our temporary living space

While we are all staying close to home and avoiding people-contact, there are many online sketchers who are generously posting free tutorials and online classes. I’ve been following the YouTube videos that Belgium architect and artist Barbara Luel has been posting daily — she calls these her Corona Sketchbooks (Find links on her blog HERE.) and she begins each one with a beautiful watercolor of the virus itself!

I decided to try a couple of her tools and draw a portion of the living area of our daughter’s farmhouse where we are temporarily living. (My cat, Bardie MacRuadh, sat on the couch watching me.) I laid aside my pencil and fountain pens, and drew this directly with a Mark’s Inc.ballpoint pen. Then I  used a white Dermatograph oil-based pencil to save whites and a Rosemary sable travel brush like hers. Mine is a dagger brush; I’m not sure which style hers is.

I’m not very fond of using masking fluid — I really do like using the white pencil to save whites instead. It didn’t work so good on a portion of the area rug’s grid but the sketch still captures the idea, and I can’t add the shadows of the window frames later. But overall, I think this is a tool I will continue to use.

I do like the thin, refillable ballpoint pens from Mark’s. They fit my hand well and write very smoothly with waterproof ink. Adding watercolor makes the ink lines recede into the background, which is useful if I want the watercolor to take center stage. And they are so thin, they are easy to fit in whatever I am carrying. Not as noticeable as fountain pen lines if I’m drawing something without a lot of confidence! These pens are hard to find though; I found this one at Jetpens.com and they only offered the one color.

what I _really_ carry

Yesterday’s sketch showed the sketching tools I would carry for some serious sketching away from home. Not very likely to happen in this “stay home, stay safe” time we are living in.

Today’s sketch is more of a “true story” — this is the minimal tool set I carry everyday in my bag. A very small bag at the moment, a turquoise leather bag Bill gave me a few years ago. A larger bag would have room to hold my sketchbook but sometimes I just feel like traveling light.

first pages

As with all of my sketchbook journals, the first sketch is of my current art tools. This would be what I would carry for some serious sketching — not likely to happen in the near future with social distancing due to the COVID-19 virus. I’m more likely to go much lighter . . . perhaps I’ll sketch the lighter version I carry in my bag later today.

I usually match the color of ink to my fountain pens. The black Namiki Falcon holds black ink, the turquoise Metropolitan Retro holds turquoise ink, and the taupe Metropolitan with dark brown “lizard” band holds a sepia ink I made by adding a bit of black to brown ink. All inks are De Atramentis Document and, oddly, all three pens are from Pilot. I also use Lamy Safari and Kaweco Liliput fountain pens; these just happen to be what was nearby.

I also try to start each journal with an encouraging quote or verse. The quote written in the upper right corner came from a recent newsletter from a favorite writer and podcaster, Wayne Jacobsen. His Lifestream website can be found HERE and his podcasts can be found HERE. I met Wayne years ago as he held some meetings in my friend Penny Dugan’s barn just north of Wichita, KS.

A longer excerpt from the newsletter:

“Faith is this: our whole life is in His hands — every breath — and He can enfold any circumstance into His purpose in the world. He promised each of us grace enough for each day and told us to look to the birds as encouragement because they live anxiety-free in the Father’s care. . . . . My life is not wrapped up in the stock market curve or in my knowledge of the future. My joy is to wake up on this day, listen for His nudges, and follow His footprints. . . . .
Live one day at a time and see where grace makes itself known to you. Spend less time trying to get Him to change your circumstances and more time leaning into His love so that trust overwhelms fear.”

ending and beginning

The above left page is my final sketch in this current journal; the hidden page on the right is my list  to send a change of address to when we sold our cabin and moved to the farm for good. Actually, there are still a couple of agencies on the list we need to take care of — a severe cat bite, hospitalization, and home quarantine interrupted the process.

Last summer while taking a load of recycles in to Brenham, I spied some old books with interesting covers thrown in the random paper bin. So our granddaughter Jayna did a “dumpster dive” for me, her being much taller than me. She pulled out 3 books I particularly liked, to be gutted and filled with sketching paper. This one is a science book published in 1872.

Just before packing to move, I tore all my full sized papers down to fit these covers, knowing they’d be easier to move that way. This one will have Fabriano Artistico watercolor paper — I think it is soft-press. The other 2 old book covers are thinner and will have Nideggen paper.

With the journal just finished, I was experimenting with sewing a book block together but inserting it into a temporary leather cover while using it. The cover is a refillable Traveler’s Notebook, found HERE. Now I will need to build a permanent cover for it as well — haven’t decided what it will look like yet. Maybe something dealing with moving, like a map?

Knowing the outer book block pages would be covered by end papers in the binding process, I used them to test pens and make temporary notes. The pencil clip covers my personal contact info in case the journal was lost while carrying it.

new kind of normal workday

The current COVID-19 pandemic has many people staying close to home. This week our son-in-law Michael attended a conference meeting via his laptop computer . . . while sitting beside his swimming pool at the farm. Until it began raining.

Of course, the pool needed a good cleaning (the pool guy showed up the following day) and we saw this nasty intruder in the bottom of the small spa pool.

a few local wildflowers

Washington county, Texas seems to be the best location for wildflower displays in the springtime.

But we have moved east to Waller county. No pastures completely covered in a combination of blues, reds, yellows and pinks here — instead, we have subtle side-of-the-road bits of color while driving through the very tall pines. Our back pasture is edged in fairy-dancing toad flax (apparently donkeys and goats don’t like it?) and I find tiny violets beneath my feet as I walk to the barn.

staying home and reading

I am naturally a hermit personality so it’s easy for me to stay home, being of the 60 and older crowd that is considered the most vulnerable to CoronaVirus. And I just happened to have purchased several books in the past months that haven’t been read yet. All but one of them have been from the used book market for maybe a dollar plus cost of shipping.

The one I bought new is a combination of favorite things: watercolor and Natural Parks! Especially looking forward to spending time with Color of the West by Molly Hashimoto!

new daily normal, short term

Nurses are such awesome people! Though overworked, overwhelmed, and underpaid considering their workload they are still so informative and encouraging . . .

I am not cut out to be one of them. But with the help of Jennifer Stokes of  Option Care and the people from Gulf Coast home health care, I am managing to give Bill his intravenous antibiotics every 6 hours around the clock. Each “drip” takes 1 to 1 1/2 hours to go through the tubing. (Not much uninterrupted sleep happening). The bag says it should take only 30 minutes but we were told this depends on the patient’s veins — and Bill has decidedly difficult veins. Which is why he was switched from an IV to the PICC line catheter early on.

Due to the current Corona virus pandemic, the hospital was limiting visitors to reduced hours, no overnights, and we were questioned, “hand-sanitized”, and banded every day.

Overall, it is good to be home.

maybe going home . . .

Nearly a full week in the hospital following a bad cat bite infection, and it looks like Bill will finally get to go home . . . . with PICC line in his arm and me as his nurse, giving him intravenous antibiotics every 6 hours. Not really comfortable with this but I guess it’s better than his being in the hospital.

With the pandemic scare going on, hospital workers seem to be trying their best to send patients home if at all possible, knowing everyone would be safer staying away from crowded places.

The doctor in charge ordered an MRI today, we thought to determine what type of medication and how long he’ll need it. But before he even returned from that department the clinical transition specialist had informed me it will only be for one week.

I assume he’ll be switched to an oral antibiotic then?

The infectious disease doctor is extremely hard to extract information from!

Rodeo day . . .

. . . or not. With a few new cases of the Corona virus in the greater Houston area, the remainder of this year’s Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo has been canceled. Today is the day we had planned to spend the day at NRG Stadium.

Besides the usual viewing of livestock, eating junk-food Texas style, seeing the exhibits, cowboy events and evening concert, the Main Event for our family was to watch granddaughter Mikala and her boyfriend Blake in the Calf Scramble. Click HERE for a video of last year’s event.

Thirty FFA and 4-H members chase 15 calves released in the arena, trying to catch one and drag it to the designated area. Those who succeed are awarded a $1750 certificate to purchase a heifer or steer of their own to raise next year. Mikala is a junior this year so this would have been her last chance to catch a calf. We are all regretting not being able to attend — but Bill is still stuck in the hospital so he would’ve missed it anyway.

Thanks to a generous friend of hers, Mikala will still be able to raise and show a heifer next year, but how much better to actually earn one for herself!

One of the former owners of the small farm we live on performed in barrel racing events. There is still a practice setup in the south horse arena (where we’ve now planted fruit trees). And the cast iron skillet art shown in the above sketch hangs on the front porch. Bill wants to hang it on our patio after our barndominium is built.

still here . . .

Bill is feeling a bit stir-crazy here in the hospital. After several days of IV antibiotics, he is feeling great; blood tests continue to show the infection is deep tissue but is not into the bone. So he wants out of here!

We find amusement any way we can — looking at the melamine coffee mug with the handle facing makes us think of the head sculptures on Easter Island. Made us laugh!

The infectious disease doctor in charge made it clear to Bill last night: “You aren’t leaving until I say you are leaving!”

post-Bardie rescue

Sunday morning and here I sit, on a plastic sofa in a hospital room in Tomball, TX.

On Wednesday our wee cat Bardie got his leg caught in the iron leg of a vintage ice cream parlor chair. We’re not sure if he was trying to jump onto the table or off of it — either way, he somehow missed. We heard his terrified screams and came running to help; he was so panicked that Bill had to let him bite his left wrist while freeing the cat’s leg with his right. We were afraid that Bardie had broken his leg, as horrific as the screams sounded, but he was fine. Just very embarrassed.

We knew cat bites are serious injuries and Bill was in major pain with lots of blood, so we headed to a nearby 24/7 ER in Magnolia. After a thorough cleaning, a tetanus shot, and antibiotics, we were sent home with wound care instructions. (It didn’t help any that one tooth went deeply into a bad fire ant bite from a few days previously.)

All seemed well until late Saturday afternoon — swelling and pain increased enough to head back to ER. This time, they sent him to their hospital in Tomball for a few days of IV antibiotics. This is often necessary following cat bites so we sort of expected it.

Just a tad bit more intense, as the Corona virus has appeared in the Woodlands. Hospitals are limiting visitors; those that are allowed in are interviewed, info recorded, and wrist-banded as cleared.

I didn’t mean to!

copying great ideas, part 3

I usually use travel palettes containing a lot fewer colors, though I do have a black Pocket Palette that holds mini pans of my new palette arrangement of 4 rows, each a different type of “primaries + green + neutral”. An earlier blog post on my studio set can be found HERE. I also made a color card of this basic set for the back of my clear phone case:

But I recently began following Barbara Luel’s art online — another fabulous sketcher! She carries 26 colors in 2 Pocket Pallets, one palette with warm colors plus neutrals and the other with greens, blues, and violets. I keep to my basic 20 colors plus a handful of “extra just-for-fun” colors (turquoise and several with extra granulation). I own 2 other Pocket Palettes and thought how cool would it be to have them hold every color I own. I checked my supply drawer . . . and had exactly 8 more colors! So I filled them in roughly the same manner as Barbara does, fitting a few in wherever I could.

And the best reason I can think of for carrying every color I own with me? A wonderful book I bought years ago, Daring Color by Anne Abgott! Instead of mixing colors on the palette, she allows similar colors to “mingle” into each other when placed side by side, creating gorgeous glowing results. She uses a huge number of paint colors — much more than my 28. But I can really play around at this color-mingling with all my colors set up like this.

I love sketching but I also love playing with my sketching toys! Don’t you?

copying great ideas, part 2

I’m always looking for different ways to build a watercolor travel palette. I often get ideas on cool fountain pens or sketchbooks from Larry D. Marshall so when he wrote this blog post about his skinny travel palette made from a bifocal case, I got excited! (I particularly identified with the first sentence of his post!) I looked and looked for a similar case without any success.

Then, while searching for something else entirely, I found the above tin box with hinged lid on Amazon. Long and narrow like Larry’s, it is just that wee bit wider, enabling me to keep a travel brush and bit of sponge for cleaning the brush tip inside. I cut a piece of glossy white contact paper to fit inside the lid for a mixing surface.

I also borrowed the selection of colors in this kit: Jose Naranja, who creates such amazingly detailed sketchbook pages, recently added a few new colors to his previous palette of 6 colors — I thought it would be fun to play with my own version of his new palette. His blog post can be found HERE.

copying great ideas, part 1

There are so many very talented artists and sketchers to be found online, each with their own style and their own unique way of using art supplies. I often borrow ideas from my favorites, adapting them to ways that work best for me. Over the next 3 days, I’ll share some of the ideas I’ve begun using.

Recently, Maria of Expeditionary Art introduced her “Palettes of Place” series, beginning with the colors of the Pacific Northwest selected by artist Molly Hashimoto. I was immediately drawn to the Demi Palette’s simple layout of 8 mini pans surrounding a larger double pan for added mixing space, so I duplicated it in my own wee palette. This palette lives in my purse with a fountain pen, a waterbrush and folded paper towel.

Since recently switching from a “rainbow + neutrals” ordering of my palette to a set 20 colors arranged in 4 “primaries + green + neutral” arrangement, I am trying to not buy any new colors. (I do have a handful of additional colors such as a favorite turquoise or granulating pigments but they are just for once in a while). So instead of trying Molly’s colors, I put together my own and tried them out with a color chart.

Having such even spacing between each color swatch was borrowed from another online artist, Susan Chiang. She uses a skinny masking tape to divide each space, shown in this YouTube video.

And that recent change in how I lay out my palette? I got that from an older post on Jane Blundell’s blog that I saw several years ago. The idea stuck with me, and I finally did it with my own favorite colors. Plus one favorite turquoise and a sponge for dabbing a brush on. With the addition of a travel brush from Rosemary and Co., this lightweight palette (a small Koi palette with the insert removed) and a small water container is easy to grab and take with me.