dry brush and Jet Pens

Using a Sai watercolor brush pen, which works great for dry brush effects. These are only available from jetpens.com, a super site for all sorts of brush pens.

In the Hand Book sketchbook.

as if they were in a dark antique store

I glued tissue paper on light sketch paper, then doodled with ink: 4 pitchers, colored with smears of w/c and w/c pencils. I like the grubby effect!

pointing up

Practicing the pointing hand from a new angle.

Pencil in the Hand Book sketchbook.

drawing with recipe

Happy Thanksgiving!

A food-related post seems required today. After I drew the propped skillet, I added a background.

Have you ever made bananas Foster? This is a simplified, similar dessert:

Melt butter in a skillet. Put in bananas (cut lengthwise) and apple slices. Drizzle honey over the fruit. Brown on both sides. Remove fruit and continue to simmer honey/butter until it reaches a caramel level you like. Pour over fruit.

Sometimes I add low-salt peanuts, too. Great when served with ice cream!

Oil pastels on 140# paper.

cat again

The standard cat curl.

Pencil in the Hand Book sketchbook.

metal paint tube squeezer

More things from the art table.

These are much more expensive from art supply places. But a beauty supply place had them at about 1/3 the cost.

Pencil in a Moleskine sketchbook.

7 bottles of liquid watercolor

Practicing ellipses.

Pencil in the Hand Book sketchbook.

ear focus

From life drawing, catching the contours.

Pencil on 70# paper.

oil accident more than abstract

This is the leftover paint from my last oil painting. It's on a "stay wet" paper that I left in the box for weeks. Even oils couldn't stay wet that long.

I enlarged one section to enjoy the texture. As you can tell, I didn't put the paint down in any sort of organized way.

chip bag

I like these chips from sweet potatoes.

Colored pencil in the Hand Book sketchbook.

the uncolorful version

He's a brown and gold tabby, but I painted him like our dearly beloved and passed gray cat. Now he has to stand in for her during modeling sessions.

Pen and w/c on Stratchmore drawing paper.

drawing from a video

I stopped a documentary and captured this guy.

Hard charcoal pencil in a Moleskine sketchbook.

3 seals

I put color around a torn piece of paper, then saw shapes that looked like swimming seals. Three eyes to guide you in.

Colored pencil in a Hand Book sketchbook.

drawing what's around

This Travel-Pro rolling tote is so handy! We have two of them, for local and distant travel.

Pencil in the Hand Book sketchbook.

orange splinters

I sliced up a small doodle and used colored pencil between the pieces. This would work better with a face or recognizable item, I think.

It's interesting that the w/c paper is thicker, but the pencil comes forward more in the scanned image.

On 140# w/c paper, then pasted into the Hand Book journal.

drawing as mindfulness practice

Drawing the same thing over and over, a left hand in all manageable positions, is a concentration and mindfulness practice in both seeing and media manipulation.

I always notice something, whether it's how difficult this hard charcoal pencil is to erase, or something new about how finger skin wrinkles.

Hard charcoal pencil on 70# paper. It got these pencils at Barnes & Noble, cheap and about 20 to the box. They are great to work with!

bad scan, unusual effect

The other side of the paper has a drawing in colored pencil. That ghost plus the light-struck scan made this quick sketch more interesting.

A thick spiral pad much larger than the scanner never works.

Pencil on 70# paper.

socks in sandals

I am never happy with slippers--too soft, can't step outside for the mail in NH weather. So I wear thick Thorlo socks in slip-on sandals. And if I have to drive somewhere I may not have to change my shoes.

And I don't even own a pair of white socks, so the horror of socks in sandals does not apply (I claim). These sandals are actually black leather, I just didn't color them in.

Hard charcoal pencil on 70# paper.

no chin, no wrinkles, half the neck

Beards simplify the whole profile!

Pencil on 70# sketchpaper.

a page of feet

Not mine. You can tell because I don't wear toe rings.

Pencil in the Hand Book journal.

still artists

I've discovered that the artists who draw life models stay nearly as still as the models do. Intense eye and hand movement happens, the rest of the body doesn't shift at all for the 20-minute poses.

paint moosh

Just pushing paint around.

Acrylic in the Hand Book journal.