August 2011: Straw Flowers and Paper Challenges

August 2011: Straw Flowers, a photo by apple-pine on Flickr.

This is one of the most colorful flower arrangements I've ever had - very fiery and very strong! I wanted to paint it very much.
But current sketchbook is giving me hard times with colors in it... And since I am in the mood to accept this challenge of 30 definitely not perfect pages, I decided to do several takes on the same subject. This is strictly black and white version. But I will try all sorts of alternatives in search for the best portrait of this fire and best technique with this slick and buckling paper. Stay tuned :)

Exciting Changes to a Popular Workshop

I started teaching the Love This Journal Workshops in 2007 and since then we have gotten almost 1000 students started on the joys of the artist journal.

Originally, the workshop consisted of 20 Daily Video Lessons (each about 20 minutes long) that explained and prompted a visual journal page, teaching some simple art techniques along the way.

Over the years, I learned that 20 daily lessons, while they prompted a daily habit, became overwhelming to many student about halfway through, and the idea of having to catch up started creating a little stress - which was the last thing we wanted!

So, I have just divided the workshops into 10 Lesson units that you can take whenever you want and work through at your own pace. I also cut the price in half and put it at $35 for 10 Video Lessons that you can download and keep. You access everything through a PDF Workshop Guide which also contains a Gallery section with three sample pages for each lesson, done by some of my star prior students.

To see some sample Gallery pages, see my latest post on my blog:

http://www.wisdomwoman.com/whatever

or go to the Workshop Description page:

http://www.cre8it.com/lovethisjournalo.html

The series will continue with Love This Journal 2, 3, etc.

Capturing Special Events

We were at a family wedding in the Ozarks over the weekend--my godson Aaron and his new wife, Bonnie. It was two big, wonderful, blended families, with spouses, kids, food, music and all those things that make for a lovely event.  Composite pages work well, in a case like this.

I'm happier sketching than taking photographs, though after I got most of my fast, rough pencil sketches done, I DID manage a few photos, and youngest godchild Nora let me work from a couple of the great pics she shot...the sketches were mostly quick, unfinished gesture sketches that I intended to add color to when I got home, and I wish I'd scanned THAT stage.

You can see the pencil sketches on this page, still partly unpainted, and the beginning washes (except Bonnie, who was almost finished here...I had to work from a photo I took of her, because I was too far back to sketch.)

Here's the second spread, partly finished, with Celtic knots since they exchanged silver knot pendants...I tried to keep the washes simple and fresh, as much as possible.

Munchkins Max, Miriya, and Finn ran around like mad things after the wedding--all that pent--up energy!  So I cut a footprint stamp from an old eraser to represent their romps.  You can see I've added more detail here...

Footprints and details on this page, too...and you can see Max running madly between the two sketches of middle godchild Rachel in her cool striped dress.

I wasn't thrilled with the busy area at upper left, so I washed some of the stamps back out and did a soft, wet in wet wash.  (As you might guess, the bride's color choice was purple!)  Things seemed to need a bit of definition and punching up, so I added a few ink accents here and there.

And finally got the nerve to add the lettering!  I decided this page could be a bit less busy (ya THINK??) so let some of the figures be ink or only partly painted.  I like it...I think!

And of course I wasn't able to sketch an 8th of the people there--in a case like this we just have to concentrate on what we're closest to, what catches the eye or tells a story--as well as who stays still for 5 seconds!!  (Happily I wasn't getting paid to record the wedding, or the bride's family might have been seriously miffed!  That's Bonnie's sweet mama and her brother manning the food table at upper right.  But of course I only managed to capture one of Aaron's sisters (twice!)...he has four.

They're not the BEST designed pages I ever did--they're awfully busy and crowded--but they DO recall the happy chaos of the event!

The more peaceful, contemplative bits were done from the window of our trailer in the early morning, before the merry-go-round started up!

A Secrt Garden Gate?

Secrt [Sic] Garden Door
M. Graham Watercolors
and Ink
3.5 x 8.5 inches

As we walked to the trolley each day in New Orleans, we passed this really cool doorway. It led to someone's backyard. There was a house, a garage and other structures back behind the doorway, but for my purposes, I chose to edited them out.

I've always been enchanted by the idea of a secret garden. Maybe it has something to do with Alice In Wonderland or Harry Potter's adventures.  Whatever it is, I seemed to be drawn to unusual doors and gates—they are a portal for my imagination.

The title "Secrt Garden Door" is a typo. My right brain was writing creating and it doesn't know how to spell. So I've decided you have to know the "proper" spelling of secret to gain into into my "secrt" garden! Who needs that extra "e" anyway?!

(And as a wise woman once shared with me...if you can't fix it, feature it!)

This was completed with M. Graham watercolors and ink in my NOLA sketchbook. If you're interested in joining me for a real adventure in New Orleans, please click HERE for information about NOLA Live!

For those of you who are interested in learning more about creating journal pages and using watercolors, Artful Journaling: Foundations and Explorations has been added back to the schedule over on ImaginaryTrips.com. Click HERE for more info on the journaling classes.

Happy Weekend, Y'all!

Blending graphite sketches with a stump

This is one of the quick little videos I did for my Quick Sketching mini-classes--I haven't had time to do much in the way of new videos lately, so I decided to make this one public. (And oops, no idea how to make it fit the blog, sorry...)

This is a fun technique that David Rankin often demonstrates.  You can see lots more in his book, Fast Sketching Techniques, and if you're on Facebook, you can find him HERE.

Thank you, David, for letting us share your work!

I've used a similar technique for much more complex drawings like the one of my sweetie in Revolutionary War garb, above, and botanical artists have drawn with graphite dust for generations. Blending, softening, lifting and even adding value with a stump or tortillon makes for some wonderfully versatile effects.  Give it a try!

Editing Life...

Soooo...who says we have to sketch EXACTLY what we see?  We spent a HOT weekend in the Ozarks for my godson's wedding, and the wedding party stayed in the RV park where the bride's family camps--the rentals are FEMA trailers.  Trust me, they are NOT picturesque, and short of both room and windows...I know I'd be really grateful if I didn't have roof over my head, but pretty they are not!

Morning light coming through the tall cedar trees at the edge of the campground WAS pretty, though...so that's what I zeroed in on.

I had a brand new journal for the trip, and had put some of the new tan paper in it, so took along my lightweight little gouache set.  I sat on the fold-out couch near one of the windows and sketched in the AC!  (As somebody said recently, in this heat my "plein air" has become "plein window" for the most part!)  The Lamy Vista pen with Platinum Pigment ink in Sepia worked beautifully on this paper.

 

This is how it turned out...no cars, no trailers!  I added a few more notes and a few touches of colored pencil and called it done.

The page on the left was sunrise over the trailer that two of my godchildren and their families were in...somehow that didn't make it into the picture.The color is truer in the photo above...

Mind you, sometimes it's fun to include reality...but I was in the mood for beauty and nature!

Rocks and New Watercolors

July 2011: Rocks, a photo by apple-pine on Flickr.

I recently started playing with two Lunar pigments from Daniel Smith - Lunar Blue and Lunar Black. They create magnificent granulation - and I am trying all sorts of color combinations with them. This is my first black on the palette in a really long time and it brings me a lot of surprises :)