Cats and Horses - Changed Plans

 Kitten Kyra ATC colored pencils on paper

Horses page, large Moleskine watercolor journal, coffee and watercolor

Well, plans change! Sorry I haven't been posting. I have barely been online since I moved on December 18th, 2015. Running aronnd offline traveling across the continent and then getting all my stuff sorted out meant very little online time.

My original plan was to stay in my daughter's house for a few days, at least till after Christmas, then rent a house at the amazing low rate of $200 a month and live comfortably on my disability payments, reduced by local cost of living adjustment. That budget does work in my favor, because the California increase was not adequate to the real costs of living in San Francisco. My budget here would have been better even in the house with all the bills. I used the last California-sized check to buy furniture for the house.

Then the owner decided not to move to New Mexico after all. Meanwhile I'd been out to the house and daunted by the fact that the driveway had a gate in it down a long rutted country lane that I could not walk that far on a good day to let in a guest, plus they'd have to phone me to get me out there to do so. Forget picking up mail, there wasn't even a mail box. Just some more lane going past a single neighbor's house that opened onto a real road right next to the post office. The people who live there do a lot of hiking.

I do not. I would need to use my power chair to go that far if it was paved, which it wasn't. I'd also need it to get from one end of the way too large house to the other and be heating or cooling enough house for half a dozen people on one disability check when I'm too sick to handle either extreme cold or heat. It would be a wonderful deal for a spry, healthy person who likes hiking and has a strong constitution for weather, plus a car. For a can't drive mobility impaired guy it would have created total dependence on my daughter every single day for everything and if anything went wrong, having to go out in Weather to get a cell phone signal. It was a nice house, but I could not live there anyway. There was no way to tell till I got here. 

So I moved into my daughter's house. I've been doing horse drawings and occasional chickens since I arrived. Yesterday we finished the massive task of unpacking everything in the stuff from the horse trailer and getting it sorted into the shed, the house or the attic. Some things I'm just sharing with the family. My five glass vases are up safely out of cat range with her glass pitchers and vases, seen and not wrecked in the kitchen. Kitchen stuff is stored or shared. Clothes in a tub tucked out of the way.

Art supplies amazingly mostly came inside after everything was said and done. I've got a few things out in the shed but all oils and acrylics are in here, all stored art is in the attic with framed pictures, almost all pastels, colored pencils and oil pastels are in here with me. I'm pretty sure all watercolors are too. There's stuff stored in the attic that I was planning on unpacking over at the rental house, but that's all staying in the attic. Anything that cold or heat would permanently damage is inside. 

I'm not sure if the spray fixative cans survived being out in the cold. One can of fixative that got left by a friend in a car after an art meeting during a Kansas winter became unusably cloudy after the freezing and thawing, but if they are, I can replace them. I should check them before I place my next Blick order. Pretty sure the Spectrafix doesn't work that way, but will find out. Everything else came through pretty well. There were a lot of things far more expensive than fixative cans that I was worried about cold, heat and moisture damaging that came through all right. Some papers and books seemed slightly damp but nothing got too warped and it'll flatten as it dries.

From several days before the move till now I've been overdoing it, on my feet too long doing too much every day. I can finally rest. Will get back to blogging regularly from here on out, back to daily as soon as I can. Now that I'm all in one place I can start working on having a set of habits again!

The posted art - little Kyra is Ari's new friend, a several months old kitten found and rescued at the rental house. Best thing about the rental house thing was finding Bumble Kitten. Ari cat loves her and he plays with her often. Colored pencils on paper. The horses are from life from riding along on my daughter's horse riding trips. I finally got coffee dark enough to give me a good mid value by using boiled down coffee that got left on the coffee maker too long! It's probably even darker now that it's evaporated for some days. Loved coffee paintings but had never successfully gotten dark ones done before!

Pear and Paint Page pen and watercolor

Pear and Paint Page

7" square pen and watercolor

This is the facing page next to Bird and Pen Page, showing the tools I used except for painting the Niji round waterbrush I used for all the painting.

That irregular pear, more ovoid than pear shaped, turned up in my lunch. I love the way it looks and may turn it to sketch it again. It's a bit lopsided and crooked, the less perfect fruits are always the most interesting to paint! It also has a lovely color, a rosy side that's also the flatter side.

Then to fill the page I sketched my porcelain palette set up with a spectrum of American Journey Ultramarine (purple cast blue), Alizarin Crimson (quinacridone) and Joe's Yellow which is about a Cadmium Yellow Medium hue for actual color. Way too orange cast for my taste, the greens all come out olive or grayish. The center has palette mud brown-gray, which I throw bits of primary colors into to balance it more brownish or grayish.

Right now having tested the paints I'm trying to use them up and also come up with the right illustrations to write up the brand. The yellow really is quite a lot like a cadmium because it's also leaning opaque. I tend to prefer more transparent yellows. But that's okay. I may add to the triad later since this brand is reasonably priced and good quality, artist grade, just really needs a lemon yellow and a pthalo blue and maybe either a bright orange or a warm red.

Small Bird and Pen Sketch

Small Bird and Pen Sketch

7" square

A little self referential, but today's art I finished the page with the small bird from yesterday. Date is wrong under the signature, I actually sketched and painted this last night, then did the pen today. I penciled first carefully and then inked it with the Pentel Pocket Brush Pen. Got a fairly smooth line and was very happy with how easily it fills large black areas. The photo faded out slightly but in person the blacks are very solid, not washed out at all.

Day 12 30 in 30 Challenge, Ari Cat Bathing

Day 12: Ari Cat Bathing, ATC size

Pentel Pocket Brush Pen on Stillman & Birn Beta paper

Love my stash of the great 180lb white rough Beta paper. I can do anything I want on it - and as you can see, its rough texture still allows fine expressive penwork and yet I can do good pastels or dry brush watercolor textures.

He posed and I sketched rapidly in pencil before he moved. His first pose was even better but he moved his far leg down before I could pick up the pencil. Then he shifted position a bit but was still close enough that I could ink and get the direction of his fur with those loose thick and thin strokes.

The longer I practice with the Pentel Pocket Brush Pen, the more expressive it is. For artists who like doing Japanese kanji or Chinese calligraphy, this pen is a fountain pen with a genuine brush tip, a small round with a very tiny, tight point for small marks. Writing with it in English is tricky with its pressure sensitivity. I had no idea how much I bear down on certain marks while signing my initials!

Still to come, I have a nice triad of American Journey watercolors that I got on sale and will enjoy painting with, see how well they handle and blend. Good primary color choices should give me a full range with it. Especially Ultramarine. I can stand knocking back greens a touch but I like getting a good strong purple and a cold red with Ultramarine and a bright yellow is a favorite combination.

Rose in Rose

Rose in W&N Watercolour Marker

photo reference by KreativeK on WetCanvas

Couldn't resist the title Rose in Rose even if it's actually in Alizarin Crimson Hue. It looks a lot like Permanent Rose to me. Blue shading in Pthalo Blue Red Shade and foliage in Hunter Green, which is more blue cast than the Sap Green marker and washes out beautifully. Lovely deep value range too. 

I got two new markers in my latest supply package along with some frames and yesterday's crayons, so this is very cool. There are a couple of cat references in the same challenge so I might have a go at doing them in markers or in gouache since I replaced my Pelikan Opaque Watercolor set too.

Ari Cat from Life day 16 of 30 in 30

Bedhead! Ari from life

W&N watercolour markers on Moleskine WC journal

After three days so sick I couldn't manage a thumbnail sketch, I headed right into my comfort zone. If I get a couple of good days I still might catch up and have 30 paintings in 30 days. I won't give up till the last day. But today I'm accepting the possibility that it may not be a full win, just a lot of good paintings and more than if I hadn't signed up for it. 

It'd be nice if I could get in a second one today but I won't feel bad if I don't.

Ari cat really is that long when he decides to stretch out as long as possible and as flat as possible. He's not fat, he's just going on 15 years old and has loose skin. If I got down on the floor to get a look at him from the side with my camera, you'd see how flat he was. Maybe 2" thick across the whole and a lot of that is fur. Cats are very strange in their build. The way to tell if a cat's fat is to look down at it or look at it from behind. A healthy one is fairly narrow across. A fat cat will have a bulge in the middle and a wide rear end. Not turn into a carpet with cat parts sticking out at the edges.

These markers are a delight and every time I paint with them I'm getting stronger at exactly what kinds of marks wash out best. The process is different but the results are wonderful and most of all fast! I love being able to paint that swift with confidence and get a good result. If I don't like it I can do it again, that's how I feel about the markers. Go through more paper and don't fuss over getting it perfect. My cat didn't groom himself before posing either.

EDIT: Catching up!

Three Ari Cat Studies

9" x 12" charcoal and white charcoal pencils on Bogus paper.

I suppose I could have photographed each of these separately and been caught up, but I like it as a page of cat studies for my wall. That's where it's hanging now. I have space to hang more on my sketch walls because I removed two pictorial 2014 calendars, left me at least four art spaces - now it looks like five really because I could hang a canvas from the nail the calendar hung on. Might try something in acrylics or oil sticks on a canvas, since I have half a dozen small stretched canvases. Heh, neat, I don't need to change the keywords. Still the same cat!

SECOND EDIT: 10pm

Coral Painting, 5" x 7"

W&N Watercolour Markers on Bockingford paper

Relaxing with an undersea documentary, I realized these flat top coral formations would be perfect for a monochrome composition. I didn't follow the screen closely, only used it for a general sense of their overlapping shapes and relative proportions. Designed this painting almost as an abstraction and I'm very happy with how it came out. This particular Prussian Blue Hue with its deep value range is a wonderful monochrome color. I don't think I'd ever tire of it.

Now I only have to catch up with one more painting, but I can't add another link to Leslie Saeta's blog so I'll have to try that tomorrow, see if I can put more than one painting into a single upload.

Tulips in Pastel

Tulips in Pastel

8 1/2" x 11"

Quick study of two tulips from a photo reference by DAK723 on WetCanvas.com - it's one of the featured photos from the December Spotlight challenge. I used the student grade Mungyo half sticks set of 64 on the Target drawing book that came in my Christmas box. Not the most high end supplies but as a test of these student pastels it was great.

They have a good texture and I can have fun with them on ordinary drawing paper. This isn't even pastel paper, just normal vellum surface but it held about three or four layers, that's not bad. I could easily work up from this to something better of course.

Breaking Art Block with Crayons

Roses in Crayon on Paper

photo reference by Ronnier at WetCanvas

This month I've been in the artistic doldrums. I spent November writing a novel and a half, got all wound up in Writing Mode and couldn't stop after the month was over. So I was writing sequels to the silly backstory tripe thing I finished Nanowrimo with, essentially fan fiction on some previous novels.

I did one new painting on the 3d with my Winsor & Newton Watercolour Markers, the Trilobites one:

Trilobites in W&N Watercolour Marker

And then nothing till today. This morning the Salvation Army delivered an enormous Christmas box filled with donated presents from my wish list. A gorgeous deep purple velvetish throw blanket, a huge warm deep purple bath towel, a black hoodie, a couple of books - and a letter size acid free sketchbook with medium weight drawing paper plus a Kids' Art Set:

100 piece Kids Art Set

These are anything but artist grade light fast mediums. Crayons, colored pencils, little short markers, cheap oil pastels... but something about it broke the block to smithereens. 

They didn't have these kits when I was a kid. There were watercolor sets and most of those pretty small with 8 colors and a horrible blunt brush (those haven't changed, the horrible blunt brush in this kit will be ignored in favor of a waterbrush for convenience), and boxes of crayons, little packs of colored pencils. That was about it. Not these saturated spectrum colors either. Let alone laid out intense against black to make you want to paint with them.

The ranges are a bit different. Hot Pink never made it into the lineup unless you got the big box of crayons when I was a kid, or the huge watercolor set. Magenta didn't either. Mixing purple was hard back then when your red was always a red-orange and blue was green cast. You'd get gray with "red and blue make purple."

But seeing that, thinking of the people who put together that great gift, I just cut loose and relaxed. I sketched the roses and took the complementary colors challenge of doing them just in red and green. Bang, down went the block. I can now relax and get back to daily painting. That's a lot of sketch pages. I've used about one and a half now. On teh following page is something that's my own holiday present for my readers everywhere:

Ari Cat Coloring Page

pen on paper

The cartoon coloring pad had hippo, elephant, dog, horse, snake... circus animals and pets. But no cat. Not even a lion or tiger for the circus. So I had to try the little short marker pen and fill the gap. Enjoy the Ari Cat Coloring Page. His real points are black mask, brown-beige body, smoke-brown paws and tail. But you can color him any colors you like, why not a purple and yellow Siamese with orange eyes? Or a brown eyed blue-point Siamese? Have fun!

And yes, for the record, I usually do open presents on Solstice Eve. Tomorrow is the Solstice, tonight or tomorrow night is The Longest Night of 2014... after this days will start creeping longer, the quiet soggy march toward spring begin and San Francisco is thirstily drinking up a lot of good rain after a parched summer. It's rained day after day here and we sure needed that.

Purring at you! Hope to post more soon!

Rain Clouds over San Francisco Hill

Rain Clouds over Hill

5" x 7"

Winsor & Newton Watercolour Marker, Ivory Black on

W&N Bockingford 140lb Not surface watercolour paper

I already reviewed the paper on Rob's Art Supply Reviews blog. But I had to post this here as well.

Some paintings don't get planned. This wasn't intended to be a good painting. I was on the Paratransit van going to my twice a month clinic visit and at the top of a very tall hill, saw dark rain clouds stop just short of a cluster of trees on top of a far hill which had no houses or anything on it. That took my breath away.

I scrambled to get a photo but the camera showed only white sky, the clouds I wanted the photo for were invisible. So I decided, heck with that. I'll sketch it. Chose the black W&N Watercolour Marker and sketched rapidly at a stop light, then swished my wet Niji waterbrush around scrubbing out the sky marks as thoroughly as possible, then swiped across the hills once each and jiggled it.

I wasn't even thinking. This painted itself. I knew what to do and just tried to get the effect. In under two minutes I stared at it and even wet, I knew. I even said "Stop now" or something like that. I had the moment's recognition that kept me from ruining it. 

This was the time the paint did the work. 

There are effects in this little monochrome painting that I've tried for years to get. They came naturally. I didn't think about it while I was painting. I told my nurse, who's fond of my art, that this one painted itself. It actually did, in under two minutes. Mind and heart and hand and eye were one, it happened on that nonverbal right side of my brain at the pace watercolor needs to happen for some of that kind of effect to happen. If I'd stopped to plan it I would have ruined it.

So this is something for anyone who struggles with watercolor to keep in mind. Keep striving. Keep learning. Keep wasting paper on paintings you hate and duds, keep turning them into pastel underpaintings or store them to see how much better you are a year later - always a good idea. The day does come when the things you learned move out of the right brain into the left, when the tools are at your hand and it's your fingers that know how to use them.

It was my favorite brush this happened with. The lazy easy one. Whether you lean toward flat brushes and blocky, painterly strokes or round brushes and thick-thin calligraphic strokes, there will come a time you can feel your favorite brush and give it exactly the right pressure and wetness, respond in the moment to what's there and let the watercolor guide the process. 

It is a lot of fun, like getting stoned on painting.

It does come, no matter how frustrating its long learning curve is. Usually when trying to do something else and not thinking about it. Watercolor and zen, go together a bit like paint and brushes, right?

Last tip - using good supplies increases your chance of the happy day. Cheap paint on cheap paper sometimes cockles and puddles, is too absorbent or not absorbent enough, gives you problems that mingle with lack of experience to cause disasters. Students learning watercolor are better off getting a triad of good artist grade paint like the Winsor & Newton Permanent Rose, Lemon Yellow and French Ultramarine, or Daniel Smith's Primary Triad set, than trying to get good effects with lesser paint.

Likewise, good paper 140lb or heavier that's adequately sized can make it easier to get those effects. Bockingford is the medium quality Winsor & Newton paper, their Artists' all rag paper is even better but this stuff performed uch better than most and my Stillman & Birn journals also perform brilliantly. Arches and Fabriano Artistico are great too. They each have character and as you try different papers you'll find their strengths and the way they affect your style. 

I don't soak and stretch my watercolor paper because my disabilities and small living space make that completely impractical. I would have to go down to the bath chamber (not latrine) in the hall, then staple it to a big wooden board or clamp it into a stretcher and bring the dripping thing back to my little room. This would throw my back with the carrying and bending and walking, so I wouldn't feel much like painting afterward. 

I like working with the gelatin sizing still in the paper. Other artists prefer stretched paper as it becomes more absorbent. I don't much care for unwanted soft edges in detail areas and like wet-and-dry effects like this, so my style is affected by my body the way it is in all mediums. Those who prefer stretching say it gets more absorbent, but I like paper to give me good sharp details when I want them and dislike that sense of working on a blotter that some papers give. Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

Do it your way. If I did ever stretch I'd get one of the clamp stretchers though. They seem a lot easier than tape and staples and all. I don't have the patience to wreck my back doing that and not get to use it that way. Nature didn't design me to do a lot of heavy preliminary work like stretching my own canvases either or grinding my own pigments.

What I learned from that applies to busy people too. Make it easy on yourself and you'll paint more often, thus learn faster. Years of practice with brush tip pens sketching just to record this or that or taking notes in art classes with brush tip sketches helped lead to this day too. 

I'm still that happy to get to this point. Purring loudly.

More Winsor Newton Marker Sketches

Winsor & Newton Watercolour Marker Sketches

Ari cat, white daisy, pears with oranges and persimmon group

Stillman & Birn Zeta journal smooth watercolor paper, 7" square

All those sketches are from life, two from yesterday and one from today. I wanted to test the markers for color studies, for combinations with Niji water brush, for various techniques. I made this page for my review of these markers which I'll post on my other blog, Rob's Art Supply Reviews. Link is on the sidebar.

Novel is still slow, I'm only at 20,000 words or so and should be at 30,000 or so to win on time. But it's a good one, it just takes more rumination than I expected. Might get some work in on it today. Weather is severely slowing me down again just like last year.

Monochrome Blue Skyscape

Monochrome Blue Skyscape

Winsor & Newton Watercolour Marker, Prussian Blue Hue

Stillman & Birn Zeta journal 7" square

The other half of this month's new art supplies arrived and so I could not resist at least getting in a test sketch. These markers are everything I hoped they'd be - artist grade watercolor in a marker form for quick sketching and underpainting. Watersoluble, they can be pulled out into midtones and light values with a wet brush or in this case a waterbrush for fast pen and wash studies.

So I goofed around with a familiar subject, imaginary clouds and ways of rendering them in pen. It worked. The loose lines and soft washes worked together and the Prussian Blue Hue has such a great long value range that I'll have no trouble getting darks either in watercolor painting or pen-wash or underpainting pastel field sketches.

I'll be reviewing the Travel Set in my Art Supplies Review blog soon, watch for more details about the product and how it handles. I may do some more tests but as an example sketch, this really worked! I did something I've wanted to do in pen-wash for the longest time - got the sky gradient in, even if exaggerated!

Yesterday's Cat Gesture Sketch

Ari cat from life

Pigma Micron brush pen

Accordion fold pocket Moleskine

I love that pocket Moleskine for quick pen sketches whether I bring it with me somewhere or just keep it nearby for days when I don't feel up to painting or serious drawing. It's small, handy and interesting. When I stretch out the pages I can see a lot of my sketches together all at once and get an idea of where I was at, what I was doing, whether they improve.

I still usually default to poses where he's standing still. If I'm up to something more difficult like capturing a moving pose mostly from memory, I'm probably going to draw or paint a more different subject in a different journal or something. It's on my mind though, I still want to sketch him clawing his carpet scrap or walking to his food bowl or scampering like a kitten while I dangle the furry snake on a wand - that's almost like a tail, like cats pouncing on each others' tails. I think that's why he likes it so much.

But some days I'm either doing something else or get sick. As we head deeper into fall toward winter, there will be days I'm not up to painting. 

November is NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month. I have participated every year since 2000 and optimistically already preordered a Winner t-shirt because all but 2002 I succeeded in writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. Some years I wrote a lot more than that. One year I did almost half a million words in seven novels and the last was nearly finished, took a couple more days to finish the final extra one. It's fun. It's my annual noveling harvest. 

So I am shifting from Art Mode into Writing Mode. November is when Daily Art takes second priority over Daily Writing. Some days I don't manage it. That happens with anything. In all those years I have yet to get progress on every single day of November, but I almost always win. 2002 I didn't start till the 25th and still got respectably past the halfway mark. 

So maybe this year I'll win early and get past that and paint more. Or settle into a comfortable chapter a day pace and do both art and writing on the same day - high goal is to maintain this blog and work on the book consistently. Not that I'll get it but I may get closer to it than usual.

Anything can interrupt but disability is the real reason behind that. I can count on doing one thing in a day and this sketch from the 28th is an example of the most I can do on a bad day. In fact it's better than a worst day because I managed to get that in. 

When I get to the end of the long folded sketch page, I'll turn it over and work back the other direction. It's working out well. Gives me a sense of what I like to sketch from life or photos. I'll finish this page sometime, maybe today, maybe tomorrow or the next day. Probably post the whole page when I do.

So wish me luck on my noveling adventure! I will be back to "daily art has priority" in December. 

Meanwhile, new art supplies are in the offing. I have the happy choice of three affordable art treats. Two out of three would leave my budget completely reasonable with no doing without treats. All three would take a very minor tightening my belt over it. May well be worth it since each of them is very likely to improve my productivity.

Though the two things that most boosted the amount of painting I do is a boost when I got 120 Unison Half Sticks and again at getting 60 Rembrandt Half Sticks.

120 Unisons gave me a visual incentive to use my pastels. It worked directly getting me to set up and use the big set to have all the colors I need right at hand, more than any other set. I put it into the aluminum case that came with my 72 Professional (just general assortment) set on sale and slid the cardboard lid under the tray so the pastels are visible unless I move. For taking it out of the house I'd put the cardboard lid back on. But seeing this across the room made me want to paint, a lot of times I looked at it and picked up a smaller set next to me.

Unisons 120 half sticks

That can be inspirational! Even if your pastels are mixed brands organized in a different box, putting something clear over the tray will give you the sight of all those colors in spectrum array. A colored pencils artist with a studio rack organized by hue and value gets the same effect. Seeing the spectrum with tints and shades and neutrals organized creates an urge to use those tools. 

It'll also tell everyone that comes over that you're an artist, if all the art on the walls doesn't. 

The effect of the 60 Rembrandt half sticks was just as profound and that's more disability related. I wanted 120 half sticks but they were sold out of that new item. I decided half that would make a good plein air set because I've been frustrated at not having the right pastels in an easy form to use when I go out. So I bought it specifically to use on my twice a month trips to the clinic and hour painting in the clinic garden.

Only to find that what works for plein air also works for days when my back won't let me get up. If it's in reach I will use it. After months of Unisons across the room inspiring me to use hard pastels in reach, I had pastels in reach that size. Finally I got a little folding table that holds the larger Unisons set in reach, so I'm actually much better set up for pasteling.

Moving 5 Tints and 5 Deep Darks and a Painters 10 assortment in Pan Pastels put those in reach of my limited space and I used Pan Pastels more too. For that my pastel journal is awesome - good paper, sanded if I want to prime it but good if I don't have the energy to prime and so far going very well.

I was doing several pastel paintings a year, at best one or two a month on the Spotlight challenge when active on WetCanvas. Now all of a sudden the logistic is solved and my supplies are in reach, easy to use along with reasonably lap sized pieces of paper and pads. I bought full sheets of Uart paper and cut them down to 9 x 12" or 12" squares depending on shape in 3 grits - 500, 600 and 700 or 800, the finer grits. I like them all but working small it's better to have a finer grit. With more than one piece in those grits I started using them.

Staying stocked up on needed supplies like paper and getting tools that fit my real situation more than my daydreams helps a lot. 9 out of 10 times my obsession with plein air supplies is that they are marginal day supplies. If I can't get outside, I can still go there in memory and paint it.

I'll post again if I paint today. This may be another cat sketch or a good painting. I won't know till it's done. Might just be a writing day as November draws nearer.

Edit on the 30th: forgot to post again but did do another drawing on the 29th. A friend asked for critique on a portrait and I did a loose diagram of face shadows to explain what I meant by breaking the face into two main tonal areas to get the likeness. So here is my diagram of their model's pretty face. Not perfect but gets the gist across!

Face diagram and Ari sketch page

pocket accordion fold Moleskine

I could have added more details but didn't, left out some of the small shadows in the light side for one thing. And linear accents like the eyebrows themselves and so on. But it is a map for where to look for shadows on your model's full face photo or in her face with side lighting. Your shapes WILL vary. These are likely places to find light and shadow values. Eyebrows and eyelashes and the line between the lips or even the teeth in a smile are details. Ears are not in this sketch because they weren't shown in his portrait - either he or the model didn't want to show them.

Human ears are silly looking and placed funny, so I can completely understand!

Red Apple Study, Pastel

Red Apple Study

life

7" x 9"

Cretacolor Pastels Carre' and Terry Ludwig Pastels

Aquabee Hemp Draw multimedia paper

Back to pastels and color today! I tested my Cretacolor Pastels Carre' first to see if they washed out with water for an underpainting by underpainting an apple. Then finished it using the same pastels dry and a few accents with Terry Ludwigs, also did the background very lightly with Ludwig Violets and a couple of tints from my first Mystery Box. 

I had fun with this. It's centered unlike most of my paintings, but it's just a simple study of a single object and I like how it came out. It reminds me a little of Charlotte Herczfeld's tomato studies. She's a big influence on me. If I'd properly followed her method I should have defined the shadow side in the underpainting witha  cool color, green or purple or blue, and the warm side with orange. Instead I just shaded between orange and yellow for brightness and followed light and shadow by value and hue - it worked but I'll be doing it again with the cool underpainting to see the difference sometime.

I also accomplished a little in terms of organization. Some time ago I bought two Derwent Pastel Rolls to keep my 72 Cretacolor Pastels Carre' in a container system that made them usable when I go out. Today, I broke all the sticks and rearranged them so that each roll has all 72 colors in its 36 slots. Two pieces per slot will let me bring these out with me on my garden excursions and any other outdoor painting I do. It's a handy little roll instead of an oversize box with an awkward styrofoam tray that made it hard to take the sticks out.

Cretacolor pastels wrap ready to go!

Charcoal sketches

Charcoal life sketches for Scavenger Hunt #376 on WetCanvas.com. A new list started today, I've got ten days for 26 items. Most of which are tough ones for me. I shouldn't really say tough so much as things I'm less interested in drawing. Everything on the list was "stuff you use for..." things. Vague enough I could find substitutes although the thing is, the things themselves would be depressing to draw. They don't draw me out into the wilderness or the microcosm of a flower or small natural objects like stones.

It becomes a matter of looking down at my life and seeing again how different it is, how circumscribed by chronic disease and deformity. I don't exercise, that's all pain and no gain, usually winds up with sports injury knocking down my function even farther and long recovery in which I don't have the capacity to do the things I actually can do. I don't cook. I don't clean - but I got my pastel rag in for that because I do clean off my pastels and my hands after painting.

I don't look down. When I paint I want to look at color and beauty. Painting my art supplies is invigorating, always makes me want to use them. But reminders of all the Activities of Daily Living that I can't do for myself brings up that endless bitter frustration. Most people can knock that stuff out in a short time and get on with what else they'd rather be doing.

I don't like being reminded of those limits when painting and drawing are the things I can do well, that get my mind off the pain. It's probably why I don't do contemporary fiction either.

Today was a pain day anyway, thus no serious painting, just Hunt sketches. I love the charcoal/white combination for fast powerful rendering though! This page is decent enough to go on the sketch wall - and I got Ari into it, that always makes me smile. I wonder if I can get him in more than once...

Five more Scavenger Hunt 376 items, and I did get my cat in one more time as "Soft" along with one of his toys as exercise equipment. He does bang around the room with it so fast and wild that you'd swear the thing came to life! Bat and chase at high speed! Plus a bottle of olive oil, a water bottle from a watercolor kit since I don't actually have anything resembling a makeup bag and a pill case as something to store things in. Well on my way with this one but I seriously doubt I'll get them all unless I come up with more good substitutions. Yes, I keep food on top of my dresser because that's where the microwave is. I don't have a kitchen in this room or any counter space, so the dresser top becomes that.

Life Sketches in Pen-Watercolor Again

Life Studies 

Pen & Watercolor on Stillman & Birn Zeta Journal

Worth a second entry today! I had fun doing four more objects for my Scavenger Hunt list on what's nearly the last day of it. Tomorrow is the Overlap Day - mine's still active but a new one goes up with a friend's list. I thought I'd try to do all the list but didn't really get much more than usual. Still, it's a good challenge and every time I do it, I get that much more experience at life sketching.

This page isn't as perfect as the last one but I'm happy with the layout and don't think it's so bad that it drags the book down. Small imperfections are what shows it's real art instead of some kind of mechanical reproduction.

Everything was penciled freehand, then inked with the Pigma Micron pens and painted with Yarka St. Petersburg watercolors. I'm beginning to really enjoy this set, especially the unusual new colors. The pencil tip's in Glauconite and the Sofft tool in Shakhnazarskaya Red, a beautiful warm earth color that's lighter and more transparent than English Red. Oddly the pan actually looks darker, it's just an effect of the pigment. Could just be the opacity of English Red.

I might eventually get the full range of these watercolors. Oddly it'd be less expensive to get both other sets than to get one other set and 12 open stock colors to add to one, but I'm not worried about that. Each has a complete range in itself and could be used alone for painting outdoors. The palette box isn't that large and stacks nicely with my Zeta journal.

Pearl in Pearlescent Pan Pastels

Pearl in Pearlescent Pan Pastels

From life

on Stillman & Birn Beta 180lb rough white paper

Today's painting is an experiment with a new art supply. Always a joy. I'll be writing it up in more depth on Rob's Art Supply Reviews later, maybe tomorrow though as I'm feeling pretty tired. 

Painting a pearl to look like an actual pearl rather than a ping pong ball or something else opaque has been a lifelong goal. I saw paintings in museums as a kid, Renaissance and later, where artists did that. They put nobles in velvet with pearl and jeweled ornaments and draped goddesses in pearl necklaces and it looked as if you could reach into the painting and touch those precious things. I thought of them as the showoff stuff of art. Who needed a wealth of actual jewelry if you could paint it so well you couldn't tell it wasn't real? As many pearls and rubies as you wanted were right in your paintbox!

The only reason people like them is how they look, right? So paintings of them are as cool as the real thing. Not true for food or clothes but may still be true for precious gems. Ironically, today's synthetic rubies and sapphires are quite real and no more costly than cut crystal, they're chemically and physically the same with perfect color and any size you like. 

Being able to paint pearls though, is as rare a skill as it ever was. Bucket list item accomplished! I could have used the regular tints and gotten a good effect, but I like the Pearlescent Pans. There's an extra little shine to everything and the heavy glitter effect of the Coarse mediums is fun, sparkly, like those party nights when your friends toss glitter in your hair right before you dance. 

Pearlescent Pan Pastels Colors

plus four Mediums, Coarse and Fine black and white

The six colors are convenience colors in spectrum hues. I like them as much as the Tints they resemble, they'll give an extra sheen to many subjects. The fine texture effect is subtle and might go unnoticed in a painting, the Coarse is like throwing glitter in it and delightful for that.

Art journals folks will have a ton of fun with these, but fine artists can get good special effects with them too.

Life Sketches in Pen and Watercolor

Life Sketches in Pen and Watercolor

7" square Stillman & Birn Zeta journal

Pigma Micron pen size 01

Yarka St. Petersburg "Extended" watercolors set

I love my Zeta journal. All my life, as far back as I can remember, I've done pen drawing and wanted it to come out like these. I started getting there with certain small subjects from life even as a child because my dad taught me to pencil carefully first before inking. I did a lot of pen sketches of my pet white rat, Puck.

So this week I'm the host for the regular Scavenger Hunt challenge on "Artwork from Life" forum at WetCanvas.com. The host comes up with a list of 26 items to sketch from life, substitutions okay if you really don't have a cat or a figurine of a cat or a cat themed anything to draw. I suggested "Computer, because a CAT file in Windows is catalog," or "Person named Cat" since I know at least one. Several actually if I think back, but that's people not here at the moment. Of course my cat's very handy to draw and he's already in this one. He'll get in again under Animal and maybe under Matte since he's not shiny, and certainly if I do an eye from life it'd be more fun doing his than mine!

As luck would have it, I actually came up with a list that was hard for me. Usually that's other people's lists with items like "Something from your dining room" or "lawn mower" or something like that. I live in one room and the bathroom is separate from the loo, both shared with other tenants on my floor. Not in a suburban house with a car, driveway, living room, dining room, basement, attic, den, bedroom separate from studio, kitchen... it sort of boggles me sometimes how much space people have. No wonder most housemates are always bickering about cleaning up. 

So I did the list and I'm cherry picking the easy ones I have handy in my room. I'm sure I'll find more by the 22nd.

Love the 16 pen cube of Pigma Microns, All Sizes/Tips that I got from Blick recently. I use those a lot, actually use up these long lasting pens. They're perfectly waterproof so it's easy to pencil first and then ink, then start painting over it with a Niji waterbrush and any watercolor set I've got handy. Currently this is my new Yarka St. Petersburg Extended set. Extended has Rose in it and Rose Violet, two very useful colors, plus my favorite Russian (Hookers) Green and Ultramarine and Bright Blue (which I think is a Pthalo). Hansa Yellow. Raw Sienna and a redder earth that I really like, Shakhnazarskaya Red. Lovely earth red a bit softer and more transparent than English Red, which is also in it.

Yarka watercolors are particularly intense too. Very strong color and it dries nearly as bright as it looks wet. The lovely deep brown that predominates in the feather and rock is Voronezhskaya Black, actually more of a grayed brown sepia-ish color that I really love. The set has a warm and cold black. 

I might get the full range of these Yarka watercolors someday. Odd thing is, the cheapest way would be getting three full sets. Getting the two least overlapping sets and 12 extra colors would be more compact, but I'd pay $60 or so for the open stock pans instead of $40 for a third set. So I might just get the other sets in time and keep them stacked together. This was the best one for what I'm doing, though others have other favorites like Paynes Grey. 

Blick's doing a Zorn Palette Contest so I need to think about what I can paint in yellow ochre, Cadmium Red, Ivory Black and Chinese White. Could win $400 in watercolor supplies including 4 big tubes of those colors but also Kolinsky brushes and Arches watercolor block and pad. Very cool. Might go for something inspired by cave paintings since that's so much a cave painter's palette actually...

New Dresser

My new dresser being inspected by Ari. He's such a Big and Tall cat! 15 pounds under all that fluffy fur.

I did mention in the first post that my daily painting is Health Permitting. All physical activity takes five times the body energy it would for anyone else due to my right leg being 3cm shorter than the left. That means anything involving standing up or moving around. Then the total amount of body energy I have to spend is limited by fibromyalgia, so my doing anything physical is a massive Olympics-worthy feat of stamina and achievement.

Yesterday, I got a new dresser from my hotel manager. Another tenant got in a beautiful long storage cabinet with shelves and a mosaic tile top - gorgeous piece of furniture. Once it was installed, he gave his dresser back to the hotel. I put dibs on the dresser when I saw the maintenance guy put it away.

So in the morning, Harry knocked on my door and asked if I still wanted the dresser. Of course I did! I went nuts pulling everything off that three shelf bookcase that's now sitting on the dresser and removing a big stack of art supplies from in front of the bookcase where it had accumulated. I'd take things out to use them, put them back on the stack so they'd still be in reach and bury the bottom shelf or two behind stacks of supplies. No more.

My whole bed and much of the floor got covered in stacks of books and supplies just to get everything out of the way to bring the dresser in. Maintenance guys moved the microwave and heavy but empty bookcase into the hall, then brought in the dresser, then brought back the bookcase to go on top of it and put the microwave on it. Since the microwave used to sit on top of the bookshelf, it's got a much stabler place now and the coffee pot's in easier reach.

I spent the rest of the day putting away everything I'd taken off the bookshelf and the floor, clearing off the bed and clearing the stacks on the floor. I had to move a small three drawer plastic drawer unit across the room next to the television. I had a whole lot of picking up and bending, not to mention sweeping where the bookcase was before the dresser came in.

It would have been a challenging task for someone abled. For me it was a marathon. I kept going when my back hurt, so I wound up pounding my bad hip and getting some knee and ankle symptoms on the short leg. That is what always happens if what needs to be done is more than I can do. I'll need to rest up from it.

Today, on the 5th, I've got home care coming in the morning and a weekly clinic appointment in the late afternoon. That leaves only a short window for painting. I suppose you're wondering why I threw my back instead of shoving all the chaos off the bed to get my home care worker putting it away on Thursday morning.

99% of it is art supplies. There are things I can't trust a home care worker to handle that would be very hard to organize if I wasn't the one stacking them. Think about your supply cabinet. Could you verbally describe exactly the order you want everything in it to someone else who's not an artist and doesn't know how to handle it or understand your priorities?

"That goes on the top shelf, left side. No, that's the middle shelf. I mean the top shelf. No, not on top of the book case, the top shelf, there, yes, no, the left side is the other side..." Try doing that for a few hours. You'll find that what you could have done in half an hour will take three or four and not be finished in the helper's scheduled three hours.

Anyone who's ever moved with someone else helping to pack will have an idea of what I'm talking about. Sometimes it's better to do it for yourself even when it pushes the edge of what's physically possible.