Cat Portrait and Crooked Tree

 "Croggers" memorial cat portrait

Derwent Graphitint pencils and wash on paper

Crooked Tree Demo 

8 1/2" x 11" pen on paper

Croggers the cat was beautiful and his photo was posted for this weekend's Weekend Drawing Event at WetCanvas. I felt for the little guy and did a portrait drawing, paying close attention to markings and exact features and expression. Successful portrait, and he has that sweet meditative look that well.

Derwent Graphitint are tinted graphite watersoluble pencils, very soft, 8B softness. They dissolve fast and color brightens with water. I used them on my large Moleskine watercolor journal.

Then did a promised lesson on tree anatomy and shadow direction for my new student. She'd done a scene with one bare tree in an autumn landscape.  I let this be a winter one and implied snow with the bushes bending and stark values of the black on white. Could have added blue shadows, didn't, just kept it simple. But I like the design and may develop it into a more refined painting or drawing.

Sketches from Tuesday and Wednesday

Doorway sketched Tuesday afternoon on my way to my polling place. My home care worker was checking on his parking meter, so I settled down for a rest and sketch. Nothing else on Tuesday, too wiped out from the hike.

Wednesday went better at least for sketching. I had my semi-annual doctor's appointment so needed to leave early and decided to stay a little late. That turned into two more hours late because the Paratransit van broke down and then the replacement van broke down. Finally another driver showed up and I got home after 5pm while it was getting dark. Got 326 photos of the garden, clouds and so on though, lots of photos including some sunset skies.

Shadowed tree sketched from the van at a stop light. First of Wednesday's sketches, ballpoint in a pocket Moleskine.

Quick watercolor study from the window of my doctor's office, overlooking the spot I usually wait for the van. I had some Daniel Smith watercolors and a travel brush with me so did this in the watercolor Pocket Moleskine.

Still had some time waiting for the doc, so I penciled and inked another view of the same thing with the color study to combine with it. Same view, same scene. Then I went out to the garden for a little while and got some photos.

Sketched this gold leaf with its delicate brown veins, decided to wait till I got home to ink it so I could use the warm brown pen. It came out better with the pen inking, though I might have glazed over it again. The bottom is the actual leaf pressed into the same page of the pocket watercolor Moleskine.

Still waiting, many photos and some time later...

I sketched in pencil and pen, getting these snapdragons from the garden when I got told it'd be another 45 minutes for the replacement van. Painted it in the waiting area out back by the short fat palm again. By then I was exhausted and it started getting dark, so that was the end of Wednesday's sketching.

What a day! But I had gotten way ahead on my Nanowrimo novel, it's at 9,397 words so I'm still ahead of par as long as I get in some writing tomorrow to keep up. So far this month I've alternated. Beware, there may be gaps again on days I write but don't draw... still hoping to get a good day I can do both!

It's just this month, will be back to daily art in December most likely.

Orange Tree by the Lake

Orange Tree by the Lake

7" square pastel on 

Stillman & Birn Beta Journal 

Photo by StormeRider (LiveJournal)

Storme and Nonny gave me permission to use a number of beautiful photos they took when they lived in Massachusetts a while back. I copied it and saved it and meant to paint the autumn scene - today's the day I did.  Very different from the photo's composition and by the time I was done they weren't the same trees either. But I loved the reference and it gave me a very clear memory of the forms and colors of a forest that is turning - some trees all the leaves are gone or brownish gray, last few bits of warm color, others still green or starting to turn, the blazing center beauties rivaling flowers in their glory.

I've seen scenes like this so many times in my life. All the years I was in New York State. All the years in Chicago or Minnesota or Kansas or Arkansas or Colorado, so many places I've lived had these scenes and roads soaring through it. I've been on drives just to see the fall colors. Taken photos I lost later on, that happened often, but it's all there in memory and this reference opened all those memories.

Rembrandt pastels work wonderful on Stillman & Birn Beta rough heavy paper. I used them with all my techniques and the deep texture gave me plenty of white flecks that I used to advantage in foliage texture for "highlighted leaves" and some sky hole effects, while others showed me good places to dot in a hole through that tree to show the foliage behind it. I like the laciness of the star tree and the way the colors blend a bit in the distance but shine around the best one. Had fun with reflections too.

Life Sketches, Pen and Watercolor

Ari, Azalea and Trees

Pigma Micron pen and watercolor

Stillman & Birn Zeta journal 

7" square

Today was my biweekly outing to the SFGH Family Health Center Memory Garden. Of course because I forgot to bring my good camera, the Kindle, there were loads of roses in bloom unlike last time when there was only one rather bedraggled rose. Lots of flower photos taken with my phone though. I still had time to sketch, ink and paint the first azalea blossom on some small bushes out back at the patient drop-off and several trees out there that fascinated me. I ran them all together and left out cars, intervening buildings and background stuff because I felt like it. Not into sketching cars and buildings as much as nature.

Painting from Life

Small tree and bush study in Daniel Smith watercolors on my Robert Bateman spiral bound multimedia sketch pad. Not all paintings have to be framable or serious, like many plein air paintings this one's more a study for later paintings. I took some reference photos of the same cluster of trees and bushes next to the brick clinic building.

When I'm out at my clinic appointments or otherwise going somewhere that isn't planned as a plein air trip, I fall back on using a Niji water brush. That limits me to effects I can do with a size 7 or 8 nylon round brush but the convenience of not needing to hunt down water or find a place I can wash the brush afterward is well worth it.

Since I visit the same clinic every Wednesday morning, the more often I sketch these trees the more I'll see in them. I can experiment with different colors and effects. In this one I deliberately muted the greens, didn't try to capture the colors exactly as I saw them in the sun.