Lily in pen and ink

Lily in pen on watercolor paper, 3" x 5"

Close to the end on that little Strathmore Visual Journal. I've got only four pages left but plenty of good life studies for reference in it. This lily came from my son in law's church, it had lots of buds and no open blooms when they gave it to him after the service on Easter Sunday. Now it's sitting out in the garden with three big white blossoms on it and I love it.

I've been getting photos but it's hard to get accurate values and details on a white object with a camera. The sketches are going to be a lot of help if I turn this into a painting. 

I'd like to get back to doing some pastels but need some time to rest up from all the medical overexertion lately. My knee got a sprain, ankle is starting to feel the stress, back is screaming including an area I didn't expect up by my neck because of the position I had to be in to get an MRI of my neck vertebrae. This is ugly and all I can do is ride it out. Tomorrow will be worse, second day after overexertion always is. I've got a bad feeling I might be stuck as a full time patient for some time due to overly proactive new doctor, and I'm skeptical about whether any of this will actually be worth it in the long run.

Enough grumbling for now. I'm still going to try for something in pastels as soon as I'm up to it, and I dearly want to start experimenting with my new Bombay India Inks and dip pens. 24 colors in lightfast pigmented ink should give me some spectacular results in pen-watercolor or just colorful pen work!

Pen Drawing, Waiting Room Plant with Shiny Black Pot

Plant with Pot, pen on watercolor paper, 3" x 5"

My past two weeks have been a nightmare of living with insufficient pain management. I had one week without any medication, in which I wasn't capable of writing my name intelligibly, then the previous drawing was during the brief time I didn't realize the fill-in prescription from my primary care clinic was for half my standard dose. That left me with less than half function, plus I had to skip a couple of shifts entirely to catch up and still have two pills left to be medicated for my pain clinic appointment.

It's over. My new doctor at the pain clinic is good and I may even get some real improvements in my health over time. I won't go into boring detail about it but the sources of my chronic pain are multiple and a couple of those conditions may be more treatable now than the last time I talked to a doctor about them. It still grates on me that some treatments that could help me a lot are illegal in this state, particularly medical marijuana and its derivatives.

So please, support medical marijuana and marijuana legalization. Prohibition 2.0 has not succeeded any more than the alcohol version did, if anything it's raised the stakes and caused far more violence, crime, public expense and deaths than the first version did. It's ridiculous that even taking dangerous drugs gets worse penalties than murder, rape, robbery and other real crimes. 

Countries that legalized drugs and treat addiction as a medical issue, like Portugal, have seen real, positive results from their policies. Wish my country would come to its senses and follow that good example.

Anyway, I'm back on my meds and the weather's lightening up. I may be able to paint or draw today, cross your fingers on that. It's still better if I do it earlier in the day before nap time and the weather's cooperating. New post if I do get in an artwork. Hopefully will post sooner than last time.

Botanical Pen and Watercolor

Botanical pen and watercolor plus brush pen pine cone

Had a bad week due to problems with chronic conditions, but today went warm and sunny, flare ended or at least down to tolerable levels. My hand was shaky but it's beautiful outside, so I carefully drew and painted an interesting little blooming plant my daughter "Kitten" says is edible. Then finished the page with a pine cone, daring to try using my brush pen despite shaking. That wasn't too bad, I'm getting more familiar with the brush pen.

So here's hoping I can keep this up. Doesn't seem like spring's a good time for me but there were reasons for the flare that aren't weather, so may not be that major of a problem year to year. Stress sets off the fibromyalgia and I'm having moving-in problems getting a new doctor, or rather getting three different ones and a way lot more trouble than I used to just taking care of routine maintenance.

Scroll border

Scroll border 

Well, been out of touch for a while partly due to weather and partly activity. Not much art but lots of outdoor activity. I went to a one day SCA event last Saturday and came back all stoked for medieval art again. 

I'd penciled this scroll border starting on the first event I went to a few weeks ago, then finished penciling sometime in between. Today I finally inked it and though I don't have a photo of it, put in guidelines and text layout, then penciled the text for an Award of Arms scroll. This is a Society for Creative Anachronism award given for service to the club by the particular Kingdom and the Kingdom always needs more of them done. 

I designed it after a manuscript page in the Luttrell Psalter that I copied out of a book that's currently up in the attic. I'll be matching the calligraphy to its period and hand lettering with a dip pen most likely, having gotten to play with them putting names on scrolls at the event. Found out I was still good at black letter calligraphy, the Old English type of style actually named Quadrata Textura.

So I'll be replacing my dip pens since those are buried, or getting extras if I can find them. I put a Speedball Calligraphy Set on my next Blick order and will be getting it soon to take advantage of the current huge coupon - 25% off orders over $225 is huge. I often plan orders to be $200 or more to get the 20% off coupons but they just beat that, so I'll be saving even more on everything.

I got somewhat blocked by working on this scroll, procrastinated on the inking but didn't sketch anything else till I got to this point on it. Now I may have to wait for the pens so I'll go ahead and sketch, paint, draw whatever comes to hand. Today was a really good day. 

Had some bitter cold days where my hands ached too much to do anything but today wasn't bad at all. Hopefully milder weather will continue - and hopefully I'll keep posting more often as I get back into daily art or art related activity.

I've got no more excuses since my stuff actually is unpacked and organized too!

Landscape with Tree

Tree on a Hillside

3 1/2" x 5 1/2" pen on paper

Went out today for my clinic visit, saw this beautiful tree as the van went past it. Sketched fast to block in its general shape in pencil, then started inking details and decided to create a background out in nature with some more distant trees over the edge of a hill. Put the smaller darker one behind it to give contrast to the pale trunk and foliage and liked that, inked it in.

Sometimes a drawing begins with a life drawing and everything else in the picture is composed from memory to set it off. That's what this one is. I like how it came out. Slopes like that are common in San Francisco so this is really a combination of several views.

Pen Drawings

Leaves from Life in watercolor pencil and

Cat Gargoyle - imagination, brush pen 

Mother Bird and Ari Cat Portrait

Pentel Pocket Brush Pen

These are two facing pages in my pocket Moleskine watercolor journal. I did the page with the leaves sketch out in the clinic garden yesterday, washed that drawing at home and sketched the Cat Gargoyle directly with pen next to it. Also penciled hte mother bird from a video in the waiting room but changed her species from eagle to something less predatory and added a chick from memory. Penciled Ari from one of my recent photos in the waiting room.

Inked both of them today so this is my daily sketching - which may expand to more art later on, but if it doesn't, I'm still keeping up. Yesterday was extremely productive, the weather was just with me! Today, I'm a little slowed down. Pressure changes are what does that mostly, it can seem nice out or even the same but as weather systems move, wham, I suddenly lose most of my body energy. This gets frustrating as pain can reduce fine motor control on my hand. Sometimes I feel like painting or sketching yet know I'm not going to be able to control the tools. Worst part of the disability along with poor eyesight.

Bird - Lion Cub - Rose in Pen and Ink

Great Tit, Annoyed Lion Cub and Rose

7" square, Pentel pocket brush pen on paper.

Used my Stillman & Birn Delta journal again for today's pen drawings. References by "skappy" aka Robert Rongier, posted for Weekend Drawing Event on WetCanvas.com. I love Robert's photography and he has access to a big cats park, parc des felins or something like that where he often gets great reference photos of large and exotic cats.

Of course this time he outdid himself since both the black panther and the white lion cub were caught with their mouths open! Little Madiba looked very annoyed, her nose scrunched up, eyes squinted, like she's hissing or doing a baby snarl. Utterly adorable given her age and yes, her ears were sitting at that silly Mickey Mouse angle in the photo. You can't make up something like that. Cats just do cute and silly things by definition, because cat, and any species of kitten has inherent adorable cuteness.

I got her in first and then had a go at the dramatic bird in flight from below. Came up with some effective ways to get the feel of those flight feathers spreading. The rose was a challenge too. Fortunately, like cats, I've done roses many times. Started fiddling with shading it and then called a halt before overworking it.

I love the Pentel Pocket Brush Pen but it's still hard to control. I get an occasional shaky signature monogram or passage that gets a thick line because it went thick at the wrong point. Still, the more I use it, the easier I can manage to control the pressure. It's essential for me to pencil under this pen. With my familiar Pigma Microns I can casually sketch the way I would in ballpoint, with other brush pens that works, though penciling does tend to make for accuracy. With this one I am way off if I try sketching just with pen - either I focus on form or on the pen strokes and pressure control. If form's defined already I can just relax and do that, it works well. 

Used the labels to carve into the slightly too large negative space in the middle, not big enough to tuck in another sketch or small enough to ignore. Worked out well. Enjoy!