a bit of late autumn color

Just over the west fenceline there grows one tree with leaves that actually turn red in the autumn. At least, I thought it was a tree, being nearly 12’ tall. Apparently it is an oversized Red Chokeberry shrub.

(gouache and a touch of colored pencil on toned watercolor paper, hand sewn sketchbook)

tweaked yet again

One could say that I’m obsessed with the flexibility of these palettes. After using two separate pocket palettes in my mini Sendak, one watercolor and one gouache,  I decided that one large folio works better for me. But how to combine watercolor and gouache in a useable way?

This is what I came up with upon returning home from our camping trip yesterday. The watercolor pans are placed horizontally and gouache pans are vertical — all except that perylene black gouache but its placement was unavoidable. I’m trying to keep color groups together.

UPDATE: the Transparent Red Oxide watercolor was supposed to be a brownish color but it was too similar to the Venetian Red. So I replaced it with Lunar Earth. Being transparent, I was able to lift it with a wet stiff brush and tissue before applying the new paint choice.

while the wind blows

Here at the lake it became too cold and blustery to do much more than walk the dog halfway around the campsite. Interesting botanicals blew away; the herons, cranes, and pelicans flew for cover. So I sketched my Mini Sendak from Peg & Awl and tools. Which covers the first 2 challenges of Maria Cornell-Martin’s Nature Journaling challenge prompts. Not sure how many of them I will do but this one was fun — and my hands didn’t shake too much! (I have essential tremor which can make ink drawing wobbly.)

nighttime magic

There is definitely a positive side to the weird sleep patterns of getting older. We were both awake in the nighttime; Bill momentarily stepped out of the RV and saw this view over the lake. He took a photo for me to sketch.

an early morning view

The colors in the eastern sky yesterday morning were very subtle, but I somehow wish that I had emphasized them more in my sketch. This is from our campsite at Lake Somerville.

starting a new sketchbook journal

This week we are camping and I planned on beginning my new sketchbook when we arrived. But it was cold and Very Windy here next to the lake, so I sat inside the RV and painted this. (It’s supposed to warm up the rest of the week.) These pebbles are a combination of watercolor and gouache. I’ve been watching Natasha Newton swatching her colors in pebble form on YouTube — Love her style! 

This sketchbook is a Seawhite Travel Journal with 200 gsm cold-press watercolor paper that I pulled from my shelf. It’s been there so long that the elastic band was stretched out (how curious!) so I cut it off. Instead, I have a heavy stretch band that holds a pencil or pen. Don’t remember where it came from.

next to the last page

Today I finished the next to the last page of this journal (after posting the last page yesterday). It didn’t turn out quite like what I had in mind — seems a bit stiff and not enough contrast in values. But I’m calling it done and moving on.

What drew me to sketch the scene were the lavender-shadowed clouds. But they seemed to fade away in the sketch. This is the view from the front of our small converted barn house looking towards our daughter’s farmhouse. I added those shrubs in the lower right corner where our barn-red house corner would be.

last page of this sketchbook

Though this is the last page of my current sketchbook, it is not the last page to be worked on. The previous page, an evening landscape, was started and is not yet finished. But today I just felt like painting something from scratch so I did this from a photo taken during a clinic visit on Monday. The pumpkins had a velvet surface.

This is sort of the direction I’d like my sketching to go: directly painting with a combination of gouache and watercolor with touches of colored pencil or Neocolor II crayons . . . maybe even a bit of ink, who knows? But working looser without so much niggling the details. Letting go of perfectionistic tendencies.

There are two other sketched pages in this book waiting for me to continue a Marty Burnham workshop I began in October. The first of those turned out to be a disaster and I haven’t taken time to get back to the course as yet. I do plan to finish the 2nd and 3rd sketches, but will probably not post those since they are not my own original work. Even the one that turned out badly has taught me a lot.

a camouflage leaf

Today is Thanksgiving day and things are mostly ready. While waiting for family to arrive, I did a quick sketch of a leaf picked up while walking with Butters. The quote from a Winnie the Pooh book popped up in an email from Peg & Awl.

Have a happy and blessed Thanksgiving, everyone!

a mini hike

Yesterday as I waited during Bill’s appointment with the hygienist, I painted a quick sketch in my old mini (2”) sketchbook using gouache thinly as watercolor. I used an old photo saved on my phone but made a bit up as well. Things seemed to go fine — until I added the people. My brush tip was too large, the paint too dark, proportions all wrong . . .