’m using these leather gauntlet gloves I once purchased for trimming roses — there are many sago palms on the property and they have razor-sharp edges!

The once small and blooming lantana has grown to 3 foot long branches that intertwine with each other into a huge knot. After trimming several back last week, I found another prickly pear cactus that they had completely hidden!

This is how neatly the place looked in the springtime, just before we bought the place. Apparently lantana thrives on hot, humid days with very little rainfall or watering!

a new wildflower

On those days when I wake up at our new place, I try to get in an hour of working on the pool’s landscaping before the extreme heat and humidity chase me inside for other jobs. The lantana has become completely overgrown, crowding out other plantings and hiding bits we didn’t even know were there. I’m trimming it back a bit severe to get rid of some powdery mildew and give all the plants some breathing room.

Among today’s trimmings, I found this volunteer wildflower that I hadn’t seen before — I think it is a Dakota Vervain. (see update below) I’m sorry to have pulled it out before noticing how pretty it is. It had become “buried” under some over-long lantana stems. Before it could wilt, I did a quick continuous-line sketch of it — gave me an excuse to come inside and cool down with some iced peach tea!

UPDATE: after help from others on Facebook, this flower has been identified as Plumbago auriculata.

pool rocks

This is what one of the larger landscaping rocks near the swimming pool looked like a couple of weeks ago. Now we have had a long, dry period of excessive heat and the moss has all disappeared.

this morning’s church sketch

Tea and bag drawn during morning Bible study; text added during church sermon. Paint added later at new house, where my studio set has been moved. Ink blotch added from water drop — forgot I wrote text in water-soluble ink.

The larger cups are all used up at church so I took my ceramic cup from the car in. It would actually be smarter to reuse my own tea mug every week rather than use disposables.

Kyra Kitty

 

When the sheep farmers sold our daughter and son-in-law their new home, they came back to load up the remaining sheep, their horse, the border collies . . . and 2 barn cats, sisters from the same litter who had been adopted to take care of the mice in the barn. Unfortunately, they could only find one cat, Lyla. Her sister, Kyra, remained hidden and they needed to head on out.

We have been watching for Kyra for several weeks, and made sure there was food and fresh water available for her. Once in a while we would catch a glimpse of her but could never get close.

Then we spent several days in a row at the new house. On Friday morning, Kyra was near the pool and I slipped outside to the porch. She sat on a rock, looked directly at me, and chatted up a storm! I don’t speak “cat” but I’m sure she was telling me all about her people and familiar animals disappearing. She wouldn’t let me come near her.

Early Saturday morning I again came out to the porch and sat down. Kyra began talking to me again (complaining?) and came up to me, letting me pet her. So early this morning we attempted to catch her. She approached, purring and allowed petting. . . . . Then Bill grabbed her, put her in a kennel, and carried her to a tack room in the barn while she complained loudly and told him off! We closed her in the tack room with food and water, then texted her owners that she was contained. Their daughter will come from College Station this morning to collect her and return her to her sister kitty and family.

In the same way, we can feel lost and confused in the midst of our present concerns. We may attempt to hide or complain to whoever shows up to listen. Just when we begin to feel settled and begin to trust in the new situation, we are contained and put in a small space in confusion! But we don’t yet know that rescue is on the way — the Lord always provides a way out, a hope and a future.

a sadder butterfly

I was able to sketch this butterfly because it was not moving. Actually it was dead, damaged, with its color fading quickly. Most of the butterflies feeding on our lantana and other flowering shrubs move too quickly for sketching or even a blurred photo.

I’ve been slowly trimming the lantana back from the jungle it’s become around the pool. Hopefully this will encourage a new blooming — currently the only ones left with flowers are these in the sketch, growing in front of the barn.

Due to extreme heat and humidity, I only get a few plants trimmed each day that I’m at the new house. But eventually I’ll catch up . . .

lost feather

Just a quick sketch after hanging out in the pool this evening . . . If I could find a way to sketch while lazily floating in the water, I would! Observing the various birds, dragonflies, and bumble bees; listening to an owl, a crow, unknown songbirds, and a neighbor’s rooster; watching jets fly so very high overhead — apparently our new property is in the flight path for Houston’s Bush Intercontinental Airport. I’ve also watched a mother bird (I think it may be a type of vireo) feeding her young in a nearby birdhouse attached to one of the fence lines, and a crested cara cara (aka Mexican eagle) soar above me. It is totally peaceful here!

(Photo is a bit yellowed because it is now nighttime here, and I don’t have my studio lighting set up.)

Earlier today was busier than normal. Bill woke to find his cell phone too hot to touch and unable to turn on. After meeting his buddies for coffee, we loaded up the car with more stuff to move to our new place. Then headed to College Station for a bit of necessary shopping, an unexpected stop to check on his phone (by now cooler, charged, and working again), lunch at a deli, and a follow-up periodontist appointment for me.

Then back to the cabin to load up the cats and a bit of food before heading to our new place. A few fix-it jobs, continuing with landscape trimming and treating a cactus bug infestation, checking on how what we think is a young pecan tree is faring after treating it for bagworms. We’re also hanging out here while yet another realtor shows the cabin to potential buyers.

I love simply being here in the country, surrounded by birds, the neighbor’s goats and horses, trees, and such a lovely quiet!

traveling cats

Our cabin has been on the market for 40 days now and only a few scheduled to look in person, though thousands have looked at the online listings. Frustrating for us. Even more frustrating for our wee Scottish Fold kitties as we continue to pack what is not needed for “staging” at the cabin and travel back and forth between properties. We are doing some work at Kristen’s new house, meeting with workmen about the barn-to-house conversion, and keeping both mowed. We can’t actually begin on our barndominium until we sell the cabin.

When people schedule to look at the cabin, we load up the cats and go for a ride — or take more stuff to the new place. And when we go to spend the night at the alternate place, they balk — whether they are at the cabin or the house. They seem to like both places just fine; they just don’t care to leave wherever they happen to be at the moment.

not busy enough . . .

What with packing boxes and moving stuff one load at a time to our new place, maintaining yard and landscaping at both residences, showing cabin to potential buyers, trying to keep up with sketching . . . I decided that I wasn’t busy enough, so I took on a bit of knitting.
Our sweet neighbors’ baby #2 will be arriving any day and I wanted to make something for him. These bibs are knit of the same 100% cotton yarn that washcloths are made of. After use, simply dampen it and use it to wash the baby’s face and hands. And head, if he learns to eat like our son Jason did, who loved rubbing food into his hair while laughing.

magnolia seed pod

I’ve seen magnolias in bloom before and smelled the wonderful scent — but I had never seen one go to seed until now. The magnolia tree near our daughter’s swimming pool is heavy with seed pods.

(And just who’s bright idea was it to place a magnolia near a swimming pool anyway? Lots of shed leaves blow into the water!)