Regarding Google+

Eh...I finally caved and joined the ranks of Google+ after avoiding it for forever, not wanting to get involved in one more internet thing that would steal time from art.  Though I've not spent any time yet trying to figure it out, I did add people to my circles, to the point that I reached my limit for the day already.  Whether this was a good decision remains to be seen, but so far I am overwhelmed as the page scrolls and scrolls and scrolls and is filled with some things that I have no interest in whatsoever.  As I type this, JayZ fills several sections.  JayZ?  I could care less about him!  Dwell...yes, that one is great! I really only expected information on posts from the people I connected with.  Perhaps you have some opinions on this?  Should I run?  Is it a colossal time sponge? ...or does it really make it easier to keep up with friends?

Over the years, my online friends and I have had many conversations about finding time for art.  I have a new one for you.  When my husband and I moved to this apartment in October, we put off getting cable since we spend more time online than watching television.  One week turned into two, into three.  I DO NOT MISS IT--AT ALL!  And the best part of it all...I have so much more time for making art!  I have decided that I will not be going back.  No cable. No television.  Life is so much better!  It is a time sponge!  Sucks the life right out of life!

So with all of that said...I think I should probably post some art, since that is my blog's purpose after all!  How about some Burbs!  Love this movie so much...it is difficult for me to hit pause.  I stopped working in this sketchbook for now due to a boredom which slowly crept in.  I like the idea of drawing from movies when that is all you can get to at the time.  I only have a few more spreads that I haven't posted yet.  Maybe one day I'll start this one back up...but I am hoping that I find so much more inspiration in other things that it will not be necessary! 

Maybe it's time for some blog CPR?

I can hardly believe so much time has passed.  I mean, really, a year and a half?  Well, a lot has been happening around here.  I finally made the move back to Boise, ID.  Since that move, I've moved two more times.  Our lease is up in April and we hope to have a house by then...so one more time?

Before my absence I had been struggling with getting scans that didn't make me want to throw my hands up and scream.  They would look too gray, or if I turned up the contrast or brightness, it became garish.  It was depressing. I wanted you to see how they really appear in my sketchbook, because, well, I was proud of them. I've been working on that and I think I've improved things a bit.  I've replaced some of the pics in previous posts.  I think they look somewhat better, though I know there are still problems and they still don't look as good as what I have in my sketchbook.  But now it isn't depressing because I think it is close enough.

One thing that I did not stop doing during my long absence was drawing and painting.  I have so much piled up around me that I hardly know where to even start.  So, I think I'll start with more from that movie sketchbook (from 2011-2012) and just start trying to catch up chronologically.
I'll start with some Christmas movies...because I love Christmas and I'm sad that it is gone.

Home Alone II   ...I'm an adult and this one still makes me laugh until I cry. 

 And Santa Clause 3:

  

And finally, A Christmas Story:

By the way...any readers out there that are in Boise, ID, I'm working on getting an Urban Sketchers group together.  If you're interested, email me.

This batch is all pencil and watercolor in a HandBook travelogue sketchbook.

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and have a wonderful New Year's!

  

Four more from the 3-ring sketchbook

By this time I was really beginning to enjoy this sketchbook. It was getting near the end but I wanted it to last to the end of the month, so I kept adding pages. I wish it would have held another month so I could have begun the new year with a new sketchbook, but it was getting tight!




What I really like about sketching from movies (and yes, I do sometimes hit pause!), is that it doesn't require me to 'think' much. There are some movies which aren't as easy or interesting to sketch from...for instance, Jackie Chan movies. He is usually moving so fast that he is a blur almost every time I hit pause! Some movies are too dark. Some don't have interesting artifacts to sketch and all I end up with are people. One thing I don't worry too much about is getting likenesses. If I get it, great, if not, move on. Luckily I have a huge collection to choose from! I just don't want to lose the sketching or painting skills that I've built up. So this is practice without worrying about what, when, or where to sketch. It helps during stressful times.

First post in 2011

2011 started off very good for me art-wise. I was drawing, I was painting--I just wasn't posting. The words make me procrastinate. They are this huge mountain, a huge, insurmountable mountain. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to post without words now and then. In reality I like it when others use fewer words because it is easier to get through the hundred or so blogs that I check up on daily. Maybe I exaggerate, but only by a little.

This gal here I thought was from imagination. But, over on Yevgenia Watts blog, Watercolor Hands, I see a woman very similar(on the sidebar, three pictures down below her facebook icon) and I think I may have remembered it when I drew this. It isn't painted the same of course, but I can't help but see the influence. It is small: 1.5"x 2", watercolor and ballpoint pen.


These two are my paternal grandparents. I never met them because they both died when my father was a boy. I think about them sometimes, wondering what they were like. These were both painted on scraps and glued into my sketchbook. The one of my grandmother has the most resemblance. My grandfather didn't turn out very well at all, as far as likeness is concerned. He was very handsome. I suppose that teddy bear belonged to my father. They loved photography and we have a lot of pictures of them, just not any with both of them. Someone has to take the photo, right? I think I may revisit this and try to set them both up in the same picture. She died when my father was four, and on her picture, my grandfather wrote, "My Darling". I love that he did that.


This was done from a morguefile.com photo posted by earl53, ref#179348. I loved the sketch, but felt like I ruined the painting first thing by using a purple for the shading on the lighthouse. It was very sloppy, with me getting out of lines here and there. (obviously not concentrating!) So, I went over it with a micron pen. It's growing on me now. Definitely glad I didn't pitch it in the trash like I was tempted. In fact, I almost didn't even continue the painting after the purple, and only did because I viewed it as practice. My thought at the time was, well, it is already ruined so it can't hurt any.

Every thing else I've done this month has been of the doodle-type. A lot is happening around here, some things I cannot tell you just yet, but I'm excited about it. Dang, I'm terrible at keeping secrets and this one will drive me nuts! I best go now, before I slip!

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!

Enjoying My New Brushes!

I'm really enjoying these new brushes, especially the da Vinci Maestro! What a lovely feeling it has! This top one is based on one of our family favorites, a black and white photo of my dad. I guess he was about four or so. I began with a pencil sketch, adding the watercolor; but, I didn't like it for some reason, so I added the ink. I didn't spend a lot of time fussing with the sketch and probably could have focused a little more on the hands, but I like it. It would be worth revisiting for a more serious painting sometime.
This one is from imagination. I love the feel of the brushes so much that I picked one up and just started putting down some color. This is what came out. No pencil first and only added a few lines when it was done: a line separating the lips, two dashes for nostrils, and lines defining the eyes. May be a few anatomical errors, but it was actually fun to go in without the pencil. It felt more like I was sculpting her face, than drawing it. The results surprised me, and I may try doing this more often.

Rudy's Crowd, Revisited

Do you remember this sketch from last year, here. Well, I thought I had destroyed it when I went to add watercolor. I stopped before getting very far at all. Sometime during the last year, I realized that sometimes paintings go through ugly stages. I would probably have approached it differently than I did in this particular case, because of all I've learned, but I think I managed a save here. I know there are spots still not painted...but I liked them so they stayed. This has ended up in a frame on my wall. So, yes, it's a good night! (I should mention that the woman on the left was my Sketchcrawl partner, Cecelia. )

Also, I just received an order from DickBlick. I bought a da Vinci maestro travel brush, one piece of Fabriano Artistico 140lb cp paper to try, and a hand.book watercolor sketchbook, which I wouldn't have bought if it didn't come with a #2 escoda travel brush. (My first two pure Kolinsky sable brushes!) I'm WAY excited and I can't believe it got here SO fast! I have to give my kudos for DickBlick. There was a mistake in the address during my paypal processing, so it was shipped all the way to Idaho. Where I no longer live. They were so great about resending the order. They were pleasant to deal with, and I received it two days later!! Great customer service!! (Oh, and I've done a little playing with the brushes....LOVE!!)

Another doodlie-type post...

I know you're completely surprised to see a drawing of my hand--I just never do that! It is a modified contour that I went back and added some details and color to. Ignore the writing. I had some drawings above it that I had copied from other artists' sites. I really don't like posting stuff that I copied, so I cut them out. This was done on scrap w/c paper and will be pasted into my sketchbook. ('My Molie' is completely random. I'm not sure where it came from, but this is not a Molie!)



I actually don't remember where or how this came about. I often sketch while doing other things. I was testing out a technical pen I was just given and then testing the solubility of the ink. It's a simple sketch, but I like it.






This was done while watching a video online of how to paint trees with two colors. The two colors I've used are lemon yellow and prussian blue. I went back after the fact and added the lines with the same technical pen. This was an interesting exercise. Now, if I can just remember to do it like this! Sometimes I learn these things, then promptly forget to apply them.







This is a sketch of a sketch that I did. I was still playing with the technical pen. Messed up on the hand a little, but I liked the way the mouth and the nose came out. Splashed on the paint and called it Self-portrait #12 of 100. I'm moving along very slowly on this project. It's a good thing I didn't set a time limit!

All of these are on scraps of the canson XL 140 lb watercolor paper. I'm working on getting to know the paper a little better since I had such a rough start with it. I've got too much of it left to let it go to waste!

PS Thank you to all my new followers! I always try to find the blogs of all my followers, so I can follow you too. So, if I've not done that, it is because when I clicked your icon, it didn't give me a link. If you have a blog you would like me to see, please send me an email or a comment! I like to share the love!

Some doodles on scraps of paper

After making my last sketchbooks there was a few scraps of paper left over. The one above is 3.5"x6". My blog name and the quotes were written first; then I found an awesome photo over on morguefile and added it to the middle. (photo by keyseeker, ref. # 671269) I was watching a movie while painting this and didn't expect much, but I really like it and now it is glued into my larger sketchbook, along with the following sketch. Pencil with watercolor. (Though I used a black pen to do the pupils.)
This was also done while watching that same movie on another scrap piece of paper. It is about 3"x3". Used sepia pigma micron 01 and watercolor. I think she looks a bit like Nancy Drew. I mean, she has that expression...like there is a mystery to be solved, don't you think? Maybe the guy behind her on the right is one of the Hardy Boys.

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!

Bitten by the Dog Days of Summer

Whew! It's been ages since I updated, longer if I go back to the last art I posted. This summer hasn't been great for me. I am not prone to sulking or depression, but I'm an outdoorsy type and Houston just had the hottest August on record. I do not like heat, especially with high humidity. It had me thinking about Boise, and wishing I still lived there. I lived right on the Boise greenbelt, which runs straight through the middle of town next to the Boise river. From the greenbelt I walked to Boise State University (not as a student), the library, the post office, the grocery store (when I only needed a few items!), 8th St marketplace, the zoo, numerous parks. You get the idea. I was outside all the time; lots to draw too. So, in my sulky state, I complained about not having anything to walk to...everything is spread out. Not that it matters because who would want to walk here?! And what the heck is one supposed to draw around here, a barbed wire fence? To compound my problem, after doing numerous remodel jobs in the house, which was exhausting but satisfying, I got out of the habit of sketching. I made a sketchbook, then another. But when I picked up my pencil to add the first sketch, I couldn't get into my groove and it turned out terribly and now I have to look at it every time I pick up my sketchbook. I have struggled with trying to get it back for several weeks now. (Upper left: morguefile photo: ref id# 208873 by LU311 done in pencil and watercolor; Upper Right: A very small gesture sketch of a fleeting moment, done in ballpoint. )

For Labor Day weekend, we had my brother-in-law's family come for a visit. My 7 year old niece, whose work I've posted here before, loves to draw. I gave her a sketchbook last year and in it we are writing a story and illustrating it. We drew tons this weekend, all of it from imagination (very unusual for me). I was really getting into the groove by the third day, feeling like that dreamy child again. In the story, my husband and niece and I are always getting captured and we have to use our super powers to get free and conquer the bad guys. After watching "The Spy Next Door" (Jackie Chan movie), we suddenly remembered we were Master Ninjas. I do wish I had remembered to scan in some of our artwork to show you! I know that you would have been impressed with her talent!

Here is a very quick sketch of my niece. She looks very serious here, but believe me, she is nothing but energy and giggles! I asked her to be my model and hold still. I laughed when she instantly went rigid with her arms straight down at her side, her eyes unblinking. After I got her a little more relaxed, with her arms folded, she asked me how long this would take, to which I replied that sometimes it could take hours. Her eyes went huge! This sketch might have taken five minutes; that is all she could take.


I have since filled six pages of my larger sketchbook, hoping to break this spell. I think it is working, I do feel lighter/less burdened. Left: Wishing at was at the Urban Sketchers Symposium. Pencil sketches from photos posted on their site. Orange background added in Photoshop. (It made the sketches stand out more.) Right: Sketches with my Lamy Safari using morguefile photos as reference.

And the heat has finally broken. We are only in the seventies today, as we are getting pummeled by Tropical Storm Hermine. It has been dark and rainy all day, but to me it is much preferred over August's weather. This is the view out of my studio window at the moment. Let's hope that I've gotten over my moping and that I remember next year, when it is summer and miserable again, to at least keep drawing as that is what normally keeps me happy!

Oy vey!

Let's pretend for a moment that I know the teensiest bit of Yiddish and didn't just have to look that up to make sure I was using it correctly! So why am I saying that? I have the dreaded feeling that a momentum change is coming. I feel it out there, a hovering gray cloud. Things are starting to not come so easily and I'm struggling with color again. I don't know why this keeps happening. I go skipping along merrily, only to be blindsided by the feeling that I've never painted before so how could I know what I'm doing!



I'm still doing portraits. This is my sister again, and I'm quite happy with the results. (drawn about a week ago...before the feeling started) A few things need tweaking, but I look at it and definitely see her. I went to pencil after struggling with the paints a few times. This is 2B mechanical pencil, and an 8B pencil. I'd like to try it in charcoal on canvas like Dan did in one of his recent drawings. Then one day, when I'm feeling confident, do it in the water-soluble oils I have just sitting in my drawer, aging as I type this.


And this is my entry in the moleskine collaboration I have going with Dan. One of our plans is to push each other out of our comfort zone. So, with this one I prepainted the background to give us something we had to work with/around (against?). I drew it in a medium bic ballpoint pen, no pencil lines first. (The exception is in the teeth, where it isn't good to outline in black!) I've used this technique with the background a few times now. It is supposed to help unify the whole page. Only, it didn't work out so well this time. Is it just me, or does her back arm almost look like it belongs to someone else? Oh well...let that be part of Dan's challenge: to make her arm look attached! Something else that I did was zoom in. I don't see him do that often. The drawing is loosely based this morguefile photo. Like I said, I went in straight with the pen, so when I went astray with the face, I just went with it.

Yevgenia Watts, of Watercolored Hands

Also known as Yevgenia Watts! I really need to start doing these a little larger! This is about five inches square, making her face only an inch and a half? It's hard to do too much that small. Although, you would think it would stop me from overworking!! This is for Julia Kay's Portrait Party again.

A Busy Couple of Weeks...

Two weeks ago, I was contacted by Melissa Rovner, whose two children had written a book about the oil spill. She wanted to publish the book, so she asked some of the artists who had contributed to Ripplesketches if they could contribute pictures for the book. I said okay. It's to raise money, so really, it's just a donation; I don't get paid. But, I was so excited to be invited that I couldn't say no! I decided to do three versions, and let her pick which she liked best. You can see a write up in the Walton Sun.

This is Jerry Waese, a participant in Julia Kay's Portrait Party. I tried using just two colors, indigo and burnt sienna. I had never done this type of exercise before, so poor Jerry was my guinea pig. I got the reference photo from here.


This was a piece of watercolor paper with preexisting splashes of paint on it. In the midst of the swirls, I could barely make out a bird. So I found a photo which seemed like it would fit and this is the result. BettyfromTexas tells me it is an African Grey.


And this is my semi-new workspace! Before, my desk was L-shaped and I had two areas that I could pull up a chair. The problem with this arrangement was that I'm a little lazy and disorganized by nature, so the end opposite of my computer became a place to stack my junk! What to do? Grab a round saw and cut off the last two feet (didn't take the desk outside...it was too heavy!), swing it around to the front, and attach. Wha-lah!! U-shaped workspace! Okay, now, don't laugh...but, this is CLEAN! And because everything is within reach, I am managing to keep it relatively so! I love my new space!

Update: I should have mentioned that I did not post any of the pictures that I've done for the book. I'm not sure what the rules about such a thing are, and I decided to wait and see which one she decided to use.