Hahnemuhle watercolor book

I’ve begun a new sketchbook journal, this time a watercolor book from Hahnemuhle. Their tiny (only 2” square!)  ZigZag book lives in my purse but since I rarely go anywhere these days, I haven’t drawn much in it. So I thought I’d try the company’s paper out in a slightly bigger size.

This one is a 4.1 x 5.8” landscape book holding 60 pages of a natural white 200 g/m paper — equivalent to 90 lb. watercolor paper, I think. I prefer 140 lb. but this paper seems to handle wet watercolor quite well. I’ll have fun playing with it.

And after filling my previous journal with an unusual limited palette, I’m back to full color! This Pocket Palette holds the watercolors I keep in my studio palette, arranged in sets of 5 primaries + a green and a neutral. From the top row, there are cool colors (plus a pan of white gouache), warm colors, earth colors, and darks. Plus two empty pans for additional mixing space and my 2 favorite turquoise paints. I copied this arrangement from Jane Blundell, changing a few color choices.

(This time, I remembered to take a photo before adding my personal contact info! I’ll add that to the lower left inside cover, in case the book is misplaced.)

UPDATE:
For those curious, my choice of colors (all Daniel Smith) is as follows —

COOL: Hansa yellow medium, quinacridone rose, phthalo blue GS, jadeite, + titanium white gouache (M. Graham)

WARM: quinacridone gold, pyrrol scarlet, ultramarine, serpentine, + buff titanium

EARTH: monte amiata natural sienna, quinacridone burnt scarlet, cerulean blue chromium, green apatite, + burnt sienna

DARK: raw umber, lunar red rock, indigo, perylene green, + Jane’s grey

The two turquoise paints in the upper right are cobalt teal blue and cobalt turquoise.

Scottie Dubh on watch

I don’t know what held Scottie’s attention so intently — he stayed in this pose a good 5 to 7 minutes, perched on a soft overstuffed footstool in front of the chair where I was sitting. Probably a wee flying gnat or piece of fluff drifting in the wake of an overhead fan. Scottish folds often hold such silly poses.

And so ends my Strathmore Watercolor Travel Journal, filled in 6 weeks (I don’t sketch every day). The book contains only 20 pages but the paper is a heavy 140 lb. cold press, great for really wet watercolor. And, not counting a bright red bandanna, I stuck to this same extreme neutrals + muted primary + turquoise palette through the whole book, though I changed the configuration of the metal pans a couple of times. Pocket Palettes are fun to play around with — even switching from a Demi Palette to the regular size to fit in 3 mixing areas.

Dalek siting and cancelled trip

A few weeks ago we drove to Willis, TX on the other side of Lake Conroe on a lumber supply run. At the turn-off from TX 105 to Lone Star Parkway, I spied what appeared to be a giant rusting Dalek covered with green overgrowth.

Curious about it, I looked at the satellite view on my phone map app — Bill guesses that it’s a part of an abandoned wood kiln.

We liked the area and wished to have a few days away from construction / moving stress and livestock care, so we booked a stay at a local Airbnb. It looked like a very relaxing out-of-the-way spot to just rest.

Then yesterday, just hours before check-in at the cottage, I received an email refund and notice from Vrbo that the property manager had canceled our reservation. No explanations, no apologies!

It may have something to do with an approaching hurricane and the mandatory evacuation of Galveston . . . . But some good old-fashioned communication and curtesy would have been appreciated!

UPDATE: an online search confirmed Bill’s thinking the cone structure is an old kiln. Common to steam-powered lumber operations, it was called a beehive or wigwam burner.

This one from Oregon is the closest match.

Sierra waiting

I began sketching Mikala’s heifer, Sierra, while sitting in the Madison county livestock barn on Saturday — then didn’t get back to finishing until this morning. This was only her second event and she did very well, placing third and fourth in her group against cows that were a bit older then she is. Definitely the prettiest cow in the barn! She is a roan and white short horn, a long haired British breed.

of travertine and Yellowstone

Our granddaughter Mikala had a trip to Borneo planned for this summer through the Houston Zoo to study elephants and other animals, but COVID-19 caused the trip to be canceled. As a consolation, her family booked a trip to Yellowstone National Park to view the many wild species there in their natural habitat.

I have never been there but have always wished to see the park, ever since seeing my great aunt Lucile’s Viewmaster reels from the National Parks. (I sketched the above bit of Mammoth Hot Springs from an online photo.) I also love bison — our daughter brought back this ceramic mug to give me as a house-warming gift for our new home.

While they were in Wyoming, I was reading up on Yellowstone. And I discovered that the travertine stone we chose for some of our barndominium floors was formed by the same process that is currently happening in the Mammoth terraces!

Here’s a very simplified version of what I read:
Water heated by the partially molten magma chamber deep below the ground rises through a system of small fissures, interacting with hot gases, including carbon dioxide, that are also rising from the magma chamber. As some of the carbon dioxide is dissolved, a weak carbonic acid is formed, which dissolves large quantities of the area’s limestone. Above ground, exposed to the air, some of the carbon dioxide escapes from the solution. Without it, the dissolved limestone reforms into a solid mineral — the chalky travertine that forms the terraces.

We were first introduced to travertine when a flooring guy suggested it for the bedroom floor of our log cabin. And we loved it! I have no idea what part of the world this particular travertine originated; we bought it from Floor & Decor in Houston.

barndo progress

(This is a very long post with lots of photos.)

Our wee barn-turned-bardominium is slowly progressing along; we hope to begin moving in over Labor Day weekend. Above is the sketch I made of the existing barn the first time I saw it in November 2018 -- we were looking at a property next door and this one wasn't even on the market yet. The siding was rotting from the damp climate, requiring us to choose metal barn siding instead.

This is how it looks this morning. Hard to photograph much detail as it faces south and is backlit by the sun. Eventually we will put that longhorn sculpture back above the entrance! We extended the east side to enclose what had been a lean-to -- that is where Bill's new and improved woodshop is located.

These two shots are from the back kitchen looking towards the entry doors and from the front living area looking back towards the kitchen. We kept the original slanted roofline and center beam but it doesn't show well here. (We love downsizing to tiny spaces!)

The ceilings are knotty aspen and the other woodwork and cabinets are knotty alder. Floors are engineered hardwood in distressed light brown hickory and cut travertine stone.

This is looking into my studio / library / office / guest room / laundry room. Our stacked washer-dryer will be behind that far partition and there will be bookshelves on that left wall.

Later on, we may get a chair for this room that converts into a twin-sized bed; our livingroom couch converts into a queen-sized bed so we haven't decided on this additional guest accommodation yet.

A barn door leads from the small hallway into the bathroom. Bill is in there working on electric switch-plate covers today.

A peek into the shower shows the same travertine stone that we have as flooring in the studio, hall, bathroom and bedroom. Small river stones make up the floor of the shower and are repeated as a vanity backsplash.

I love rocks, can you tell?

Looking into the bedroom with it's slanted ceiling . . .

. . . and another barn door leading to a small walk-in closet.

The wide back patio extends the total width of house + woodshop. This will be our family gathering spot with lots of seating, including my grandmother's old kitchen table just under the huge kitchen windows. Inside, there is only room for a kitchen bar and barstools -- we'll be drinking our morning tea / coffee outside on the patio. I can view both sunrise and sunset from this space!

finding turquoise

As the text on the left-hand page shows, my regular turquoise inks are water-soluble, smearing when watercolor is applied (whether I meant to or not — I did so accidentally here). I haven’t found a converter that works well for Kaweco Liliput fountain pens so I used turquoise inks that come in short international cartridges: Kaweco’s paradise blue and Graf Von Faber Castell deep sea green. (The smeared ink here is deep sea green.)

I did try mixing my own turquoise before using De Atramentis Document cyan with a touch of brown added; it made a nice color but not quite what I was after. Then yesterday I remembered having a sample of Document yellow from Goulet Pens. I tried adding drops of this to the cyan (now called turquoise on the label but still on the blue side) and am very pleased with the resulting color — not too blue, and not yet green. For now I put it in this Pilot Metro fountain pen because I had made enough mess for one day. Refilling empty short cartridges with a syringe works but I haven’t found a way to do so neatly.

cowboy? or bank robber?

I was sitting in my car waiting for an appointment to get my teeth cleaned when this cowboy walked by in front of me. Then he walked by again, heading the other direction.

With his big red bandanna ready to pull up over his face, he looked like he was ready to rob a bank!

(I forgot when I painted in a suggestion of the pavement that I had written the text with a water-soluble ink. Oops!)

a girl and her cow

Yesterday we met our granddaughter Mikala at her high school’s F.F.A. barn to see Sierra, the blue roan shorthorn heifer she is raising to show this year. Most of the cows at the barn are red brangus — Sierra’s beauty really stands out among them! She has a very sweet nature and is very attached to Mikala.

Afterwards we ate together at Willie’s Grill before Bill and I headed to Floor & Decor to pick up tiles for countertops and backsplash. At Willie’s there was this crazy-looking pepper dude painted on the wall — seemed like he belonged in my sketchbook.

early morning routine

Bits of my early morning routine: greet donkeys (Tater and Tot), get them a bit of fresh hay from this storage shed, turn the goats (Wilbur, Norbert, Bentley, Mikey, Abe, Iris, and Cognac) out of their pen, top off the water trough, and give some loving attention to any goats needing it. Then feed and water Stubby, the outdoor cat, before heading inside to do the same for Bardie and Scottie, the indoor cats.

Cognac always gets the first drink, before I even have a chance to fill the trough enough to wash the previous day’s scum away.

Bentley always needs a snuggle and scratch, usually followed by Mikey and Wilbur.

After eating a few nibbles, Stubby shares Bill’s morning cup of coffee, usually demanding his lap for a few moments.

evolution of a palette

This has been my current palette: neutrals + earthy triad + turquoise, and a white gouache thrown in “just in case”. I’ve been sticking to a “browns + turquoise” set for the journal I’m working in.

Then I went a bit crazy, adding another turquoise and a few more neutrals, eliminating the small mixing pan and adding a larger “mixing palette” (with a buff titanium + Jane’s grey thrown in). Both palettes fit easily in my large Art Toolkit.

Now I streamlined it back to one large pocket palette with 2 mixing pans. My 4 neutrals (monte amiata natural sienna, transparent red oxide, indigo, and a larger pan of the red oxide + indigo mixed) in larger pans on the bottom row, then my earth primary (quin. gold, lunar red rock, and cobalt turquoise) in the middle row, followed by white gouache and 2 more turquoise pigments in the top row (cobalt teal blue and phthalo turquoise). 

Such is the ongoing evolution of my working palette . . . eventually subject to change when the mood strikes. (BTW, this new and “improved” Blogger format is really a struggle to use on my iPad Mini. I’m thankful they give us the option of reverting to the old version!)

practicing . . . in a moving truck

Practicing ears in a moving truck — and my Pentel Pocket Brush pen just ran out of ink. Bill ran out of alder wood for the barn’s interior barn doors (bathroom and closet doors — barn doors take up less room) so we drove to Lucas Cedar on the other side of Lake Conroe to pick some up.

my wake-up call

Every morning around 6:30 I am woken up by this sweet girl calling to me. One day this week, I tried to take a photo of her — she stepped up in my face as if to say “where’s my hay?” Tater and her companion, Tot, live in our pastures defending their territory (and the goats) from intruders such as the local coyotes and bobcats.