magnolia bits

Our magnolia tree seems to be dropping more leaves and pods than normal and the overall tree just doesn’t look as healthy as some others growing in the area.

This morning I raked up a lot of leaves and threw them over the pasture fence — dry leaves are like candy for the goats. Also, keeping them raked up prevents them from blowing into the swimming pool.

stones in the shower

Looking for something to sketch last night, my eyes fell on the sample tiles for our barn-house. Bill chose river pebbles for the “floor” of the shower — grout will make it one even level while keeping the look of rocks. The tile underneath my sketchbook is also natural rock — chiseled travertine tile for the floors in bedroom, office / studio, hallway and bathroom. We had this stone floor in the cabin and loved it! The main room (living area and kitchen) will have a light brown hickory wood floor.

just a few grapes

I only meant to eat a few grapes. Honestly. . . . But they tasted so good!

(After sketching these that remained, I ate them too.)

The very first thing I painted when learning watercolor in 2005 was a bunch of grapes. They are like old, dear friends.

a beer for Abe

Just a few random bits from last week . . . . including dosing one of our goats with beer!

Abe has always had digestive issues since his early days in the Cypress Creek high school FFA barn. Recently they’ve gotten worse; Kristen heard that dark beer could help so Michael donated something of his Shiner’s (a local craft brewery). Abe liked it. But then, Abe even likes the Pepto Bismol we had been giving him.

I found a couple of blue jay feathers — unusual in this area. We have large numbers of bluebirds, wrens, and cardinals. One evening I was swimming and several wrens came to drink out of the smaller spa pool. They kept their eye on me . . .

And my new toy arrived! I was reading Roz Stendahl’s blog, “Roz Wound Up”, when I learned that Pentel Pocketbrush pens now come with sepia or gray ink so I ordered one with sepia ink from eBay. I’ve had my original black version for around 12 years now and the brush tip is still amazing! I used the sepia pen to draw the feathers, the pen itself, and Abe. Normally the ink is waterproof when dry — the bits that smudged when I added the turquoise watercolor must not have been completely dry yet.

a journal in turquoise and brown

I finally got around to setting aside the grey toned Stillman & Birn Nova sketchbook whose paper I didn’t care for and beginning a new one — a simple one-signature soft cover Strathmore Watercolor Travel Journal. When I first began learning watercolor in 2005, I used Strathmore paper from the 400 series. This journal is from their 500 series, a “professional grade“ with 100% cotton paper.

With my current favorite Demi palette of a limited neutrals + muted primary (with cobalt turquoise as my blue), I thought it would be fun to add one more turquoise and stick to brown and turquoise in this book. (Possibly influenced by the turquoise elastic band that came on the sketchbook?)

I cut a thin slice off a cobalt teal blue watercolor stick and placed it in one of the pocket palette mini pans — with a few drops of water, it sticks and eventually forms to the pan. The Kaweco Liliput fountain pens hold brown and turquoise ink cartridges — the brown is De Atramentis Document brown which is water resistant. The Stabilo pen holds a water-soluble ink in sepia.

different type of painting

I do intend to move on to a new journal and use this one for people-drawing practice . . . But when Bill brought his wee paintbrush and paint caddy in and set them in my line of vision — well, I just had to sketch them, right?

what the cat drug in

This morning our outdoor “barn cat” Stubby brought us a juvenile coral snake, still alive, right up to the front porch. She was quite proud of herself!

Bill cut its head off, as coral snakes are highly venomous. My friend John Locke, who introduced me to watercolor, would certainly not be happy with us, snake lover that he is.

face practice w/ pocket brush pen

I’ve been struggling with a commissioned sketch this week because it involves drawing people. Not something I’ve spent a lot of practice on. So Maria Cornell-Martin’s live demo on Instagram yesterday with Che Lopez was timely as they explored sketching faces (and mountains!) with Pentel’s Pocketbrush pen.

Of course, in our time zone it played while we were out running errands in the truck; at first my iPhone was able to play it but we soon drove out of a good signal. I’m so thankful Maria replays these demos on Instagram’s IGTV. She also posts her live demos on her art-toolkit.com website.

I just found out that the Pocketbrush pen also comes in sepia and grey ink, though they are currently hard to find. I just ordered a sepia one from the UK.

I’m also reading Lynne Chapman’s excellent book, Sketching People. I can use all the help I can get!

more testing on this grey paper

This grey toned Stillman & Birn Nova sketchbook continues to frustrate me. It’s not just the cool grey color that requires a different palette than my usual preference; the paper just isn’t the best choice for watercolor. It can take light, less juicy applications but I’ve been gravitating towards working with wetter washes than I have in the past.

I look at my art journals as a continuous record of my normal life, so completing each journal from beginning to end is important to me. I have considered leaving this one unfinished and moving on but that interrupts 13 years of continuous sketchbook habit.

For these pages I grabbed 2 brush pens, a white water-based Sharpie, and a water-soluble Elegant Writer. I’ve been reading Trevor Waugh’s ebook, “People in Watercolor” — so I copied several examples from the book on these pages. I’m not very comfortable drawing people (and staying at home with Bill working on kitchen cupboards in his shop means no models around); using these pages just for practice drawing people seems like a good idea. It is also a bit “freeing” to not expect to do a “good” sketch but just practice. Even if it’s from books and photos.

mindless sketch while planning

Our family weekend event is done — two of our children and their families came to the farm, greeted with brushes and rollers to paint the interior walls of the barndominium — and now it’s time to get to work. A friend near Dallas has commissioned me to do a sketch that will be copied on a printer to make cards. I mindlessly drew the above sketch after putting together a selection of watercolors for this project, using a Pentel Pocketbrush.

Printer inks are based on the CMY color palette (cyan - magenta - yellow) so I put together a limited palette centered on these three colors. After choosing the pigments, I mixed up a basic color wheel to see the range of color. Then I chose a few convenience colors that closely matched some of the colors in the wheel.

Now to get busy on that sketch . . .

pool day

Activity has really picked up at our barn conversion site, after a week of no workers showing up. That combined with the intense humidity leaves little time or energy for sketching but I still find time to swim now and then. I spent the evening in the pool listening to an eclectic mixture of music through my iPhone and this small speaker; our donkey Tater was relaxing on the other side of the fence. She appeared to be listening to the music with me — some songs her ears went up, some songs they went down!