Farewell to 2010!

2.5"x 5.75" pencil and watercolor. You may not believe it, but this makes me very happy! I have nothing to say that would pick this apart. I find this strange since I didn't spend a lot of time trying to get the sketch right. I was watching videos while painting it over the course of about three days, finishing it just this morning. Why did it take so long? Well, I definitely could have finished it in one sitting, but after I started and liked the direction it was heading, and because I didn't want to mess up, I would stop until I had a better idea of where to go next. Normally I'm much more impatient! I used a photo on morguefile by Scott Liddell as reference.







Last week I reorganized my studio. I have a new bookcase which has doors on it so I can hide the clutter. My desk now has space available! I don't have to balance everything on top of something, waiting for the first bump to make it all crash down! All of my scraps of watercolor paper were put into a tin. For some reason, I find it so much easier to work on scraps. When they turn out okay, I glue them into my sketchbook.

This woman on top was a copy of a painting by Don Andrews, which came on an insert in one of my Cheap Joe's orders. I liked the painting and put it on my bulletin board. The dove is from imagination. Both are pencil and watercolor. Sorry for the bad scan. I put my hand on it half way through and didn't realize I messed it up until putting it up here.


Not much to say here, except that he was from imagination. Obviously the chords on his neck wouldn't be so thin! (That is something I just noticed!)

So, how did you do on your resolutions in 2010? Me? Not so good! Not only did I not double the number posts of 2009, I didn't even equal them! I did sell something though. Though, it was for Ripple and the money went to a charity instead of me. I was close to being published, but unfortunately, that didn't work out. I'm really not good with resolutions. Something in me wants to rebel and do the opposite. Or is it that I make resolutions I'm not so sure I really want to make?




This is another sketchbook page that I've glued in some drawings done on scraps. The bird is from imagination, again. The woman was sketched while watching a video. The face behind her was a bronze statue. She was blond, the walls were white. Obviously I just made everything the way I felt like making it! (Gray box is just me blocking out some of the words!)

Well, I wish everyone a happy, healthful, and creative 2011!

Learning some fun-damentals...

The top picture here started as a simple sketch on some scrap w/c paper (scrap paper seems to be the one thing that gets me painting!), done while watching a video. One thing that always get me while sketching a moving person is that one side of the face seems to always be drawn from a slightly different angle than the other. The results are sometimes like this, with one side drooping. This doesn't bother me though. It is in pencil and if I had wanted to I could have corrected it. My main interest here was playing with my new brush and the newly reorganized palette. And practicing grays and browns. (I made that brown myself! So proud... Only, I don't remember how I did it!) The background was not sketched in and just sort of...happened. Even though the whole scene seems kind of STATIC, I do like this one. It seems like Uncle Fred just posed for a snapshot or something.

This one really makes me laugh. I had fun doing it, don't get me wrong. It's just that I approached it in true 'Raena' fashion. You see, it was an exercise in the book "The Complete Watercolor Course". One of those books that I've not read, only looked at the pictures. I decided to do the first exercise, and wouldn't you know it, I only looked at the pictures. So, I missed a few things and the results aren't quite right. I might try this one again, this time reading first!

Neither of these is very large, only 3"x4". They curled up as they got wet which made holding them interesting. And while they weren't very serious studies, I had a great relaxing time. This is how learning should be!

Sketchbook Miscellany

Finally there was a day when I could sit outside and comfortably sketch without feeling the oppressive heat suffocating me. My husband was working on a lawnmower in the garage. I sat in a camping chair out front, in the shade. Of all the things I was surrounded by, this dirty old gas can is what I chose to sketch! (well, technically, I guess everything out there is dirty!) I sketched it in pencil. Then I used tracing paper to transfer it to watercolor paper. I knew of this technique, but believe or not, I had never tried it. I think one of the advantages of it is not worrying about messing up the original sketch. Definitely something to remember if you've lost your confidence or if you would just like to try painting with different techniques!


Sketches from posemaniacs. I had just about forgotten this site existed until someone posted some sketches they did. I filled nine pages (9"x12" sketchbook) with 30, 60, and 90 sec gesture drawings. Then, I went to random pose and did these sketches, untimed. I'm not sure how long they took, 5 mins or so? And for the first time, I realized I could keep the same pose and sketch it from a different angle. (The two on the left are the same pose, rotated slightly.)


This was done mostly while watching Pirates of the Caribbean. I paused the scene at the pier to draw the two men. I loved the guy's face on the left. Very unique! Started as a blind contour in ballpoint, so his face is somewhat skewed, but I like how it gives it a caricatured look. Then I drew the skeleton, bottom left, from memory. I have a photo of a skeleton head that I drew from next, to see how much I had retained in my memory sketch. More meerkats, started blind contour, shading and texture then added. This page was fun to do. See the tilted girl? Do you do that? Seems like there is always at least one drawing on my page which somehow ends up cockeyed!



This is self-portrait #11 of 100. (A redo of it, actually, as the first one was a disaster!) After the first sketchbook I bound, I actually made another, thinner one, using a different paper. Easier to carry around! My first one is a little wonky and I discovered that I had folded the pages against the grain instead of with it. So, this book actually turned out much better! However, I've now made another discovery. I really DISLIKE the Canson XL 140lb watercolor paper I bound in it! (I think it might be their student grade. ) Everything I've done on this paper has turned out dull and sort of fuzzy. It doesn't hold up to scrubbing at all! Here, I had a sketch that I really liked. I made a small mistake near the chin area, and using a technique that Dan told me about, I tried to gently scrub it away. And, I emphasize that I was gentle! Terrible results! The paper disintegrated and nothing I did would fix it. I only realized that it was the paper, and not me, while reading Cathy Johnson's Creating Nature in Watercolor, which I just purchased. (I love the book, Cathy!) Suddenly I realized that I had not done a single painting on this paper that I liked! And really, I think it was this blow to my confidence which started the whole block I've been suffering lately!

EDM# 104 and An Idea for a Painting

I had an idea for a painting that I attempted to sketch out here. The plan was for a girl to be walking with little tiny elephants dancing all around her feet. Well, not really dancing, think Heinrich Kley. Then her feet went off the page and I really didn't feel like correcting anything. After this, my heart wasn't really into the drawing anymore. Not that it is terrible. I used two reference photos for this, both from morguefile. Here and Here.
And this is something I haven't done in a long time! EDM Challenge #104: Salt and Pepper shakers. In fact, I just turned myself into a liar because I recently commented on someone's blog that I don't do the EDM challenges anymore. (Not that they're bad or anything!) I think I said that today, in fact! But then I saw this salt and pepper set in my mother's china cabinet and couldn't resist. Not sure how I've missed these. They look quite old, with some of the shine worn off the ceramic. The sketch isn't very well observed. Have you ever been in that mood before? Where you don't really care to focus that hard? Just throw down some lines and let them be? That was me today. I just said, 'ah! Nobody will even notice!" Except, I'm a blabbermouth-- I forgot. It looked better before I added the ink lines, which I did because they actually appear on the birds that way. This was done on some very old paper that I found amongst my late aunt's things. The paper is pretty rough, and 300 lb weight. I had never used paper this heavy, and I love it! No buckling whatsoever! No taping down! Maybe it's a little rough for my taste, but I do love the weight!

(They are still sitting next to me. I just looked over and they have been pushed together in a way that it looks like one bird is whispering in the other's ear. Now why couldn't I have set them up that cute???)

Where did the beginning of March go?

Sorry for the lack of posting lately. It isn't that I haven't been drawing-I have! But, a lot has been copying the works of other online artists whose work I enjoy. I can't post those. Plagiarism and all.

Another thing slowing me down is the writing part of blogging. It makes me procrastinate. I wrestle with words; we have a tumultuous relationship. Sometimes they come easily, sometimes they don't. I do better when I'm reading a lot, but that hasn't been the case lately. Too busy sketching!

Yesterday I drew a very loose pencil sketch of my husband tilling the soil in our garden. It had energy and I was excited by the results. I sketched it in my exacompta sketchbook which takes light washes fairly well. Then I started adding a little watercolor. Starting with my husband, things were going fine. But then I came across a portion of the page which must have had something on it because it didn't want to accept paint. I wish I had left just my husband, the tiller, and the dirt painted because I couldn't fix the sky and the fence after that fiasco. I went over my pencil sketch with a micron pen in sepia because the loose pencil lines got lost in all the mess. The paper will fall apart if I do any more, so it must stay this way.

This little girl is Sarah, my uncle's Mexican chihuahua. She's taller the most chihuahuas you see in the US, and doesn't have that roundness at the top of her skull. And unlike most chihuahuas, she rarely barks. That's my kind of dog! This is done in my moleskine sketchbook in pencil, with a little bit of colored pencil added. I don't like the way it scanned. In my sketchbook, it doesn't appear to have the dark dark outlines. I think it's because I did a little with black colored pencil, which scans better than the graphite pencil. This was done from a photo, fairly quickly. I tried not to get too fussy with it.

These two sketches are also in my moleskine sketchbook. (You probably remember the watercolor dude-thing, whatever he is, he got taped in here a while back.) I drew the girl from imagination with my Lamy Safari fountain pen and noodler's eternal black. After it dried, I added tone with a uniball micro which is water soluble, and then brushed with water.

The cat is Eddie, the one that adopted us last summer. We couldn't let him in our house because of our other cat, so we found him a good home with one of our neighbors. He is now a very happy, and spoiled cat who refuses to take one step out their door! I think his previous owners may have abandoned him and he's afraid it will happen again. He's done in 3B pencil.

This month marks the end of my first year of blogging and being a member of EDM. To celebrate, I'm preparing a give-away. I have three books and the winner will get to choose the one they want. I should have that post up in the next day or two. Hope you'll check back soon!

Oh, one more thing! For those of you who haven't already heard, Dan and I have started a new blog to showcase a project that we've started together. We are mailing a sketchbook back and forth from Florida to Texas. Our purpose is to challenge ourselves to improve, and stretch ourselves as artists. There is something about doing these exchanges, which pushes you to do your very best. It will be nerve-wracking at times, but that is the very thing that makes me try harder. We hope you'll stop by to visit, here.

Strange things are happening.

These were never intended for posting, but as I have a little story for you and nothing else to post, I thought Why Not! These are more imaginary scenes for cloud practice. The smaller one is about 1"X3", the larger about 1.5" X 3". I've really enjoyed doing these.



Anyway, the real reason for the post is that something very strange happened to me the other night. I watched a video by Myrna Wacknov over at Creative Journey. She was using a coffee stir dipped in ink, standing back from her paper, arm extended, sketching from a photo. I loved the drawing, saw the value of the exercise, and decided to give it a try. Only I compromised and used pencil since it was late and I didn't feel like cleaning any messes. No problem. Arm extended, grasping the end of my pencil, I copied her sketch (which is why it isn't posted here). This isn't the weird part! The weird thing was when I went back to normal sketching and realized I had to change the pencil to my left (dom) hand. That's right, I unintentionally used my right hand to do the sketch. Have you ever accidentally used your non-dom hand? That is so weird!

Portraits, doodles in watercolor

Remember this ? I was afraid to paint it "at the moment", and though I said I would be getting to it right away, I lied. I only did this last night. The background was too intense so I did a glaze over it to tone it down. Let me just say, I find red hair extremely difficult to do. It was much darker than this in reality. And I'm still trying to figure out how to do shadows on people. Do you go with more saturated skin tone color, or do you add blue, or what? How do you create your shadows? Overall I like this. I just don't look at it too closely because my inner critic will begin picking it apart.



Okay, this, this is someone I love and miss very much. I wish she lived closer and that I could see her more often. It is done from a dark photo of her in a cave, where details are often hard to discern. Like the glasses on her head. They just looked like a continuation of her hair in the photo. I almost didn't even notice them, except she had weird-shaped hair which would never happen in reality because she's beautiful, always. I only see a resemblance here. She may not even think it looks like her at all. Especially the skin tones! I'm still having difficulty getting those down correctly, so her beautiful glowing tan looks more like a sunburn! So my message to this person is, don't be offended, I'm still learning here! Oh, and LOVE YOU!


I went back to this and toned down the background with a glaze. Thanks Dan for the suggestion! There is some improvement, though I think it may need another glazing. I'll probably just leave this one alone though. Never was too excited about it to start with!






This ocean scene is only about 1" X 3". I did it for study purposes only and from imagination. I wanted to get better at doing clouds and this is the one, out of about five, that I liked best. I got the idea for doing it from Barbara Weeks. She did some really great studies at the beach.

I've also recently been awarded the Over-the-Top award by Jennifer Edwards, and the Sunshine Award by Cathie Tonkins. I haven't forgot about these; I promise to get to them soon! Thank you both for thinking of me!

Just some ballpoint pen sketches...

I don't have very much to say about these. I started off trying to get more layering into my sketchbook, as shown to me by Wil, even tried some typography. Things I learned: It takes a long time to fill a page when you're layering; and when drawing fur, it is probably not a good thing to start off with solid lines, as you have to work very hard to get the fuzziness back in. I had a slight headache when I began, which steadily grew worse and led to some cheating by filling in a lot of space with black. I tried to fill some with writing too, but the words wouldn't come to my aching head. My favorites are the cat and the ostridge (or is that an emu?). The boy? I didn't do him any favors, AT ALL! It was the first sketch of the page and I obviously was just warming up!
This is a small sketch done while my husband and I were cooking dinner. I think we can all guess who did most of the work! It's approx. 2" X 2" on a cheap writing pad.

After using a ballpoint for so long yesterday, I cannot wait to use my pencil again. Or some watercolor.

A True Story

To say that I was uptight about my grades when I was young would be a massive understatement. I was a good student, but I fretted constantly. I was also disorganized. You know, one of those kids walking around with papers falling out of their notebooks, opening lockers to have the structural integrity of its contents give way. I was always forgetting my homework at school, or losing it on the way home and would have to rush back to the school to pick it up, or call a friend.

(I should also mention that I grew up in a rural neighborhood. This was the late seventies, maybe early eighties, so people still felt safe enough to leave their doors unlocked.)

One day in middle school, I forgot my homework again and decided to call a friend. I didn't know him all that well at the time and had never been to his house. He told me that I could borrow his book, just come over and get it.

My parents drove me to his house and I ran up to knock on the door. Somewhere deep in the house, a woman yelled “COME IN!” This wasn’t uncommon; we weren’t afraid of intruders. But, you did sometimes feel a bit awkward, knowing the person was probably expecting someone they knew to walk through the door. This was one of those times for me. So, instead of going in, I knocked again. I got the same response. I reluctantly walked in and looked around but no one was in the room. I called out, “Hello?” The same voice yelled, “I’M BACK HERE!” Even more awkward! But I started my way back towards the voice. And I didn’t see anyone, anywhere. It was eerily quiet. Finally, I got to the last room, and when I didn't see anyone, I said “Hello?” again.

Imagine my surprise when a yellow and green parrot screamed out, “I’M BACK HERE!”

The next day, I went to confront my friend about not being there, but before I could say anything he asked me what had happened; he had been waiting for me. I told him, “YOUR BIRD IS WHAT HAPPENED!”

He said,“What bird?”

The above parrot was drawn from a morguefile.com photo, free use section. It is watercolor and colored pencil on hot press paper.

The Final

This is the piece I did for the art exchange. It is simpler than the first attempt, but after days of languishing, being indecisive, I felt like I really needed to get something done. Part of my problem is that I try to do things that are beyond my current skill set, and then I get frustrated! So, I opted for simple and I like the results.

Okay, I have a question for my readers, who I know are, for the most part, artists themselves. I know we all suffer from sudden art supply buying frenzies; but, when you buy those supplies, does all of your work come screeching to a halt, while you wait for the supplies to come in? I will be drawing like mad, every minute I can spare, things going great; but once I order supplies, I fall into limbo while I wait. And wait. And....why can't it all be here already!!??