Guest Blogger: My Favorite Niece Is Back

I was in the car and I drew this

A quick update to let you know...

My apologies to those missing my comments! I am way behind in all things blogging. Not only did I have fourteen guests staying this weekend last, I have ten to eleven staying this coming. But, that is not the frustrating part, I do enjoy entertaining! The frustration comes from having to completely return my computer back to factory condition-TWICE-because of a computer virus. Have you heard of that Windows Police Pro? Yep...knocked me out completely! Needless to say, I haven't done much surfing the last two weeks or so. Not much drawing either! This is all I have to share with you, and if you notice the dates you'll see they're a good week apart. I think I nearly have things back in order now. I think! If I've missed you, please know I'll be coming back very soon! I should be back to myself by Monday or so.


I've never been a "cat person", but recently I was adopted by a scrawny black cat. I couldn't help but feed him, he looked like he was starving. He wasn't used to people and it took me a week before he'd let me touch him. Now he's the bravest cat I've ever seen. He doesn't hide when strangers visit like my mother's cat. I've named him Edgar Allen Poe, Eddie for short. I'm sure there will be more on Eddie here in the future. Stay tuned!

Afraid to paint, at the moment

I'm currently taking Mark Mitchell's free color course. The problem is, I haven't gotten to the meat of the course yet (which thanks to Vicky, I know is coming) and now I notice a fear of painting anything because I might learn something in tomorrow's lesson which might keep me from screwing this up today! It's irrational, I know. That's why I'm going to actually finish this portrait today! It took me about 5 minutes to sketch this. About ten minutes to get up the nerve to put the background color in. Then I stopped. I figured that I had shown enough bravery for one day. LOL The photo is from morguefile again. Free use section, here.


And this is a lesson on negative painting by Sterling Edwards on the Jerry's Artarama site. Only, I didn't follow directions. I'm a rebel (family can stop laughing now) and did it the way I wanted to do it. (Mostly because I was too lazy to do it the right way!)

Sketching Movies

Okay, so last night when I wasn't feeling well, I sat in front of my computer watching movies...and sketching. This is my desk area. It is actually quite large, with the left side of this extending about eight feet, and that is where my slanted desk top is and all of my art supplies. (It's good that I left it out since it is always piled high with paper and books and pencils and just about everything else that will fit without falling off!) You'll notice that my mouse is on the right side, even though I'm left-handed. That's because everyone else in my family was right-handed and so I learned to deal with it. Besides, it's nice being able to write with my left while scrolling with my right. I had to turn off the little buttons on the wacom tablet that are on the left because when I use the pen (I use left-handed), my hand hits the buttons and causes crazy things to happen unexpectedly. Woe is me, right? Anyway, I watched Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for the umpteenth time. This is the train scene when Harry and Ron are eating all that candy.

Feeling Green...

Whew. I'm not feeling well today. It didn't keep me away from the paints though. Practice, practice, practice. I really never liked these sketches (both done yesterday), and adding paint today didn't make them any better. But, I don't care right now; I feel yuck.

On a happier note, I was treated to a Texas Art Supply trip yesterday. Boy-oh-boy, did I have fun! I had heard they had kolinsky sable brushes on clearance, which they did, but I didn't get one because they didn't look very good. I've been told they should have a nice point on them and these did not, so I passed. BUT! I did get a 9"x12" pad of Arches Hot Pressed paper, a bottle of W&N masking fluid, and, drumroll please, a 24 color, full pan set of Yarka professional watercolors! And I do love them. They have a very nice color saturation that I often have to fight for in my other set. I can't wait to play with them some more, when I'm feeling a little better.
The first thing I did was, well what is this called, a color chart? I wanted to see how all the colors looked on paper and with each other. My favorite colors, which I did not have before, are the Golden (ochre), and the violet.

This was sketched on site, yesterday, at the William Clayton Library. It's not a regular library, it's a genealogical research center. My mother had some things to look up before heading to the art supply which was nearby. I made so many mistakes in painting it, that I didn't even bother to finish. It is dim in my room right now (because it's gray outside), so I mistook the purple for green and then I mistook the green for purple. So, I have a row of purple somethings near the fence which did not exist, and the closer plant has dark, dark green on the underside of the purple leaves. And since I didn't like it so much, I went ahead and tried out my new masking fluid on the fence. This stuff will definitely come in handy!!

And this was from inside the library, where the walls were white and everything seemed to lack color. So I put some extra in. ;)

I haven't tried the hot press paper yet, thought I'd wait until I felt a little better. The masking fluid is interesting, and the bottle is so big that I probably have enough to last the rest of my life. And the travel set, I love it. It's a little large, but they didn't carry the half pans so...you know, I had to get them!

Coffee on the patio.

I have to laugh at this one, even though I like the way it turned out. You see, because I was deep in conversation which required analyzing on my part, I wasn't concentrating when I did this sketch. I never went into "the zone" and I felt separate from the sketch. Does that make sense? Anyway, a lot of mistakes that I didn't even notice until I started applying the watercolor. Like on the second chair (the one behind), I forgot to draw the seat! And, I had already gone too far with the concrete, so I drew it in too far to the left. (Although, had I been thinking, I don't think that light color gray would have affected the chair if I had painted right over the top of it.) I also forgot to put the shadows on the concrete from the chairs and trees, and I forgot to draw what was seen through the glass table top. I know, I know. I shouldn't actually be telling you where to find the mistakes! I did my best to make up for them. What do I like about this? The composition. And the pot to the pencil cactus; it turned out well. I liked the shadows I had started across the chairs. They would make more sense if there were shadows continued on the concrete.

Thank you all for the comments on the last post. I've had a lot of good suggestions and even one email with words of encouragement. Sorry for not commenting very much lately, things came up and I haven't been around. I do hope to get to you soon!