Here are a few more tiny paintings, done over the past week. I found that a fine Mark’s Tous Les Jours ballpoint pen works better for me in tiny work than finepoint liners or fountain pens.
The tea tin next to the cup and saucer is one of my favorite teas of late: Justea Purple Chocolate, a loose leaf purple tea with cacao shells and rose petals. Great with a splash of milk and very low caffeine. Each tin comes with a hand-carved wooden spoon to measure the tea.
This sketch is an composite of two different views near our campsite. I especially liked the strange sculpture-look of those oak burls. Another tree full of them is in the second photo.
A sketch begun before we left home and finished just now, this is one of the recent distractions that have kept me from sketching. When we upgraded from a pull-behind camper to an RV, we knew we’d eventually want a small car we could tow behind it for longer trips.
Many advised getting a Jeep so we test-drove one. Nope. Not happening. Even with the added running board, I could not easily climb into the thing. And the salesman was extremely PUSHY! We told him it would be a cash deal and he said they would require us to finance at least 4 months so they could recover some of their “loss”. Uh, huh? At these ridiculous prices, what loss? Since when is cash not welcome?
We headed to another dealer where we found that this Chevrolet Trax would also be easy to add a tow package to and cost MUCH less. More cooperative salesman too.
All this happened the past couple of weeks. And this morning, Bill again got a phone call from that pushy Jeep dealer. No! We are not interested, thank you very much!
I did the tiny continuous-line sketch of my keyless key fob right after we brought the Trax home. It seems weird to have to carry it around but not use it. Hence, my “new car key that isn’t”.
*️⃣ a friend just asked me what the car’s name was; Bill immediately replied “Bluebell!” But is it for a favorite wildflower or his favorite ice cream?
I began this journal page a couple of weeks ago . . . then kept putting off adding color. Drawing images in ink comes easy but, even after all these years, applying watercolor can feel intimidating.
Our daughter Kristen has been experimenting with pickle recipes. The carrots, with peppers, onion, and garlic, are very hot — just the way she and Bill like. The pickled onions are especially good on fish tacos! Since the surgery that removed what was left of cancer (and a good chunk of my colon), I have trouble eating certain foods. But when they are pickled (or “soured” like sourdough and sauerkraut) I have no problem. A favorite Tex-Mex restaurant serves pickled onions on their fajita salad and I love them — so I asked Kristen to make some.
We’ve driven past this bank of rural mailboxes many times and I’ve always meant to sketch it. Yesterday, I finally did — from a fuzzy photograph I took as we drove past. There are no shoulders on these narrow county roads yet lots of traffic, all driving faster than posted. I think I counted 20 mailboxes squeezed together, but I chose to simplify the sketch.
The next set from Robin Lee Carlson (find her work here) includes fuchsite genuine, a subtle green that intrigues me. I especially love Robin’s nature studies! I substituted quin. red.
The third set was found several years ago on The Animated Woman’s Instagram account, when she was sketching with a water-soluble Elegant Writer calligraphy pen. These colors compliment the colors that can be bled out with a damp brush. The colors look wintery to me, to go along with these colder-than-normal days.
Yesterday we spent some time with our grandson, Quen, who has Crohn’s disease. He went home from a recent surgery only to end up back in the hospital fighting an extra tough infection. I drew this mess of equipment, missing a tube or three, as Q snoozed. Easier than drawing him.
I am back to using my old favorites, Lamy fountain pens. They work better on the rough watercolor paper I filled this sketchbook with.
I love matching pens with the same color inks. These Lamy LX pens in Marron and Ruthenium are perfect for brown and gray inks. But my favorite Cream Lamy Safari pen, a gift from grandson Quen, has long puzzled me. What color ink? At first, I tried samples of pearlescent and shimmering inks from Goulet Pens — sort of reminds me of Quen’s personality. But when they began to stain the pen, I quickly flushed them out.
I drew the cream pen with J. Herbin Lie De The ink (a light brown ink) which is slightly water-soluble, giving sketches an antique look. Maybe that would be a good match?
I sometimes give my pens names. Our first Maine Coon cat was originally named Cream (his brother had been named Coffee) though we called him Kippy. Obviously, I call this fountain pen Cream.
Recently I was sitting in the Morris chair early in the morning, looking out one half of our French doors. The striped patterns of the front pasture’s half-dormant grasses caught my eye, along with part of the Arizona cypress, so I snapped a photo (my iPhone was handy but my sketchbook was not) and later sketched what I saw.
I wanted to ink this in with the “sepia” ink I once mixed using brown and black De Atramentis Document inks — I filled two different fountain pens but neither would write. I usually fill ink converters while attached to the pens, dipping them directly into the ink bottle. But apparently the ink level was lower than I thought, and a bit sludgy. The lid must have been loose and some evaporation thickened what ink was left. I cleaned my pens thoroughly, threw away the ink dregs, and filled this Pilot Kakuno demonstrator pen with the “dark red / burnt sienna” mix instead.
About the only bread we eat is sourdough from H-E-B’s bakery because it doesn’t give me heartburn. But I’ve been curious about making my own. Years ago when we lived in Kansas I tried to get a starter going but it died — Bill thinks the fluoride in the water was the problem. Now we have well water with no chlorine and I think it would work, but I was advised to use bottled water at first.
I recently bought some “very active” starter on Etsy. It has taken several daily feedings to recover from being lost a few extra days in the mail system, but it looks like it’s now ready to try making some bread. The sourdough starter in the sketch is right after removing the “discard” and mixing in new flour and water; afterwards it just about doubled its volume from what is shown.
I sketched this with an Elegant Writer, using a wet paintbrush to tease out some washes from the water-soluble ink. That round thing in the center is a scale to weigh the added flour and water. The funky thing in front is a Danish dough whisk. The lined basket is for proofing the loaf before baking.
We have a new member of our extended family: meet Molokai, our granddaughter’s new dog. She is currently attending Texas A & M vet school and was told to practice on her pet — and if she didn’t have one handy, they had vet school animals up for adoption. Who could have guessed that adopting a pet was a classroom requirement?
Actually she has pets here on “the farm” but most of them object to examinations. Butters doesn’t mind, but corgis are just built wrong (so says our vet who was examining her for a joint injury). So this sweet 6 year old hound has moved in to Mikala’s apartment.
I took a couple of “process” photos of this sketch . . . but once I began painting, I forgot to take any more. Most of the time, I put down an idea lightly in pencil, then begin inking it in — often jotting down some text before moving on to the main sketch.
The weather is finally cooling and I am reaching for hot beverages more often throughout the day. Years ago, Australian artist Liz Steel told me how much better loose-leaf tea is than tea bags and I absolutely agree! She also introduced me to Taylor’s of Harrowgate, which is my favorite brand.
The white bone china mug with Scotties dancing on it was a gift once chosen by our granddaughter Mikala, who knew I love Scottish Terriers. I keep it just for cocoa, an instant blend that I mix up myself.
An extra benefit I’ve found to using the Pentel Milky White brush marker: you can paint over it! After loosely placing some tiny words on the tea tin label, I went over some of the white with metallic gold watercolor.
This new sketchbook of mine is made up of Arches 140# rough watercolor paper, which I have never worked on before. The fine nib fountain pens that I usually use (Pilot Falcon and Kaweco Liliput fountain pens) don't work very well on this rough paper; neither do my fine-tip Gelly Roll white gel pens.
A new sketchbook with new-to-me rough paper, a few new colors never tried before in my emerald green folio palette (instead of my normal regular sized Pocket Palettes) . . . I might as well use new pens as well. Testing has shown that the Mahjohn Q1 bent nib eyedropper pen works well, as does Pentel's Pocketbrush and Milky Brush pens and my Wancher Puchico Mini with turquoise ink. Normally I use dagger travel brushes; I decided to switch to round brushes this time in large and small sizes.
The quote is taken from a longer post of Belgium artist and architect Barbara Luel that I read on Sunday. She often draws her tools so I did some of mine after jotting down the partial quote. Her post included a gorgeous sketch of 6 delicately stacked tea cups -- beautiful!
