Merry Christmas!

I hope y’all are having a lovely and blessed Christmas! Today I did a quick ink & wash sketch between baking tasks. We saw this truck at our veterinarian’s when we took the wee beasties in for nail trims; I snapped a quick photo to sketch from later.

(Yes, the tree top was really tilted like this.)

Ink, watercolor, and gouache in a 140mm square Seawhite travel journal.

yesterday’s tiny sketch

Yesterday we attended a candlelight service with our daughter’s church where I did a quick pencil sketch of the candle in my hand.

I hope all who read this are having a truly blessed Christmas season, and Hanukkah as well!

more Christmas cards

Over the past week, I painted a few more cards using the Christmas Demi palette that I recently put together. These started out as postcards but were later glued onto cardstock blanks. The wreath forms were made by applying watercolor to the rim of a juice glass and pressing it on the card 3 times each.

I can’t decide whether to add the greeting “Let Heaven and Nature Sing” to the fronts of these like I did the other cards or not.

a Christmas ornament

This simple sketch of one of our Christmas ornaments, using a Pentel Pocketbrush pen, is the final page in my current sketchbook. Time to finish that new sketchbook that I began a few weeks ago! It was set aside to deal with important family matters and a trip to Kansas.

I usually use the inside of the back cover to test pens or paints, and jot down the brand and type of the sketchbook itself. Labels are often lost and I may want this info later on.

testing page

playing with my Christmas palette

We are currently in Kansas but just before leaving Texas I spent the day painting a few cards using the Christmas palette I put together, filling a red Trailbound Demi palette from Art Toolkit (found here) with Letter Sparrow paints I already owned, patterned after their recent Holiday Hues collaboration with Lisa Spangler, now apparently out of stock.

At first I used 8 mini pans and a small mixing pan, but later I switched out the mixing pan for standard pans of sparkly paints, taken from Art Toolkit’s limited edition Rainglow palette (paints from Case for Making). With a larger “gold”, I was also able to add Shire Blue, which looks similar to the “blue” mixed from the quinacridone magenta and peacock. The sky in the lower card was painted with the magenta-peacock mix! (with a touch of lunar black)

and the winner is . . .

After watching Lisa Spangler @sideoats do a short video mixing quinacridone magenta and peacock to get a near-blue, I decided to stick with this Christmas palette being most close to the @lettersparrow Holiday Hues palette. I already owned most of the colors in the collaboration palette but for those who don’t, I highly recommend ordering from Letter Sparrow!

(That’s a Christmas colored lap quilt in the background, sewn by my mother❣️)

which combo?

Lisa Spangler has a new collaboration with Letter Sparrow for a “Holiday Hues” palette of Christmas colors; I already own most of the Letter Sparrow colors included — all but the ruby red and pearl shimmer.

And Art Toolkit just released a bright red Demi Palette which I added to my collection. Just the color for a Christmas palette! But which combination do I go with? My pyrrol scarlet is close to ruby red and my grey of grey is sort of silvery. Or I can mix a ruby red color with quin. magenta and sunflower yellow, making room for a blue, which I would miss. Or skip the silver-like grey for both reds and a blue?

holder of the Christmas chicken

Each year we have a “white elephant” gift exchange with our kids and grandkids at Christmas time. Several years ago, one of the gift boxes had this squeaky rubber chicken included.

The following year, it reappeared in someone else’s gift box. And has now become a yearly tradition. This year the chicken appeared in Bill’s gift, giving me a chance to sketch it.

For the bumpy texture, I sprinkled coarse salt into the wet paint — fun experiment!

Christmas sketches

Our Christmas Day was relaxingly low-key and I was able to do some sketching as well as beginning a new crocheted project. Plus playing with Butters, of course!

“Butters”

My new buddy’s name given to her by her former owner is Butters, short for Buttercup — but in my mind it’s short for Butterscotch. Her red and white coloring reminds me of an old-fashioned butterscotch sundae! She will be 5 years old on Tuesday, a fluffy Pembroke Welsh Corgi who has quickly become a much-loved member of the family. 

I love that she has the fluffy gene because it means less shedding, but it is harder to sketch than a smooth coat! The eyes are wrong in the lower right sketch but I’ll have lots of time to practice.

a new red toy

Bill knows I love a rich cool red, and I love collecting Pocket Palettes, so he gave me the Grow Untamed palette from Art Toolkit. Lovely hand-made desert-colored pigments from Letter Sparrow — These paints are so creamy to work with! Unfortunately, the deep red color of the palette can not be mixed from the colors in the palette, so in this wonky sketch I added a bit of quin. rose from my regular daily palette along with some white gouache on this tinted paper.

not camping this week . . .

Bill and I had made reservations for a Christmas camping trip this week. Average lows for our area are around 45° with daytime highs in the 70s, and our camper has a good heater. But this below-freezing weather that has gripped the nation quickly changed our plans — who wants to deal with a frozen camper? So we winterized the camper instead. 

And tonight we went with our daughter and son-in-law to their church’s Christmas Eve service. I did a quick sketch of the altar’s art before the service began and painted it later at home — with a too-large, clumsy brush. 🫣

Have a blessed Christmas, everyone!

Christmas pinch pots

In addition to the collection of pinch pots on my kitchen window sill, these special Christmas pots have now appeared. All of the pots and pottery dishes were made by our children when they were in school. The barbed wire star was a happy surprise from a dear friend in Kansas.

wee bits of Christmas

We had a very low-key type of Christmas, as Bill is under orders from his cardiologist to take it easy and not over-do. He’s been experiencing questionable symptoms; a new heart catheter showed the bypass grafts to be working great so it’s just a matter of finding the right combination of medications at this point. A work in progress . . .

Earlier, most of our kids and grandkids got together and had this crazy kind of gift exchange. Everyone took part, including all the grandkids. The gift theme was “big, fat, or hard to wrap” and each person may choose an unwrapped gift or steal one that’s already been opened by someone else. Hilarious fun! I ended up with this big bag of assorted gourmet popcorns and a stack of chocolates, a gift given by our youngest grandson.

The right side of this journal spread shows a few of my other toys. Our youngest son recommended the new computer mouse that Bill gave me — much easier with the tendinitis in my wrists. Technically the new iPhone is not a gift — my old one iPhone 7 needed a battery replaced and AT&T had a bunch of these iPhone 12 Minis that they wanted to get rid of . . . 

With gift money from my mother, I bought a replacement squirrel mop brush (my old one had the quill & wire wrapped ferrule and bristles were shedding) and the new “Drawn to High Places” Pocket Palette from Art Toolkit. I just got the case without the paints, to put a set of earthy granulating paints in it. Now it’s easy to see at a glance whether it’s my regular set or the earthy one.

bits and pieces

 

Just a few sketchy bits of Christmas . . . I found this galvanized washtub table to give to Bill for an outside patio table that could also store his birdseed. He decided that it works better as an indoor coffee table, storing remotes, earphones, and binoculars (he often spots falcons, woodpeckers, and bluebirds through the front windows).

Bill found this Texas Longhorn photo printed on barn wood to give me. We had been wanting some kind of longhorn art to put on this wall . . . The barn wood makes it perfect for living in a barn!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Yesterday the kids dropped by for a tamale lunch and I was busy cooking, but I found a few moments now and then to work in my sketchbook. The tamales were sold as a band fundraiser by granddaughter, Jayna, in Needville, TX. Made by a local band booster and they were delicious!

While still living in our log cabin, we found this distressed copper nativity that fit a very narrow space we had. It seems even more at home here in the barn. We bought a dwarf Alberta Spruce to decorate — that’s it, sitting in Bill’s grandmother’s old milk pail. Later, it will be in a pot on the front porch.

The 25mm Herend flat brush is a Christmas gift from my mom. I saw one used by Maria Coryell-Martin in one of her demos and had been looking for one. Turns out that Amazon now has them, though they come directly from Korea. It’s handmade with chipmunk hair and lays down a smooth wash beautifully. Can’t wait to really play with it.

Christmas Eve bits

We drove to Beasley on Christmas Eve for dinner with our oldest son Jason and his family. I began sketching bits here and there as I chatted with grandkids — until pulled away for a couple hands of Uno. We went to our daughter Kristen’s house in Houston on Christmas Day (where we learned a new Mexican Train Domino game) so I didn’t get back to finishing these sketches until this morning. Allowing me to use my new Japanese Kissho Gansai watercolors instead of my purse pocket palette. They are wonderful to mix and paint with!

The Gift

This Saturday and Sunday was the monthly “Sketch With Me” virtual sketch event, and as has been true of the last two events, it fell at a time when we were unusually busy or preoccupied. Saturday was a day full of cleaning, laundry (it seems to multiply when we’re at College Station so much), making 2 batches of fudge and one batch of cookies, and a visit from friends who wanted to show us their new puppy, Belle. Not much time to sketch.

Then today, we took a trip to Needville where our granddaughter Jayna was performing in a Christmas band concert. Hard to draw accurately on the rough Texas farm roads.

The “theme” this month is “The Gift” . . . . When I was finally able to do a bit of sketching, my subject seemed rather obvious. The very best gift of all. Or at least a representation of that Gift.

The rusty metal is a nativity we just bought, in keeping with our recent “rustic country” decor. It sits on a ledge dividing the kitchen from the living room, fitting right in with the galvanized milk strainer and chicken feeder light fixtures Bill has made for the kitchen. The tiny olive wood piece is a tree ornament. We never got around to putting a tree up this year but the ornament is on the shelf.

On the second page are a couple of lawn displays we saw today in Somerville, Texas, and a Christmas card designed by a young patient at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. They have pediatric patients create paintings to be turned into cards and calendars every year as a fund raiser for the pediatric patient programs.

Merry Christmas!

Thanks be to God for His indescribable Gift!  2 Cor. 9:15

Have a richly blessed Christmas, dear friends!

a bit of Christmas

Yesterday, I sketched a very small portion of a floral arrangement at church. Several of us gather there on Monday mornings to pray for any specific needs we become aware of. I waited unti, this morning to add watercolor.

I’ve never been one to enjoy formal floral arrangements, either to paint or to receive. I prefer wildflowers in their natural setting, or perhaps a single rose that my husband cuts and brings inside to fill our home with the lovely fragrance. (We only grow antique types of roses that maintain the original scents placed there by the Creator.) But sketching just a wee bit of an arrangement is fun.