Classical Bust

I've never had instruction in drawing the human head or painting portraits. Well I'll revise that we did learn how to draw the human head in the first 2 weeks of drawing 101 in college, but that was it. Since I've never really had any interest in painting portraits it's a skill I've never developed. But I have this friend Marc who's a teriffic artist and works in the classical style and he says that an artist should be able to draw or paint anything. He's also a cracker jack sculptor and paints in several mediums. Humpf!! Now I have it in my head that I need to slay this dragon!! To that end I bought this faux classical bust at Homegoods for $10.00 a couple of months ago. She will be my uncomplaining model who can stay still for forever while I noodle away at getting eyes and nose and mouth drawn correctly. So this is the first attempt. It took a long time and was hard work! It doesn't really look all that much like the statue LOL I hope next time it's a little easier!! 2H pencil in a Canson 9x12 black hardback sketchbook. The blue is a Pitt brushpen,the blue from the landscape set.

sketching
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portrait

Playing with Gouache

I took some time today to get better acquainted with my Yarka Gouache. The chimnea is handled more like an illustration, flat areas of bold color, with black accent lines. If I ever illustrate a book I think I would choose to do it in gouache. This one was done in the moleskine. The Begonias in the pot a are handled more lik a watercolor and were done in my Lama Li watercolor journal which has handmade 100% rag paper. The strawflowers were approached just like I would an oil painting and was done on multi-media board. The gouache is turning out to be very flexible and a lot of fun!

gouache

Machu Picchu at the Natural History Museum

It was pouring rain today so no plein air painting, but a fabulous day to go to the museum! Unfortunately, everyone else thought so too and it was a little crowded. The museum is the Peabody Museum of Natural History in New Haven CT. I love going on weekends because you can park free in the parking lot of the Yale University Geology Lab which is right next door. The special summer exhibit this year is about Machu Picchu the center of the Inca civilization, in Peru during the 15th century, approximatley the same time as the Aztec civilization in Mexico. When I first arrived I knew I'd have to go to the dinosaur hall and sketch one of those behemoths first LOL! Today I chose the stegosauraus. The hall was crowded especially with kids and more than a few little ones bawled in fright when they encountered the T-Rex head and the Dinonicus, making it hard for me to concentrate. So I left for Machu Picchu. The exhibit began with a short 7 min. informative film. Machu Picchu was discovered by a Yale expedition in 1912 led by a man named Blanchard. (Ok, I didn't write any of this down and I hope I got that all straight!!) The figures were part of a diarama, there was a lot of ceramic work and stone carvings. The most interesting part was the display that showed how they moulded the skulls of their infants into different shapes, presumably to identify the person as belonging to a certain clan or social status. Now the technical details...the steggie and the figures were done with uniball vision pen and Yarka Watercolor with Aquaflow brushes, the kind that hold water in the handle, very convienient. I was able to sit in the dinosaur hall but not in Machu Picchu. So for the rest I switched to Faber-Castell Pitt Artsist Brush Pens. I love these things! They are quickly becoming my favorite when I can't juggle the watercolors and moleskine at once. I only have the landscape set(6 colors) but when I got home a Cheap Joe's Art Stuff sale flyer was waiting in my mailbox to announce that Faber-Castell is making 24 new colors and the NEW 48 color set is on sale for a one time only price of 69.99....I am soooooo tempted! I like these pens because it's like I'm painting. They cover in broad strokes very quickly creating a solid area of color not lines. They blend and mix when you layer and dry instantly. They're extremely lightfast and waterproof meaning that I could also combine them with watercolor if I wanted too. The only weird part of the day was that I had the distinct impression that people pretended to be looking at the exhibits but they were really peering over my shoulder! That was just creepy LOL When I paint outdoors people always come up and chat, which I usually enjoy. It seems that when you set up an easel you really go public and people feel free to come over. Sketching though seems to be a more personal, private affair and I don't think people feel comfortable saying anything, but their curiosity gets the better of them and they just have to sneak a peek LOL! It's always an adventure out there!! (little angel on my shoulder waving a credit card says I don't really need anymore pens, and can make due with what I have, plus who's going to lug 48 pens around?...oh but the little imp on the other side is waving all those beautiful colored pens around and telling me that I can select just the colors I think I will need for where I'll be sketching and they're not that heavy anyway, a lot lighter in fact than the French Easel I tote around.......)

sketching
drawing
art
pen & ink
watercolor
moleskine
stegosaurous
machu picchu
Incas
peabody museum of natural history

Yarka Gouache

Today I tried out my new set of Yarka Gouache (rhymes with squash!). Gouache are water based paints and can loosley be described as opaque watercolors. They have intense color, dry matt, dry quickly and have good coverage and blending ability. They also "take" on the moleskine paper better than watercolor. These were awefully fun as they are very creamy and feel nice as you push the piant around with your brush. I have some reservations with the lightfastness of the colors, but I'm not concerned about that aspect for sketchbook work. I'll be doing several more gouache sketches to really get a good feel for them, so check back soon!

moleskine
painting
gouache

Lobster and American History

Today was my daughter's birthday! I dragged the poor thing to an art sale I was participating in to raise funds for three historic homes that are now museums. I painted in the colonial revival garden it was BEAUTIFUL!!. You can see that painting and read all about the fascinating history of the homes on my painting blog Art & Life. The sketch with the buildings is the back of one of the homes, the Webb House and part of the gardens. Since it was my daughters birthday I took her to a nearby Red Lobster restaurant for a birthday lunch of lobster tails!! The Webb House sketch was done with my new Faber-Castell India Ink brush pens, the landscape set, with the addition of a few Sarassa gel pens. Interestingly enough if I go over the gell pen with the Faber-Castell, the gel pen kind of liquifies and makes a wash of sorts. A very nice effect for blending and getting more colors. The Lobster and Pina Colada are uniball vision and Yarka watercolor. All in the large moleskine.

sketching
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moleskine
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Gardening Day

A perfect day....gardening and sketching!! Lots of fun! Uniball vision pen, w/ Yarka watercolors in the moleskine(large). I have a little trouble with the Yarkas sticking to the opposite page when I close the book. I've remedied that by spraying the pages lightly with Krylon clear matt acrylic spray. Only problem is when I'm out and about sketching. I don't want to drag along a can of spray. I'm thinking that I might be able to bring a small jar of acrylic varnish and brush that on.

sketching
drawing
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moleskine
watercolor

Hammonasset State Park

I bet you thought I'd given up sketching!! NOT! It's just that we've had such rainy, dreary weather for so long I haven't been able to get out and I wasn't motivated to sketch indoors. Today we finally had sunshine and I made the most of it painting and sketching all afternoon. These are all done at a local state park, one of my favoriten places to go. All in the large moleskine, with uniball vision pen and Yarka watercolors. You can check out the painting I did today at Art & Life my plein air blog.

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plein air

Formal Gardens at Eolia

Today I went to Harkness State Park, which includes Eolia, the Harkness mansion and several formal gardens. What a treat!! The weather wasn't really great, it was overcast and sprinkled lightly now and then but this place was beautiful none the less. Edward and Mary Harkness inherited a huge fortune from Edward's father who was a silent partner of John D. Rockefeller in the Standard Oil Corporation. Eolia is a 42 room Italianate mansion over looking Long Island Sound. It was one of their seven homes, and named after the island home of the Greek god of the winds Aeolus. Eolia was also once a working farm that included a prize herd of Guernsey cows, and an orchard and greenhouses. The west (Italian) garden's layout and paths were designed by James Gamble Rogers' firm and between 1918 and 1929 Beatrix Farrand, niece of novelist Edith Wharton, and one of the original founders of the American Society of Landscape Architects, designed new plantings for the Italian garden. She also designed the east (Oriental) garden and the boxwood parterre and the Alpine Rock Garden. The Rock garden was really fabulous!! We toured the mansion and wandered all around the grounds and had a marvelous time despite the gray day. The views were stunning everywhere you turned. I had hoped to paint there today but though it was a better use of time on a gray day to explore, sketch and take photos so that when I go back on a sunny day I have a better idea of what I'd like to paint.

sketching
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moleskine
gardens
watercolor

June 1st in the Garden

It was perfect day for sketching in the garden! I took almost the whole day to look, draw,paint and just enjoy being in the garden on a perfect day. The peonies are in full bloom and are so frilly and voluptuous!! The iris come in a close second! The page with the color swatches was an exercise in color mixing. I sat in the shade and looked out into the garden and picked a color an then tried to match it as nearly as I could. So those are some of the colors I saw in the garden today. On the opposite page I wrote about the day...

"An exqusite day! The fog and mist of the morning has burned off. The sun is glowing and warm, a slight breeze cools things. The peonies, iris, roses, salvia, geraniums are all in full bloom. The air is still and warm...bird song~ cardinal, mourning dove, wren, chickadee, even the crow sounds beautiful today. Inchworms swing in the breeze on their silky cords, the bees romance the flowers, butterflies linger onver nectar, the dog lies in the shade. There is a sweet stillness to this long, slow moment. Right now everything is as it should be on June 1st."

All of these sketches are done with uniball vision pen (black) yarka watercolors (10 pan set) in the large moleskine.

To see more of the garden visit my Flower-a-Day project at Art&Life.

sketching
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watercolor
flowers
garden
moleskine