my favorite missing pot

If anyone has seen a pot for sale like this one, please let me know!

This past week Bill and I have been working on the planting beds in front of our barn-house. Before all the construction on the old pole barn began, these beds were overfilled with lantana, purple fountain grass, prickly pear cactus, agave, and some unknown plant we called the pokey plant for its very sharp needle-leaves that hurt anyone fool enough to touch them.

Much was trampled by carpenters, some was pulled out because of extreme overgrowth, and we lost the cacti in last year’s freak “snowmageddon”. As we replant fountain grass and prickly pear cactus, I am also moving my container herb garden to the front. It’s been next to the back patio but didn’t get enough sun there.

And I find myself missing this favorite herb pot more than ever. A gift from our daughter after she first moved to Texas, it grew many herbs as well as hens & chicks over the years. This sketch is from 2008, just a year after I began keeping sketchbook journals. Two years after this sketch, the much loved pot was stolen from our front garden by thieving orcs — and I have never found another quite like it. How I wish I could!

A couple of other sketches from this old sketchbook: my sweet Maine Coon cats, Beorn Bearcat and Dali, keeping watch out the front window, and The Church of the Savior, the small stone church in the Riverside district of Wichita, Kansas. It was here in 2005 that I first learned how to watercolor from a very talented artist, John Lokke. We called ourselves the Riverside Watercolor Society and had so much fun painting together! The group has now scattered all over the country but I often think of the good times we had.

more on that 19th century Demi Palette

The silver Demi Palette in yesterday’s blog post contains 5 colors inspired by a limited palette of colors used by landscape artists in the late 19th century. This page from one of my sketchbooks from several years ago show another variation — and the colors that can be mixed. I was using a vintage Winsor & Newton Bijou watercolor box back then, but still had room to add 3 convenience colors.

those other palettes . . .

I may have gone a bit nuts collecting my favorite palettes from Art Toolkit. I’ve pretty much stopped using any other palette design, loving how easy it is to swap pans in and out of these metal cases. The shallow pans allow even bigger brushes to pick up paint without damaging the bristles by digging deep into those plastic pans that I used to use.

Each are currently filled with a type of “special use” group of colors — easy to quickly grab just what I’m in the mood for! (all paints are Daniel Smith except a few marked W&N for Winsor and Newton)

The silver Pocket Palette, upper left, contains a CMYK palette with 2 convenience colors added: 

quinacridone magenta (W&N), hansa yellow medium, phthalo blue GS, Jane’s grey, green apatite, and burnt sienna.

The black Pocket Palette, upper right, holds my version of an extreme limited plus mostly neutrals palette, inspired by artists Róisín Cure and Suhita Shirodhar:

lunar red rock (a more transparent version of Indian red), monte amiata natural sienna, cerulean blue chromium, ultramarine, transparent red oxide, indigo, burnt umber, a mixed pan of transparent red oxide and indigo, and white gouache.

The black Demi Palette, lower left, holds a warm and a cool of black and white for working in gray tones. Great on toned paper!

buff titanium, grey titanium, lunar black, and Jane’s grey.

The coppery color Pocket Palette, lower center, holds earthy granulating pigments, especially great to use in autumn:

lunar red rock, monte amiata natural sienna, green apatite, cerulean blue chromium, lunar blue, lunar violet, buff titanium, transparent red oxide, burnt umber, and lunar black.

The silver Demi Palette, lower right, holds my version of a late 19th century limited palette plus 3 pans of convenience colors:

quinacridone burnt scarlet, quinacridone gold, ultramarine, sepia, and lunar black, plus raw umber violet, buff titanium, and undersea green.

And this huge Folio Palette lives on my art desk. I used to include space for a mixing pan but decided that since it stays on my desk, I'll just use this ceramic dish for paint mixing. Some regular-sized pans but mostly larger square pans to accommodate bigger brushes.

potter's pink (W&N), quinacridone red, quinacridone gold, hansa yellow medium, serpentine, green apatite, undersea green, cobalt turquoise light (W&N), cobalt turquoise, cerulean blue chromium, ultramarine blue, indanthrone blue, monte amiata natural sienna, transparent red oxide, piemontite or lunar red rock, buff titanium, titanium gray, lunar black, and Jane's grey.

tiny landscape

This tiny landscape is from a photo I took the last time we camped at Lake Raven near Huntsville, Texas. We’ll be heading back to that campsite in a few weeks. Below are a few photos I snapped as I painted this scene.

First I lightly sketched the scene in pencil. Working this small, I finally found a use for that ridiculously tiny paint brush that came with a Winsor & Newton watercolor set years ago!

I worked from a photo on my phone. This Demi Palette contains 4 colors inspired by the limited palettes used by late 19th century artists, plus 4 convenience colors in the smaller pans. More on my special-use palettes tomorrow.

walking a line

This drawing is from several days ago; I just forgot to post it. First I drew our travel trailer’s keys in one continuous ink line using my dependable Lamy Safari. Then I added a bit of text. The page still looked a bit bare so I drew a randomly silly border in another continuous line.

tiger balm

It’s a damp dreary day today. After a trip to H.E.B. for some fresh veggies and my Rx eyedrops, my hands started hurting again. I grabbed this wee jar of Tiger Balm but started drawing it instead of rubbing it on. Art therapy?

(I have a touch of tendinitis in my wrists and probably some arthritis in my fingers — cold or damp weather seems to cause it to flare up. The eyedrops are for glaucoma.)

The nib on my Kaweco Liliput fountain pen seemed to be too bold of a line for such a tiny sketchbook so I ordered a new gold-colored steel extra-fine nib from jet pens.com — and some cartridges of Smokey Grey ink. Both subtle enough for very tiny sketchbooks.

palmettos and an unknown lily(?)

The palmettos growing in the forest undergrowth looked pretty sad the day we arrived to our campsite, but after several days of sunshine they were beginning to perk up. Carrie arrived wearing these unknown lily-like wildflowers in her hair; they look like rain lilies except for the exaggerated stigma.

bits from camp

Just random things sketched from our campsite . . . . I walked the shorter trail today, down to a northern branch of Lake Conroe, but left my sketchbook in the camper. Cooler temperatures today with lots of cold wind in the morning hours. By noon it reached 60° and the winds slowed down a bit. 

We’ll be heading home tomorrow; we’ve had a relaxing time here even with so many Spring Break campers. Mostly young families with lots of kids and dogs.

my wee camping teapot

Just a tiny sketch today as we spend time with kids and grandsons. This teapot lives in our camper just for me; Bill brings along his French-press to make his coffee each morning.

Carrie brought a ginormous campfire coffee pot for when the two of them really wish to indulge in a cup of coffee.

Bill made the cutting board to cover the stove top when we need more counter space.

back to the woods

We are spending Spring Break camping in the Sam Houston National Forest. I know nothing about hooking up the camper utilities or leveling it . . . so I sketched while Bill worked his magic.

Ceilidh, from 2011

Recently our son Jeff and I were trying to remember how old our shared Scottish Terrier, Ceilidh, is now. She went to live with Jeff during his college years to help him through a bit of depression, then she chose him as “her” human permanently. She now lives with him in Ohio.

To determine her age, I went back in my sketchbooks — these are from 2011. The blog entry to the above sketches reads as follows:

“ Ceilidh insisted on tackling the front steps by herself after the first few times, running from me before I can pick her up. But she is still wary of coming down them.

Sort of like us. In life, it's much more exciting to go forward when we are feeling "up". Harder to function on the down side.”

red, white, and blue . . . rock

This morning as I was coming in from taking care of the beasts, this rock caught my eye. It appeared to be red covered in white with blue lines. So I brought it in to sketch in my tiny sketchbook.

Our interior ceiling lights cast 3 distinct shadows so that’s how I drew it — the art lamp needed to take a photo hid that. And the red (red jasper?) looked much redder in the bright sunlight. But in my mind it is red, white, and blue.

eating out . . . again

For determining to not eat out due to Covid-19, we seem to eat out a lot. Though we do choose “off times” between regular lunch and dinner hours.

Yesterday we headed to Old World Lumber in Houston, meeting Kristen there to pick out some reclaimed barn wood. Bill will be building her a new bed frame out of the “mushroom” siding planks she chose — the wood came from an old structure where mushrooms were grown.

Then we headed to my favorite Thai restaurant, the Mango Tree. They have Covid safety measures in place such as a very large bottle of hand sanitizer and closing the small bar area. There was only one other group of people there. But what drew my eye was the message painted on the wall. And my favorite Christian radio station in the background, KSBJ.

new mini toy

I have been following several Miniature Painters’ work on Instagram* — I am amazed at the amount of implied detail these artists are able to achieve. I’m not normally drawn to flowers but I love watching Nina Hidalgo’s videos as she fills sketchbook after sketchbook. I also love the wee wooden palette she uses that snaps together with tiny embedded magnets and clips to the tiny sketchbook.

A while back, I decided to order one of these palettes on Etsy to add to my small collection. Before the Russian Dictator Putin declared war on Ukraine. The Go Draw palette with hand-bound sketchbook comes from a lovely Russian artist, Julia Mironova. With so many sanctions declared against Russia, I wasn’t sure if the palette would actually get here.

But it did arrive this week, inspiring me to once again try working tiny.

Here is the Go Draw palette next to my Demi Palette from Art Toolkit. Both will now live in my purse for impromptu sketches when away from home — after I decide what colors to load the new one with.

* Two of my absolute favorite artists who paint tiny are Bronwyn Royce @PigmentsArt and Katharina @Katharinacreates — check them out on Instagram!

lunch today at Julio’s

On the spur of the moment, Bill decided we were eating out today — Julio’s Mexican Cantina on FM 2920 has a lovely outdoor patio. To keep from filling up on the complimentary chips and salsas, I did a quick sketch (and they have really great green salsa!).

This tiny Hahnemuhle ZigZag accordion sketchbook has lived in my purse for going on 2 years yet after a few pages of wildflowers and a homegrown berry, it was forgotten. Until recently.

After viewing a few miniature painters on Instagram, I am interested in working small once again. In fact, I recently bought a new toy for doing so and it finally arrived in the mail — more on that tomorrow.