Gouache cat practice

I've read that artists use gouache differently from w/c, but I used glazing and washes a bit here and the paint seemed pretty similar. Must be doing something wrong.


The opaqueness works well for daubing berber carpet, though.
I'm not good at tiger stripes, so switched to orange and red cats. It's their inner fire showing.

Mixing colors

I've been reading w/c books about mixing 3 primary hues to create a palette. My first two attempts weren't so good, then I discovered the combinations made by Winsor Newton's permanent rose, indigo, and new gamboge (a yellow).

Besides good secondary blends (purple, orange, green), with these 3 primaries I can easily mix realistic browns and grays. So handy for sketching furniture, houses, hair, fur, skin tones, and tree bark.

Who doesn't love messing with paint?

EDM #14, first sight in the morning

Imagine a loud purring with this. The most consistent thing I see first in the morning is an up-close and personal furface, intently sending me telepathic messages about the urgency of breakfast.

Process: tech pen, w/c and colored pencil in a Moleskine sketchbook.

Digital transformation

At Modern Gypsy I found instructions for making a mandala from any triangular slice of an image. Instead of Photoshop, I used Gimp, free Linux-based software that comes in a Windows XP version.



In a collaborative learning exercise, I and my husband figured out the basics from a GIMP manual. I selected a triangle from the blueberries I painted on July 18. We created a single mandala, then a tiled version.

Before the berries, as our first attempt, I tried a freehand selection from a photo of our cat Chaucer crouched on top of a door.
Even with mismatches and mistakes, repetition of the same slice turned into a workable image. This was such fun! Now any drawing can blossom into a new multiplex form.

Stomp on Spam

Unfortunately, spammers are the buzzy biting insects, or slimy worms, of the internet. So I've reluctantly enabled the word-verification feature that blocks automated spam.

I hope this small step doesn't block the wonderful visitors who encourage me with comments. I appreciate every supportive word!

Teddy B's house

My bear needed a house in the country,
so here it is. Wonder if Goldilocks is inside?

Watercolor on Canson 140# paper.

Cityscape

Inspired by the work of Paul Madonna of San Francisco (check out his archives of All Over Coffee, an innovative comic), I felt a need to draw tall, thin buildings.

I try never to let reality interfere with my imagery, so don't look for architectural sense here. The colorful one must be Teddy B's townhouse.

First attempt to use the frustratingly water-resistant Moleskine sketchbook with Zig pens and colored w/c pencil, washed. Worked ok.

EDM challenge 6: well-loved toy

My teddy bear had a slightly different muzzle, but like this one, his stuffing got flattened and soft. His skin developed odd creases. A prophesy of aging in all of us.

I knew I was loved when I left Teddy in a motel while on vacation and my parents drove back a full hour to retrieve him for me. I admit, hysterical crying was a factor.

Process: watersoluble ink and watercolor on 90# paper.

Challenges 1, 3, 8: shoes/bags/jewelry

I set up the shoes and bags as a still-life, then added the jewelry drawn in a larger scale. Three more challenges done!

I don't like the blue background (too late now), proportions are a little erratic, and I would have used heavier paper if I'd had a plan for this much water, but hey, it's all "creative license" (plug for Danny Gregory's forthcoming book).

And as Evy says: vandalize your sketchbook . . .

Painting in public

Yesterday I took a little piece of 90# watercolor paper and my favorite Van Gogh paintkit to a local sandwich shop. The table was this orange!

It was handy to siphon out some of my iced tea for brush cleaning between all these bits of color.

Sculpture man

I pulled him out and gave him his own post. Let's call him Troy. He may have a story to tell.

Stream of Imagination

In the EDM group we discussed Tom Judd's style of filling a journal page, so I gave it a try. I started with 2 actual chairs (not very accurate, but speed was part of the point), separated in my usual way, then filled the rest of the space with imagined doodles. Didn't feel natural, outside my box.

For the first time here I tried using a Niji waterbrush as my only brush/water source, plus tech pen and fountain pen with soluble ink. A jumble in all ways, and now I see I dated it wrong. Oh, well.

Second attempt

I started with faces this time, then filled in with (literally) brush cleanings and random doodles. I had absolutely no plan except to fill the page and play with a waterbrush. The guy down in the far-right corner (in tech pen) turned out like the sketch of a sculpture plan.

Haven't a clue what the pig-eared face in the middle is . . . no telling what creatures will emerge during pen cleaning.

Hammock and float

Looking north across Lake Champlain, NY side. That hammock was so comfortable!

View from the cottage

Vacation last week in NY. Flat slabs of rock line the edge of Lake Champlain here. Unforgiving to the bottom of the kayaks and canoes.

Examining the tangled roots

Those teeny words say "rooted in complexity, craving space."

I began with random doodling. Then as I thought of two creative works I enjoyed on vacation last week: Kelly Mark's Letraset drawings at the Montreal Contemporary Art Museum and Karen Armstrong's autobiographical book, The Spiral Staircase, the doodle turned into this view of the jumble hidden under a simple looking sprout.

Technical pen and watercolor on Strathmore drawing paper.