just playin’

Today I made a mess of my desk and just played. Following along with Art Toolkit’s workshop, “Playing with Composition with Meagan Dew” (HERE), I made a bunch of thumbnail sketches from two photos of New York — and even added loose splashes of color to some of them. More than the rules of composition, I was learning to loosen up and let go of niggling the details.

a new favorite

A couple of weeks ago, when Bill was still in the hospital, our daughter and I headed across the highway to eat at Freebird’s, a Texas burrito restaurant. But instead of burritos, we ordered “walking tacos” which consists of Doritos or Tostitos corn chips topped with any burrito fillings of your choice: rices, beans, various proteins, grilled veggies, lettuce, guacamole, cheeses, and sauces — perhaps not the healthiest base for fancy nachos but I think it’s my new favorite “junk food”.

A recent article in our rural electric magazine told the history of Frito Chili Pie, the forerunner of the walking taco commonly served at football games. Fritos were originally sold here in Texas c. 1930s as an ingredient for casseroles and the company regularly published recipes, eventually one that consisted of Fritos, chili, cheese, and onions layered and baked in the oven.

wild sunflowers

With all that’s been going on with us in the past few weeks, our bird feeders have been sadly neglected — I found this rogue sunflower growing underneath one of the feeders.

So far, I have only used Neocolor II watercolor crayons in this small nature journal I made (Ink lines are done with a Pentel Pocketbrush pen). Today, I tried regular watercolor to see how a more watery color looks on the toned paper.

a wee visitor

Today’s tiny sketch is from a photo taken last week. As I climbed into bed, I noticed this bright orange lizard climbing the wall. Our cats, Bardie and Scottie, were busy chasing tiny gnats they could hardly see yet they were completely oblivious to this 4” lizard just a few feet away. I’m sure he was laughing at them.

Direct Watercolor tiny sketches

These are the tiny paintings I did while Bill was at the hospital — thank the Lord, he’s home now! Taking the correct antibiotics and healing from a successful back surgery.

These were done directly with watercolor (no pencil or pen) and a tiny waterbrush (Pentel Aquash mini waterbrush with the brush tip from the regular sized small) from photos on my phone. The sunrise was over our barn home last November; the bluebonnet pasture and lake shore from photos taken in April 2022.

a mini sketchkit

Due to an unknown low-grade fever, Bill is still in the hospital. He is walking well and feeling pretty good considering he just had major surgery. This delay is frustrating, but they don’t want to send him home just to have him return. I drive in each day, then home to deal with animals.

This morning before heading out, I threw together a kit for some tiny sketching while I wait with him. A zipper case holds tools, and the tiny clipboard from Bluestar Crafts (HERE) holds my pre-cut pieces of paper. More pieces of paper are taped to a plastic sheet from Travelers Company USA. I keep bits of skinny tape wrapped around a discarded plastic cap because it takes up less room than a washi tape roll. I usually do quick sketches with the clipboard, and tiny paintings with a border on the plastic sheet.

So while Bill snoozes, maybe I’ll do some sketching . . . 

this week’s “adventure”

I’ve been a bit too distracted to sketch this week — except for one very long wait in a hospital waiting room where I did the above sketch (loosely interpreted leaving out a lot of the details). My husband went through a 5-hour lower back surgery, then we waited 2 more hours. Apparently there was an issue with another patient in the recovery room so we had to wait until he was taken to a room. The surgery was successful, he’s doing extremely well, and will be coming home tomorrow.

simplifying

While my other Folio palette now holds a standard sized pan of every granulating watercolor I currently own (30 of them!), I reconfigured this Folio for simplification. Both of the large palettes live on my art desk. I decided to try this one with just a limited palette in double pans arranged around mixing pans — similarly to how I arrange mini pans in a Demi palette.

As much as I love unusual pigments, it would make an interesting challenge to stick to only 9 colors. Two of those I included are new to me: cobalt blue and moonglow. Just giving them a try for now. Normally I would have cerulean blue chromium instead of cobalt blue.

From the lower left working around, the paints are quinacridone rose, hansa yellow medium, green apatite, cobalt blue, ultramarine blue, moonglow, monte amiata natural sienna, transparent red oxide, and burnt umber — all from Daniel Smith.

Here’s a look at my other Folio palette filled with granulating watercolors. I am not a paid representative for Art Toolkit, who makes these palettes — I just love their versatility and compactness! All sizes of pocket palettes can be found by clicking HERE.

more tiny sketches

A few tiny sketches, three of recent baking. The other one is a wall shelf Bill built me years ago that holds miscellaneous sketchbooks and papers ready to be filled — and my Irish tweed cap hanging on the top corner.

The peanut butter cookie is mom’s recipe, absolutely the best flavor! Just 1 cup natural peanut butter, 1 cup sugar, 1 egg, and 1 tsp. vanilla. Roll balls in sugar, cross with fork, and bake @ 350° for 12 minutes.

painting with Neocolor II crayons

Probably my final sketch of our granddaughter’s cow, Sierra — she goes to her new home tomorrow. Mikala raised the blue roan mix Short Horn during her senior year in high school and showed her at the Houston Livestock & Rodeo. Since then, she has lived on this wee farm with F.F.A. rescue goats and 2 rescue donkeys.

Recently we had some maintenance done on our RV by a man and his son, Jimmy, who owns a red-brown Short Horn and was immediately drawn to Sierra. He wants her to go with his other cow but also intends to breed her, something Mikala had always wanted for her but it just didn’t work out. So she is selling her to Jimmy. Sierra is very sociable and, though the goats and donkeys are companions, she gets excited when she hears other cows in the neighborhood. We all think she’ll be much happier with other cows and hopefully a calf or two of her own.

This is the second spread done in my little toned paper pocket sketchbook I made for doing nature studies. The first spread, seen in the last photo, is done from Art Toolkit’s workshop “Pollonators in Ink” (HERE) — worked in Pentel Pocketbrush pen and Neocolor II watercolor crayons. I have played with the crayons before, but never exclusively lifting color from them with a damp brush. Colors were even mixed in this way, touching the brush to 2 or 3 crayons before applying to paper.

(Those smudges are because I wrote the text with a fountain pen filled with water-soluble ink — then forgot that fact and laid my damp hand on the page.)

That’s our barn-house in the background, with 3 of the goats beyond Sierra.

last week’s frustrations

Last Wednesday I was dealing with several frustrations, two of which I jotted down on this sketchbook page. And felt so much better after I did! Everything turned out fine in the end, so I wasn’t even going to post it at first. But it’s a reminder to myself not to let frustrations win. Drawing is a much better use of my time.

Our son Jason came after school (he teaches physics) and got my ear pods sorted for me — it seems they were just trying to pair with my MacBook instead of my iPad. 

And Etsy got involved with the damaged gift — one look at the photos and they immediately refunded me themselves. Bill had picked out this antique churn without its tamper as a birthday gift, to be used to hold umbrella, cane, and walking stick. It arrived 3 weeks later than expected, smashed in transit due to the seller not packing it safely. All the way from Norway in only a bit of bubble wrap and brown paper, no box or carton!

a forgotten sketch

Today I was straightening up my art desk when, under some color swatch scraps of paper, I found this last mini ink sketch from last month’s camping trip, taped to a plastic card and forgotten. So I added a bit of color.

This makes a total of 27 tiny paintings I’ve done since starting the 100 Tiny Treasures challenge in March. I never planned on a full 100, but I may reach 50 by the end of the year. 

not sleeping

The past couple of years I have gone through a weird change in sleep habits. Most of my life I was a night owl, up late and sleeping in whenever I could. But my days and nights seem topsy-turvy now. Early to bed, reading only a chapter or two before conking out, then 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. finds me wide awake.

Butters the corgi wonders why I’m not in bed, asleep. She is NOT a morning person!

Unfortunately, I’m so tired during the days that I have not begun those two workshops that I recently won . . .

The background was sketched with the Lamy Safari and J. Herbin “Lie de The” ink. The double recliner was sketched with a Pentel Pocketbrush pen with brown ink.

what I’ve been reading

When I take a break from reading something really thought-provoking, I often sketch the book while thinking about the bits I’ve just read. Somehow that action tends to cement the thoughts, helping me to remember. My cat, Bardie Mac, tried to help me as I drew this, coming between me and the sketchbook many times.

This little ebook (also available as an actual book, HERE) or can be read free on Wayne’s website (HERE) has many things that I wish to remember. So encouraging for those who have experienced the love of the Father . . . and those who seek Him.

another folded pocket journal

It came as a complete shock when I was chosen as one of three winners in Art Toolkit’s recent Summer Workshop Giveaway! With my love of sketching bits of nature, one of the awarded workshops I chose is “Pollinators in Ink” with Robin Lee Carlson. Her recommended supply list included toned watercolor paper; my current journal has white paper so I decided to make a small pocket journal of toned paper for the workshop and for practicing the learned techniques in further nature studies.

The tutorial for making these pocket journals was presented by Texas artist Judith Dollar and Art Toolkit’s Maria Cornell-Martin last March. The original one shown in the video started with an 11 x 15” piece of paper; I increased this to about a 14 x 18” piece of heavy double-sided wrapping paper. The original journal had an accordion-fold insert of multi-media paper; for this toned paper, I sewed folded papers together using a Coptic stitch. 

The third photo shows the version I made last March, measuring 3 3/4 x 5 1/4”, next to the new one, which is 4 1/2 x 7”. The pocket in front is a great place to stash a Pocket Palette!

granulating pigments

The pocket palette that I have been using recently (in the upper right corner) held 14 granulating watercolors. But I remembered that I had others that are listed as granulating, some more so than others. Many were remaining pans of colors I no longer have tubes for; that quinacridone gold is one of 2 pans I still have of the original discontinued formula. Others are from small sample tubes.

I wondered if they would all fit in one folio palette — and they pretty much do! I left out hematite genuine (I’m not too crazy about it), bronzite genuine (which has a bit of sparkle to it), and a couple of experimental pans I mixed myself of pigments used in the Schminke Super Granulating line of paints.

The cobalt blue is new to me. The guy that taught me about watercolor included it in his palette of 12 colors. At the time, I used Cotman student grade paints and I didn’t see much difference between cobalt and ultramarine. This week I bought a small tube from Daniel Smith just to give it another try.

I think I’ll keep these stored in the folio pan, removing only those I want to use in smaller palettes for various projects. 

This color chart was also an exercise in precision for me. For several years, I have experienced a slight uncontrollable shaking in my dominate right hand. Not all the time and not predictable. Later this month, I’ll be seeing a doctor to try and figure out what it is. But for today, slowly painting out these rectangles was a good practice in keeping my hand steady. Sometimes concentrating helps.

camping at Cagle

While we were camping at Cagle on the shore of Lake Conroe, I did manage to get a few sketches done after all. The large oak leaf was done directly with a brush and watercolor.

Most of the week, we had the Sweet Gum camp site all to ourselves. The heat and high humidity is probably to blame, but we enjoyed the peace and quiet of the forest.

packing essentials

Today we have been loading the RV for another week of camping, this time heading back to a site along the shore of Lake Conroe. I drew the art tools I planned to pack but it did not turn out as I had planned. Oh, well . . .

After gathering everything together, I thought “why carry both pocket palette and demi palette when all would fit in that empty folio palette?” So I temporarily moved all the paint into the folio for this trip.

Here’s a close up of the paints from the demi palette for those curious. This is what I currently carry in my bag for tiny sketches.

revisiting another old palette

In June 2018 I took part in Marc Taro Holmes’ 30 x 30 Direct Watercolor Challenge, filling this sketchbook with 30 watercolor-only sketches. I’m thinking of re-reading his book in the near future and maybe trying the same technique. At the time, I matched the Demi Palette that Art Toolkit put together for the challenge but I no longer have some of those colors. Instead, I put together the palette shown above. Instead of Perylene Maroon, I stirred a bit of raw umber and quinacridone red in a mini pan. Instead of Pyrrol Orange, I mixed quin. coral and nickel azo yellow. Then substituted a few other colors with those I had on hand.

The following photos are three of my favorites from 2018. Several sketches were removed from the sketchbook, the sketches either sold or given away.

after baking

This mess was on my kitchen counter after baking a loaf of sourdough, so I thought I’d sketch it. The initial layout had a very wonky perspective between countertop and brick backsplash — I decided keep it wonky. That’s a “breakfast bar” extending to the right, an easy surface to work the dough.

Drawn with a Kaweco Supra fountain pen, F nib, and De Atramentis Document Grey ink.

I bake my loaves in parchment paper because it makes transferring the proofed dough to the preheated loaf pan so much easier! I have a bread lame for scoring the top but kitchen shears work easier. The actual loaf of bread is in the wax-infused cloth bread bag — it keeps so much fresher this way!

a recently read book

Sometimes as I’m reading a book a line or two stick with me — so much that I jot them down to remember them. This recent book was a quick read but very good.

taking it easy

She smiles even in her sleep. But a much bigger, wider grin when it’s time to play ball.

recent sketches

Recently I’ve been doing a lot of things other than sketching. The root beer bottle was inked in early last week . . . then just sat on my desk unfinished. Reading, baking sourdough, taking care of animals, cooking meals more often (my husband usually cooks but he has serious back issues and is facing back surgery later this summer), swimming when it isn’t pouring rain (which lately seems to be daily), replacing a refrigerator that doesn’t want to play nicely anymore — in other words, “normal life” kept me from sketching.

The tiny wildflower was seen while walking my corgi. The silly hound dog, Molokai, belongs to our granddaughter. Both sketched without fussing the details.

The bottle opener next to the bottle was once ours. When our daughter set up her first apartment during college we gave it to her, saying we could always replace it. Then never did. I ran over to her house last week to borrow it.

revisiting an old palette

Recently I pulled out a sketchbook from 5 years ago, intrigued that I had actually stayed with the same limited palette and 2 ink colors throughout the entire book. I could not replicate the colors exactly, as I no longer have a couple of them, but I put together a similar palette for this muted color chart in my current sketchbook.

The thin sketchbook of 140 lb. 100% cotton watercolor paper was a dream to work on! I began it on my birthday; including turquoise was influenced by the turquoise elastic band that came with the book. If I remember right, I even stuck with exactly the supplies shown on the first page!