Colorful profile

I was in a dull meeting last night, so drew this woman and then, later at home, gave her vibrant colors. My little rebellion against mandatory staff meetings.

The blobby ballpoint and w/c pencils on Aquabee paper.

cat and cushion

In contrast to the precision of knitting, I needed to do a loose, fast sketch. I have a ballpoint that creates a mess of blobs and slow-drying line, so used that to imply nubby fabric.

I was holding the pen and brush like a knitting needle, just to see what came out. Feels out of control, a nice balance to neat rows of stitches. Done on Aquabee Super Deluxe paper.

Color in another form

Where my creative energy has been the last couple weeks: moving color around with needles instead of a brush.

I'm learning to felt and how to make socks. There are many different construction elements and I'm trying all of them with different needle types and techniques. I finished my first pair and gave them to a friend when they were too big for me. These 3 *may* fit right.

The bigger blue/purple bowl is my first experiment with felting a project. The smaller blue/purple bowl is how the knitting looks before felting. The fabric gets solid and loses stitch definition with hot water and agitation.

Sketching is continuing, but right now I'm enthralled with yarn in this cold weather. (It's snowing right now.)

soaking in color

Lately, since the rooster, drawing is just an excuse to play with colors.

Background done in w/c on Moleskine. Pottery added for focal interest.

Catching the cat

He was sitting beside me on the sofa, so I spontaneously grabbed a pen and paper to catch this angle of his head. Then I added imagined color. My sofa isn't brilliant green!

Brush pen and w/c on Stonehenge paper.

Standing profile

See post below to know what the "standing" means. Same process and supplies, only the person is imaginary.

And the shadows are wrong, but I wasn't paying attention to that. Making the lines was hard enough, using a #20 w/c brush.

I remember the days of having blue-haired people live here, though. I was an enabler of colorful teen hair.

Standing hand

I'm back to drawing while standing up, using a brush only. In this case, I just held my left hand out and quickly put the shape down with my right.

It's overworked where I put in shading while everything was still wet, (and my broken little finger IS that bent) but I'm getting better control of the paint and brush in this unsupported stance.

Arches 140# paper and paint, and a huge #20 brush. Simple . . . is difficult!

I've not been posting my larger abstract paintings. They don't fit on the scanner.

He escaped the wall

A fast, interpretive drawing of the rooster carving, then I set him free on a hillside with some loose washes. Dripping paint onto wet paper is freeing, indeed.

140# hot press paper with a teense of pen and a flood of w/c.

Local sculpture

While some EDM members were sketchcrawling in the Ruben Museum, I stood outside for five minutes and did my gas meter with snow shovel.

Holding the paper while standing in the cold leads to erratic lines, but it's an authentic New Hampshire sculptural sight/site.

Experimenting with hot press w/c paper--I like it! Paint added later, inside where I could do a bit of layering.

Oak Rooster

I've been prepainting backgrounds; now I'm looking for things to draw on top. This is a large honey oak rooster wallpiece carved by a friend's father.

I walk past it dozens of times a day and just now thought to draw it. What a gap in my drawing awareness! Now I'm excited at the idea of doing several versions.

Another long phone call

I was stuck on the phone listening to corporate filler-music and apologies, so filled my time with this.

Holding the phone to my ear, I did this one-handed with a Palomino HB (very soft) on toothy paper--a bit smeared and blurred, but art any way/how is better than losing the time to frustration. The eventual answerer thanked me for my patience--I credit drawing for that!