looking forward to Autumn

 Today I rode in the back seat of our son-in-law’s truck as he drove us to an appointment at the Med Center. My vision was still fuzzy from a bad (temporary) reaction to the iodine contrast used in yesterday’s CT scan, but I could still manage to paint these swatches. The medical stuff was just routine follow-up but Bill and I don’t drive the horrendous downtown Houston traffic.

(Text was added later after arriving home — my hands shake too much to write in a moving vehicle.)

I put this palette together for the Calmtober drawing challenge in October, hosted by an illustrator in Cornwall, UK who goes by the nickname Kriksis. She also chose the handmade watercolors in Deep Deep Light’s “Autumn Forever” palette (shown below), which I was trying to match with whatever I had on hand.

*️⃣ Instead of the burnt sienna, I wanted a muted warm red that leans towards a pinkish orange. After trying various mixes, I realize now that my Daniel Smith Quin. Coral would have been perfect. Oh, well! 🤷🏻‍♀️

it’s about pear time

While recently walking in the south pasture with our Corgi, Butters, we noticed that the pears on the two pear trees are almost ripe. Soon we’ll be making pear butter and maybe some pear chutney.

I’ve always loved the mostly-ink Yorkshire landscapes of John Harrison’s, with a bit of watercolor in selected areas. I decided to try a similar style for this botanical, drawing with a Lumos pen from Tom’s Studio. The 0.5 fine liner tip is loaded with De Atramentis Document Grey ink, full strength, and the brush tip has the same ink thinned with De Atramentis Dilution liquid for shadows on the branches.

the sketching I didn’t do

I planned to do lots of sketching during our week at Bastrop State Park. But there was plenty of time so first I finished these first pages of my new sketchbook, an A5 100% cotton watercolor book from Hahnemuhle. The mushrooms were from our back yard; the two front ones are a different variety of inkcap than the one previously sketched — these are smooth rather than shaggy. I also did a lot of reading under the beautiful trees and a bit of knitting.

Then our week was changed drastically. We tow a small car behind the RV on longer trips. Tuesday we drove into Bastrop for lunch at Maxine’s (I had a great fried green tomato BLT!). Then headed to H-E-B for a few items. But we had an accident instead. Both of us are fine, though pretty beaten up by airbags and extremely sore. As I told the ER nurse, I guess that hike we were planning to take is cancelled. The car was totaled. After making arrangements and dealing with accident reports, we decided to head home early.

We had managed to get several walks in, enjoying the campsite’s peaceful beauty. There was a CCC shelter with three separate areas, each with its own fireplace; like all the CCC structures in the park, it was designed to fit its specific location using river rock and planking harvested from the park itself as the park was built.

transition

This past year has been a time of transition in many ways, not just art related. But I actually used my sketch journal as a thoughts journal this week. 🙀

I’ve been exploring muted palettes rather than bright pigments, as well as trying underdrawing with brush pens and adding colored pencils. As I’m nearing the end of this sketchbook and choosing a new one, I’ve slightly tweaked the paint colors and pencils carried in my Mini Sendak. The Pocket Palette holds granulating watercolors and the Demi Palette holds gouache.

Other transitional areas include learning to cope with my “new normal” diet changes following cancer and finding non-medicated ways of dealing with essential tremors in my hands. But as a Julien of Norwich quote I recently found in a Chief Inspector Armand Gamache mystery says, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well”.

in hope of leftovers

I snapped a quick photo of our granddaughter’s hound, Molokai, just before we sat down to eat Easter dinner. But I didn’t get around to sketching him until this morning.

This is the final sketch in this tiny sketchbook. My next purse-size sketchbook will be a bit bigger: a watercolor insert that fits the passport sized Traveler’s Notebook.

bits of last week

Just some bits of nothing much sketched in my journal . . .

My vision has been a bit fuzzy lately. I have glaucoma and early macular degeneration, for which I am under treatment and have regular checkups. I was relieved at last week’s check that the slightly out-of-focus fuzziness was part of the seasonal allergies I’ve been going through. Very irritated dry eyes (which sounds weird when my eyes water so much!) and lots of oak tree pollen. Hot compresses and extra eye drops, including one for allergies — simple fix!

I also played around with new palette arrangements, just for fun. And tried out my new Kaweco Brass Sport fountain pen. As reliable as my beloved Liliputs but slightly chunky and heavier, better for benign tremor shaky hands.

sketchbook play

It began when I pulled my favorite fude nib pen (Duke 209) from the antique tool box where emptied & cleaned fountain pens sleep. I wondered how this very lightweight pen would work with the progressing tremor in my hands. I filled it with new-to-me Rohrer & Klingner Lotte Sketch Ink and drew some sketch tools.

My hand didn’t shake much, but the pen nib fought with me the whole time! I remember its lines as smooth and effortless, not skipping and dragging. Was the CP paper of the Seawhite Travel Journal to blame? Or the ink? I cleaned it and refilled with my old ink, De Atramentis Document Grey. Seems much smoother now, but I’ll try it on other papers to be sure.

As long as this mostly-gouache palette was out, I wondered if gouache could be used in ink & wash like watercolor. I had just baked another loaf of sourdough so I sketched it with the fude pen, then added thin layers of gouache over the dried ink. Seems to work fine.

We don’t actually eat that much bread, so I cut fresh loaves I bake in half and pop half in the freezer for later. 

tiny bits of gouache

Today has been a cold, sleepy sort of day. I pulled up a photo I took on Mustang Island over ten years ago and tried to paint it in gouache in my 2” sketchbook. Warm memories, though I remember there was a cold October wind blowing.

tweaking palettes, charting pencils

This week I’ve been changing out some palettes, both watercolor & gouache, and digging out my colored pencils. It began with placing every pan of gouache I own into a Folio palette, and making a color chart of them. Many are pans that will not be replaced when they are used up — eventually making room for adding a large mixing pan to the folio palette.

I want to do more mixed media sketching which called for gathering my colored pencils, most of which are watercolor pencils. I have never made a color chart of them before.

I’ve always loved muted, earthy colors most. Yet usually I put palettes together that included classic bright primaries — but why? If muted colors are my favorites, why not stick to them? So the two pocket palettes are both muted colors, one watercolor and one gouache. Maybe I should make a color chart of my small set of Neocolor II crayons as well? 

new toys

I love to draw. I have since early childhood. For many years now, I have sketched in an illustrative style, matching colors to whatever objects or scenes I’m trying to depict and trying to make whatever it is look “real”.

But recently I’ve been inspired by the art of Natasha Newton to get out of my comfort zone and try something new. Instead of ink lines and transparent watercolor, use more multi-media — a base of either watercolor or gouache followed by colored pencils or Neocolor II crayons. Maybe a bit more “folksy” in style (if I can break out of my realism tendencies). Not working so much at mixing colors, but using them “straight” (even gouache) and adding a few pencil details on top.

Not sure where I might go with this but I hope to loosen up and have some fun.

The folio palette above shows all the gouache I’ve collected over the years, plus a few recent additions. (One empty pan is waiting for Dick Blick to send the tube of elm green they left out of my order). I’ve played around with gouache over the years but haven’t posted much of it, not sure what I was doing.

The unusual colors in the smaller palette are similar to one in Natasha’s small travel kit, which includes a lot of colored pencils and some fine liners. Four of them, I mixed myself from other paints I already had.

a different autumn palette

Recently I’ve been looking at the mixed media gouache paintings by British artist Natasha Newton. (see HERE). Her folk-art style in gorgeous muted colors really appeals to me! The colors look very autumnal — I wondered if I could put together a similar autumn palette of my own watercolor pans. It’s nearly impossible to mix a good purple or turquoise, but overall I like this combination very much.

UPDATE: I have decided that Jadeite is too bright for the muted look I was going for, so I switched it to Undersea Green.

palette revamping

 

Today I was busy baking sourdough bread and cleaning these two palettes, so just a very quick ink sketch. I was liking the way it was turning out in black & white — until I added those stupid shadows. Oh, well . . . Tomorrow is another sketch.

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.

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.

Palettes of Place?

Does anyone following Art Toolkit remember their “Palettes of Place” blog entry in March 2020? That one was about the Pacific Northwest Demi palette, a collaboration with artist Molly Hashimoto, author of “Colors of the West” (one of my favorite books!).

I just put together this copy of the palette, with a few changes: quin. red or carmine for perm. alizarin crimson, Fr. ultramarine for phthalo blue RS, my own mixed violet for carbazole violet, monte amiata natural sienna for yellow ochre, and transparent red oxide for quin. burnt orange.

What I wish to know is: Were there ever any other “Palettes of Place” color collections? Or was this one more thing interrupted by Covid?

Inks Lake State Park

Upon arriving at our campsite beside Inks Lake, a thunderstorm moved in — and our corgi, Butters, ducked under the dinette table. It didn’t last long but she didn’t trust going outside the next day or two; we had to do some heavy coaxing!

I just had to try sketching this gnarly honey mesquite! While big fat lizards, mockingbirds, a scrawny squirrel and Canada geese checked us out, some getting quite close. I wish now that I had not added watercolor to the tree bark. The ink lines were really textured using a fountain pen on rough paper! When I added watercolor, I painted it with the rainy gray skies that first greeted us.

That tiny sketch clipped to the opposite page was quickly drawn when the teeniest of campers pulled in to the campsite next to ours. It looked like an alien teardrop!

For those interested in geeking out on watercolor choices: for this trip I grabbed my granulating palette because the sketchbook pages are rough WC paper. But I can’t seem to mix paint in the right ratio to really let the textures play.

From the lower left, the paints are Potter’s Pink, Volcano Violet, Volcano Red, Monte Amiata Natural Sienna, Green Apatite, Jadeite genuine, Cobalt Turquoise, Shire Blue, Blue Apatite genuine, Lunar Violet, Buff Titanium, Lunar Earth, Volcano Brown, and Lunar Black. Most are from Daniel Smith; the Vocanos and Shire Blue are from Schminke.

more tiny sketches

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.

a tiny bit of camping

This week finds us in the woods near the Brazos River. As Bill hooked up the RV, I sat at the picnic table painting a tiny sketch of a camper that looks a lot like ours — setting up in the spot we had tried to book. We booked another spot nearby . . . and then realized that the one we are in is the exact site we had 4 years ago, celebrating our 50th anniversary!

100 tiny treasures challenge

I was watching artist Leslie Stroz on YouTube as she began a new challenge, painting 100 tiny paintings in a year. No prompts, no rules, no pressure — it sounds like fun but I’m not sure if I want to commit to 100. So I cut down a few small pieces of unused hot press watercolor paper I had, making 40 blank papers approximately 1 3/4 x 2 1/2”. I used a corner punch to round the corners.

The papers, a small container holding a bit of kneaded eraser, and roll of washi tape are stored in a hinged tin box I once used as a palette. A small glass nearby holds a few brushes, a fine pencil, and fine liner.

And for my first attempt, our pool house and west pasture as they looked after this year’s unexpected snowfall. I used the tape to hold the paper to a small clipboard as I painted it. After first sketching about the whole thing in my journal, of course. 😁