a bit of organizing

I haven’t been doing much sketching lately, but I did manage to straighten up some art supplies into a more workable arrangement. Partly because I just bought a rotating caddy that keeps tools easy to grab. (HERE).

Bill made me the taboret on casters years ago when I used a matching smaller oak desk. The large flat items in the back are held by a napkin holder one of our kids made in high school. A box holding inks once held my grandfather’s type for his antique printing presses.

I started a sunflower sketch in my sketchbook over a week ago — left it to allow paint to dry and haven’t gotten back to it yet.

new trees

We were able to have two new trees planted last week, another oak tree in the back yard and a sycamore in the front pasture. From photos I took of the leaves, I tried out my new way of working: loose watercolor in my new muted palette followed by a touch of colored pencil. No ink! (except for the words). This rough textured paper probably isn’t the best choice for the pencils.

Recently I purchased some stackable ceramic trays for mixing paint when I’m at home — mainly because they have a lid that covers all when stacked. I can walk away from mixes without the kitties nosing in the paint. I also found a collapsable water cup with a wavy edge that holds my paint brushes.

recent random sketches

Lately it seems that I am always distracted when it comes to sketching in my journal. I might find time here and there to jot down a quote or even draw a few lines, but I never seem to do a complete sketch from start to finish. (😂 I just realized that I forgot to add the white “CRAFTSMAN” letters to the red drill. I meant to!)

So here are several random bits thrown together, influenced by the Danny Gregory quote on the upper section of the first page.

The room drawn on the right side is my Library / Office / Studio / Laundryroom / sometimes Grandkid Zone. A very little room with a lot going on in it. 

The top row of the bookshelf is almost filled with my sketchbooks, which I have been keeping since 2007. The baskets on the lower 2 shelves are full of Legos, stuffed toys, art supplies for grandkids and games. That big wooden antique toolbox holds my paints, pencils, pens, and extra palettes. Bill built me that taboret next to my art table — I forgot to draw the wheels on it that allow me to roll it to wherever it serves the best purpose. The other side is built-in shelves with an edge lip to keep stuff from flying off. He also made me that table easel in front of the west window.

temporary studio

Looking around for a subject to sketch — it’s either very hot and humid outside or pouring down heavy rain — and my art space is in front of me. This is my maternal grandfather’s old table that came from his barber shop. An old antique cash register sat on this table which was painted red at the time. There’s a back raised edge that Grandpa drilled holes in to hold his pencils.

The two drawers are stuffed with art tools and travel palettes. When we used the table as a work station in the center of our last kitchen in Kansas, it had an added butcher block fitted to the top. That’s when I added those hooks on the side, to hold our kitchen towels.

The Winsor chair is also a family piece, having come from Bill’s grandmother, the same one who gave me her sad irons. In both our families, we tended to be the ones interested in holding on to these old pieces. They are full of memory!

my temporary art space

Eventually this side room in our daughter’s new house will be our son-in-law’s office, but for now I have claimed it as a makeshift art studio. There are even some built-in bookshelves high on one wall that hold some of my journals and art books.

The taboret on wheels that Bill made me is meant to sit beside my table (which was actually the desk my grandfather used to hold an old-fashioned cash register in his barber shop) and pulled out as needed. But for now it sits in the corner with a wall shelf sitting on top for additional storage. The wall shelf came out of one of the bathrooms but our daughter didn’t want it.

My large studio lamp is still in storage, but that wee flip light on top of the shelf works fine for when additional lighting is needed. The window faces east and allows for plenty of natural light. When we move to the barndominium, my art space will have north facing windows as well as one on the west.

Now if I would just make the time for some serious art-making . . .

Sketch With Me: favorite things

In our log cabin, I found myself spending very little time in my art studio. With its location being in the loft, accessible by a steep ladder-stair, it wasn’t the easiest place to get to for these old legs. 5 1/2 years ago those steep stairs didn’t seem such a big deal but now my legs protest! There is a good amount of mostly-north natural light, but being up against the steep roofline is uncomfortably hot in the summer. So my studio became more of a place to store art tools rather than a place to paint.

At Kristen’s house, where we will be living temporarily while converting the barn into a house, there is a wonderful little office in the northeast corner — lots of light from 2 sides! Now that my art table is set up with tools set out ready to use, I’m spending a lot more time there. Now it’s so much easier to leave and return, taking care of other things while letting ink or paint dry.

This weekend is the Sketch With Me virtual sketch crawl with the prompt “FAVORITE THINGS”. So what better than my favorite art tools? I have two more additional brushes not included that are favorites: my Lowe-Cornell ultra round #8 and #10.

In the Prang box are my most-used watercolor choices:
Quinacridone rose, pyrrol scarlet, quinacridone gold, hansa yellow medium, green apatite, perylene green, cerulean blue chromium, ultramarine blue, transparent red oxide, raw umber, and a mixed gray (ultramarine and burnt sienna, also sold as “Jane’s Grey”).

My new Demi palette holds whatever new combination I’m currently playing with; at present, that is José Naranja’s limited palette he uses in his fabulous mostly-ink sketchbooks. I’m not so sure about having both indigo and payne’s gray, both so similar.

My favorite Pocket Palette is the black one, filled with every one of the 28 colors that I keep in my large Schminke studio palette. Most colors are actually from Daniel Smith; I just keep them in a Schminke box.

Choosing favorite brushes is easy — these are the ones I grab most often. Choosing favorite fountain pens is a bit more challenging, but these are the top 3: a Lamy Safari, my new Pilot Namiki Falcon, and a tiny Kaweco Liliput.

Below is a color chart of all the colors of watercolor I keep in my studio.

distraction designing

While we wait at home to hear from Bill’s cardiologist on how they plan to proceed with his care, I’ve been trying to distract him with a future woodshop project. He has been planning to build me an art table someday; through these scribbles, I’m working through specific design ideas.

color play and a new challenge

I’ve been working on ink-only sketches in a separate sketchbook, but today I just needed color! So out came two Pocket Palettes and my current regular journal (Stillman & Birn Beta softcover). On the left side, I laid down colors wet-on-wet in the order they are placed in my current purse palette, below left, just to see them run together at the edges.

On the right, I’ve put together a palette loosely based on Marc Taro Holmes’ “desert island” absolute minimum colors for landscape and urban sketching. I bought small tubes of three of his color choices to try out, and picked close matches from others I already had. It seems very weird to not have a burnt sienna! I left two empty pans for additional mixing space but I might replace these with one larger empty pan.

Marc is hosting a 30 x 30 watercolor painting event for the month of June, and I’ve decided to try it. Maybe I will stick to this “desert island” palette or maybe I’ll switch back and forth? Instead of completed paintings, I plan to stick with simple sketches . . . but do them in watercolor only! No pencil guidelines, no ink. Scary, huh?

Meanwhile, my loft studio has abandoned the loft for now. With outside temperatures reaching the 90° range and higher, it’s just too hot up there. So a few essentials are kept on my grandmother’s old kitchen work table instead. Someday we hope to replace the cabin’s roof with a tin roof that will reflect the heat better. The “walls” of the loft are the underside of the currently dark shingle roof over log beams. No room to insulate without losing the look of those beams.

UPDATE: I’ve slightly tweaked the wee palette on the right, loosely based on Marc Taro Holmes’ absolute minimum selections and set up for the 30 x 30 Direct Watercolor Challenge coming in June.

He has quinacridone deep gold; I used what I had already (quin. gold) but realized that the deep version is closer to an earthy orange. So I’ll either use quin. burnt orange or get some quin. deep gold.

I also like the deeper, more reddish pigment of transparent pyrrol orange over the regular pyrrol orange, so I think I’ll switch to that.

loft studio

A few days ago I sketched my folding camp chair; now I drew it in its environment -- up in the loft of our tiny log cabin. That door on the right leads out onto a wee balcony.

and a few more EDM's

The next Everyday Matters challenge prompts . . . I think I'll leave the rest of the list for later. I find these are good to go through when I've skipped daily drawing for several days, just to get back into it. Sketching or painting is like most other activities: the more often and regularly you do it, the easier (and better) the skill becomes. Stop for a period of time, lines become a bit wonky and perspective gets crazy.

The tree above was over the center of our campsite during a recent trip to our lake (now closed again due to flooding). I took a photo of it as I was sitting under it. There was actually less leafing and more sky showing through but I got carried away. Wish I hadn't of!

This folding camp stool is what I used to carry on sketch crawls, with it's pockets to hold supplies and an easy carry strap. Now it stays in my "studio" at my art table. Maybe I'll sketch the studio space next.

a bit of a cleanup

Over the summer my loft 'studio' was lost under all the clutter. It's a bit too warm up there in summer's heat to work anyway so it just became a place to pile stuff.

But a friend has asked me to do a couple of sketches for him and I thought maybe it would seem more 'professional' to do them in a studio --- so I cleaned the place up, rearranging some things to make it more usable.

This is the same space from another angle --- I even straightened up the books! A friend at church gave me the two easels but I have no art to put on them. So they hold some color charts and some painted postcards others have sent me. Actually, the card on the small easel is from the amazing Brenda Swenson!

loft art supplies

Before moving to Texas, I had accumulated 9 years of art supplies. I tried new things often, trying to find my way in this new hobby. Some where tried and never touched again.

So before packing, I went through everything, keeping just what I really enjoyed using. Art books were donated to the local library sale or a used book store. Supplies not kept were bagged up to give away to sketchcrawl friends and their kids.

I wrote a bit about my process on this journal page. One of the criteria was "did it fit in the box"? Years ago, Bill had this antique tool box sitting in our garage, collecting dust. So I confiscated it, cleaned it up, and used it at first to store embroidery supplies . . . then later, to store art stuff. Now it sits on a book shelf in my loft --- That's the slanted roof beam logs behind it in the sketch.

The logs are actually a dark brown with white bead-board between them. I haven't decided whether to leave the ceiling drawn in ink alone, or paint in the log beams. Any suggestions?

what to do with old color charts . . .

In 2005, a friend encouraged me to come to some informal watercolor classes where I tried it for the first time. The instructor had us make color charts to see what our 12 paints could do. Since then, I have loved making more color charts when trying out new colors -- it's oddly very relaxing to me.

This led to quite a collection of color charts stacked on a shelf, not being used. So one day I grabbed a stapler and put my favorite charts on my bulletin board as "wallpaper". I often tack things I'm working on over them, but the rest of the time I just enjoy looking at the colors.

Many of the paints in these charts I no longer own. I have tried so many colors as I read books and blog posts by one artist or another! But in the last few months I have become more settled in what colors work for me personally, reducing the paints that I own to those in the upper right corner. Even on this chart, there are some that I seldom ever use and will probably not replace, cadmiums among them. Not for any environmental or safety concerns --- I simply don't like them much.

The large chart in the upper left is all the paints that came with my largest Schmincke tin. I keep the tin for my "studio" palette, holding those paints in the upper right chart. But many of the Schmincke paints have long since been used up or given away.

There is also a magazine article pinned up below the tree painting -- an old article by Cathy "Kate" Johnson on mixing greens. She is one of the best at that!

And the painting of a tree? It's a journal page I did years ago following a demo in a book. At the top of the page is my favorite quote by J. R. R. Tolkien. The tree reminds me of one of his short stories, "Leaf by Niggle", which I can relate to -- often getting so bogged down in one tiny detail that I miss the big picture.

If this blog entry has held your interest this long, maybe you are curious as to what the quote is? If so, here it is:

"So it may be said that the chief purpose of life, for any one of us, is to increase according to our capacity our knowledge of God, by all the means we have, and to be moved by it to praise and thanks . . ."                                                   -- J. R. R. Tolkien