gazebo, pansies and geraniums

Been real busy of late....work around the house, in the garden, plein air painting...but always time for few sketches. I'm about 1/2 way through my new moleskine, so I bought another large and and I'm going to try out the small size. It was so cute I couldn't resist!!

Ok...here are the details: the double spread of geraniums, the gazebo and pansies, are uniball vision pen w/yarka watercolors. These are semi-moist pan watercolors and if you don't water them down too much they don't bead up on the moleskine paper. The geraniums at dusk are ebony design pencil and aquamonolith colored pencils.

Dress Rehersal

Tonight my daughter had a dress rehersal for her dance recital. It was very challenging trying to capture all those very excited little girls dancing and wiggling about. I quickly found out that I couldn't draw quick enough to get even gesture drawings of the girls doing tap or hip hop but the ballet classes weren't too bad especially the older girls who hold their poses longer. I didn't draw my daughter who had a solo performance I was too busy watching!

Moleskine, uniball vision pen, yarka watercolors.

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Man at The Orthodontist and Iris

Man at the Orthodontist, sounds like it could be the title of a Hitchcock movie LOL! I'm not very confident when it comes to sketching people, and though it's a bit nerve wracking I'm going to continue doing them IN PEN, so I don't get timid with the pencil and keep erasing over and over to get it right...just do lots and lots of people sketches in pen until I see improvement. The iris is the first one blooming in my garden this year. You can see an oil painting of this iris at Art&Life, click the link in the sidebar.

Uniball Vision pen, Yarka watercolors in the moleskine.

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iris

Oliver's Tavern

Had a fun lunch with my daughter at Oliver's Tavern we were both sketching away and enjoying some huge burgers LOL.

Uniball Vision pen in the moleskine.


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Gnome

Classic American Kitsch! When I was a kid our neighbors had a meticulously manicured yard and garden that was populated by an entire clan of garden gnomes LOL! My imagination ran wild, it was like a fantasy, fairytale land where anything was possible. I guess I've never lost that, being a big Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, Narnia fan as an adult. However, I drew the line when it came to my garden...no gnomes! I do have lots of garden statuary, enough so that sometimes I wonder whether I have a garden with sculpture or a sculpture garden with flowers LOL! Anyway this year I decided what the heck....partly due to that ridiculously funny Travelocity commercial. So one of my kids got me garden gnome for Mother's Day! Well there goes the neighborhood LOL!!

Derwent 2H graphite pencil, aquamonolith colored pencils in the moleskine.

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Flowers and more Flowers

All these flowers were used as part of my Flower-a-Day painting project. Since they were all still lovely and fresh I decided to put them in the moleskine too. The flowers in the glass were done with my wonderful set of Sarasa gel pens + a little colored pencil, and the lilacs were done with a sepia micron 05 pen + colored pencil. I really love this about sketching the many different materials available and how easy it is to combine them and switch back and forth.

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Waiting in the Doctor's Offfice

What do you do while waiting in the Doctor's office??? Sketch in you moleskine of course!!
My seat was directly across from the bathroom and I could see myself in the mirror...so I guess that's self-portrait of sorts LOL.

uniball vision pen

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Apple Blossoms

Gotta draw'em before they're gone! And after all the rain this week there won't be any left when the sun finally comes out again.

In the moleskine w/ uniball vision pen

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A Rainy Day in the Garden

Looking down on the garden from an upstairs window. It was a grey, rainy, misty day today. Looking forward to the weeks to come when the garden bursts into color!

Derwent venetian red pencil, several aquamonolith sticks, Derwent Graphitone 4b, uniball vision pen and a brush w/H2O.
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Doing the Bunny Hop

I've already told you that animals don't like to be stared at particularly animals that are stared at and eaten by predators in the wild Such would be Rosie's lot if she weren't a house rabbit!! I went down to sketch her just as she was finishing her afternoon snack of early first cut western timothy hay (this we have delivered in 25 lb boxes ) Then it was time for her to wash up. You may not know this but rabbits groom themselves just like cats do and Rosie is a particularly tidy bunny, so she was twisting and turning in the oddest contortions making sure she her fur was immaculte. Three pages of sketches in the canson 9x12 hardback sketchbook, cream colored paper, uniball vision pen and waltnut ink w/brush.


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Forsyethia

Trying to keep up with the daily walk and sketch. This is done in the moleskine with walnut ink and a crow quill pen, the old fashioned kind you actually dip into the bottle of ink. Also, aquamonolith watercolor sticks and a brush and water.

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moleskine sketchbook