a spot of tea

This is the only real tea cup & saucer I own, a 45th wedding anniversary gift from our Bed & Breakfast hostess. I usually drink tea from large mugs.

But I am a bit particular regarding loose-leaf vs tea bags, as well as brand. I prefer loose-leaf and Taylor’s of Harrogate from Yorkshire, England is fabulous! The teas sketched are Yorkshire Gold (black tea blend), Taylor’s Earl Grey, Taylor’s Imperial Gunpowder (green tea), Republic of Tea Double Dark Chocolate (yerba mate tea), Justea Purple Chocolate (purple tea), and some leftover mint and lemon tea bags.

I started with an ink sketch, then added shadows using a 25% / 75% watered down ink in a waterbrush — Noodler’s Lexington Gray ink.

I got this far, then thought something was missing. So I added a vignette touch of our gray stone tile countertop. Then thought I’d better stop messing with it.

4 1/2 goats

Our rescue goats are quite happy living their lives as silly, spoiled goats.

Then there is Egret. She is a feral Siamese cat who lives with our cow, Sierra, and has been known to follow Sierra around the pasture in the manner of the white egrets that hang out with nearby herds of cattle. That’s how she got her name.

But lately she has also been following the goats around like a lost puppy looking for its mama! Our son-in-law Michael took these photos, posting them on Facebook as his “4 1/2 goats”.

trying something new

This past January, while exploring Mike Daikubara’s Color First, Ink Later, I briefly gave 3 shades of gray Tomball markers a try. Following Mike’s technique, the grays, along with white gel pen, are added at the end to enhance the sketch with shadows and highlights. This works fine as long as you don’t want to add any more watercolor — the Tomball markers bleed if touched with a wet brush.

While I now love doing splashy washes of watercolor before ink drawings (when I have time — this technique takes more time than a quick ink sketch followed by watercolor), I found the added step of using markers for shadows a bit tedious.

Then fellow Texas sketcher “unhyphenatedanarchy” (on Instagram) suggested using a diluted mix of Lexington Gray ink and distilled water in an extra waterbrush. He was sharing with me ways to sketch people more quickly; I have heard of other sketchers doing the same but had never tried it myself.

What a great way to add those shadows to an ink sketch BEFORE adding watercolor! The ink washes, which can be built up in layers for darker tones, will not blur when watercolor is added. Great for sketching outdoors when you want to catch that shadow before it moves (I tend to sketch slowly and the sun doesn’t wait for me). And the ink wash goes down much smoother on the page than when using markers.

on my bookshelf

I sometimes have the habit of buying books on sketching after reading great reviews about them — and then leaving them on the bookshelf, unread for months. Often I keep them on my wish list on Amazon, waiting for a used copy to be available to purchase at a bargain price — but still don’t get around to actually picking the book up right away.

Such is the case with Róisín Cure’s Urban Sketching Handbook, Drawing Expressive People. I would like to be more confident when drawing people, especially from life instead of photos. But with Covid-19 social distancing and our living in the country, I am not located where people can be found to randomly sketch. Even on the rare times we eat out, we do so at odd times in the afternoon when no one else is around.

That’s the reason this book has not been picked up — yet. I am now thinking of using photos of people after all, just to get some practice in. The Demi Palette was thrown together as my version of colors Róisín mentions in the book as good for people-sketching. She adds an orange, which I can easily mix with my rose and yellow paints. She also uses burnt umber; I have none but I can mix transparent red oxide and raw umber for a similar color.

Róisín’s choices:

opera pink, lemon yellow, yellow ochre, burnt umber, indigo, payne’s grey, green apatite genuine, transparent red oxide, and chrome orange

My choices:

quinacridone rose, hansa yellow medium, monte amiata natural sienna, raw umber, indigo, Jane’s grey, green apatite genuine, and transparent red oxide.

drawing what’s next to me

I wanted to draw something, but I’m supposed to stay sitting with my legs elevated — so I drew the tube of pain-killing cream. I apparently twisted my knee, spraining the muscle. Also fighting a bit of edema, hence the elevated legs, but that sometimes comes with age.

I prefer using Tiger Balm for aches but my silly cat, Bardie, loves the fragrance so much that he won’t stop trying to lick it off! So I only use it at night — then hide under the covers! 😾

Drawn in a continuous contour line except for the lettering.

DiIorio Farmers Market

We recently found a fabulous farmers market in Hempstead — you can literally find just about anything you want there! Mostly locally harvested, fruits and vegetables taste like we just brought them in from the fields!

They also sell milk and cream from a Texas dairy, bottled in glass (we bought some chocolate milk to share on the drive home), locally-raised grain-fed beef and fresh yard eggs (apparently a southern term?), local honey, animal feed, trees and garden plants, locally harvested nuts of all sorts — even locally grown rice!

I am getting to be quite spoiled by the abundance of fresh produce.

crazy cow goes walk-about!

I drew the above sketch from a photo snapped by our daughter. It looks deceptively peaceful, just Bill calmly walking Sierra, our granddaughter’s cow, right?

But this is after about an hour trying to catch the crazy beast. She saw son-in-law Michael chipping golf balls in one of the south pastures and decided to join him — still not sure how she managed to let herself out of her pasture to the east of our barn. But once loose, she went a bit berserk, running around kicking up her heels, and tasting every tree she came upon, from crepe myrtle to baby fruit trees (Sorry, Kristen — your dad says he already picked his pears; Sierra ate all of yours!). Once upon a time she was used to walking on halter, but she recognized it and avoided Michael’s attempts to slip it on her. Too much fun running free!

Eventually, she was close to the north pasture — every time she thought about turning back to freedom, Bill waved his arms wide and made loud noises at her. Kristen was on her back porch, phone in hand to call 911 if things went bad. Sierra is a very boisterous, affectionate creature — she simply doesn’t understand that her rough 1300-lb. playfulness can get someone hurt!

a bit of shopping . . .

 . . . from the used / discarded library markets — After enjoying the Lord Peter Wimsey series of mysteries, I found that the BBC had filmed two separate series from the books so I ordered DVDs to watch later. I think we’ll take them to watch on my laptop on our next camping trip.

a little baseball

Our local rural electric coop publishes a monthly magazine full of coop news, recipes, and Texas history articles. The July issue included a story on the history of sandlot baseball, illustrated by a photo I used for this sketch.

Generally, I’m not a big fan of sports but baseball is special — as a young man, my grandfather played professionally in the minor leagues. I remember watching televised games with him, sharing a bowl of Spanish peanuts.

Years ago our son Jason took me to see the Astros play at Minute Maid Park. People sitting around us seemed to come just to socialize, but I actually watched the game and enjoyed it!

I drew this with a Kaweco Liliput fountain pen in J. Herbin Lie de The ink, touching it here and there with a waterbrush for the wash. The text was penned with a Lamy Safari pen filled with a sepia ink I mixed using De Atramentis document brown and black inks.