French Bulldog

I am waiting for the first isolation coat to dry on a recent painting...a great opportunity to grab a mark-maker, in this instance a ball point pen, and sketch away.

One of my favorite subjects - dogs :-)

This little guy:

"Smiling French Bulldog"

These dogs are rare in my neighborhood; there are more Goldens, labs, and even great Danes living here than any variety of bulldog.  However, my Golden, Remy, and I saw this sweetie at the local pet food store.

Winter white

Single-digit temperatures for quite a few days now.  Looking out the window... snow caps on the leaf-less shrubs.  Are the birds okay?  I hope they are keeping warm.

Perhaps these thoughts prompted me to paint a warm-weather scene with plenty of color :-)

"Journey"

Dreaming of You

More word art thoughts:

Creamy dreamy :-)

A Perk of Flower Crazy and a Thank You

I love doing class assignments as they provide specific focus and prescribed boundaries.  Each assignment is an opportunity to use new materials and techniques or to further explore seemingly familiar ones.  I have taken away something positive every time.

"Flower Crazy" (online class from Carla) was fun and full of play and color.  I loved making several mixed media canvases and boards.  One of the assignments yielded this:

"Flower Swirls in Pink and Yellow"

And the perk?  Recently someone liked it and purchased it :-)  I appreciate everyone who supports art and artists by attending events, spreading the word and buying art.

I am fortunate to have some paintings and prints at Studio Three in Fort Collins, CO.  Meeting and chatting with people at the Holiday Open House a few weeks ago was a pleasure.  Thank you so much Evelina - Studio Three owner and incredibly supportive friend.

Something cheerful :-)

Inspired by my dogs.

at least for the present :-)

Scandalous - Word Art

I love writing on black paper.  With the variety of gels, paints, inks available in pens and markers well, I find doodling irresistible.  So here is the word:

Fun stuff :-)

It's Still Life :-)

A bit tardy, the final painting for Table Top: Drawing and Painting is finished.  Class was so enjoyable and I explored still life painting, a subject that never caught my fancy before.

Here's the still life:

"The Oval Table"

This is how it began:

Whoa, something is different...

The table changed, the flowers changed and some of the veggies became fruit.  How did that happen?  As I think back, I was focused on the paint and I let go of the power of the "line"; the application of paint and the colors indicated the direction of the painting.

As odd as it sounds, relinquishing control is empowering :-)

Fairy tales' end

Carla's online class, 2014: Year of the Fairy Tale drew to a close this month.  A great experience, I enjoyed the class structure where there is a research period followed by drawing, painting and mixed media work.

Final fairy tale art: adding some color to the title page.

Graphite, ink and colored pencil.

I benefited from this year-long class through exploration of techniques (new, old, experimental) so much so that I am eagerly awaiting "2015: Year of the...???"

Miss You, mixed media journal page

The feelings reside in my heart and at some point crystallize into words:

My sweet Romeo.

I appreciate that creating art around the memory and emotion helps me in some indefinable way.

Table Top Paintings

More still life work from Diane Culhane's online class, Table Top: Drawing and Painting.  I am finishing up the painting assignment.

The emphasis again is on laying down transparent layers and then building more layers, both transparent and opaque, on top.  I became so involved with the technique, I let my improvising slide (see this post).  I figure I will get better with practice :-)

Beginning with a graphite drawing (on a birch panel), transparent layers of primary colors are quickly applied, a nice way to get the paint brush moving and paint on the panel:

Initially two green peppers and a pear...

However, after laying down more and more paint, I decided that apples were calling me more than peppers, hence:

"Pear of Apples"

Mixed media, glazing

The world outside has gone cold and snowy white, but in my studio it's color-wow time :-)

Glazing (the current Table Top: Drawing and Painting lesson), layering transparent color upon color is a lot of fun and perks up this gray day.  Choose some acrylic color, gel medium.  Ink a simple still life sketch and then go...

 

The colors glow.

Improvise

No color this time, simply graphite line work and smudging - and still life, an assignment from Diane Culhane's online class, "Table Top: Drawing and Painting":

I love to sketch.  Vellum is a fabulous surface.

This drawing was fun.  First placing some objects, playing with a variety of line weights and levels of intensity - basically improvising the foreground and background :-)

Vellum-luscious

Ink and colored pencil on vellum - so enjoyable.  There is something about the application of either medium that is rewarding; very smooth, not slick, which results in a nice amount of control.

More class work from Diane Culhane's online class, Table Top: Drawing and Painting:

I have a greater appreciation of bottles :-)

Still life as subject matter... its appeal is growing.

Hatching(s)

Usually I don't gravitate toward still life drawing; and that is why I wanted to explore it.  When Carla Sonheim offered Diane Culhane's online class, "Table Top: Drawing and Painting" for a second time, it was an opportunity I had to seize :-)

I have taken two other class by Diane, Between Speech and Silence and Paint Your Garden and I thoroughly enjoyed them.  I like Diane's whimsical, exploratory approach to drawing and painting and her teaching style is fun.

So on to some drawing.  This is a warm up sketch, wonky lines and all:

graphite and charcoal

Next, all kinds of hatching...here, begin with a quick sketch for placement and then just let the colored pencils go:

colored pencil on black card stock

Inking

I completed an imaginary landscape:

It is waiting for color...but I haven't chosen a medium.

I documented this drawing from the initial sketch and over time the changes and additions.

Sketch:

 

Interim 1:

 Interim 2:

 

Interim 3:

Interim 4:

Documenting my process helped me to limit the population of objects.  Each time I stopped to scan the drawing's progress, I could evaluate the density of images and rein-in or just stop the addition of imaginary things :-)

Gesture drawings

Remy, my sweet Golden retriever will be celebrating his 6th birthday next month.  I can hardly believe it.  Being a typical Golden, he still behaves like a young goofy dog.  My spirit Golden, Romy, was a "kid" until he was at least eight years old, as odd as that may sound :-)

So I couldn't help but make some gesture drawings of dogs in motion:

Zig-zagging around the yard...

Leaping for joy :-)

"Tangled" Magic Horse

Over the past few weeks I have used different techniques for few versions of the Magic Horse:
 

Quick sketch

Last December I took Beckha Krahula's online class, "One Zentangle® A Day".  I found it relaxing and also an easy commitment; one tile is very small, 3.5-inches (89mm) square,

 so I could make one or several depending upon time and inclination :-)

However, I thought it would be fun to use the Zentangle® method  for this final horse:

Larger than a tile, this horse is 8-in (203mm) by 6.25-in (159mm)

 In addition to Beckha's class, I found more information here at the Zentangle website and also here at the tanglepatterns website.

Magic horses that are basically the same... but different :-)

My sketch:

The use-the-paint-tube as a tool technique (Carla's 2014: Year of the Fairy Tale) yielded this horse:

Bold.

Using the same sketch for inspiration, here's the next drawing:

I immediately thought, "Inktense colored pencils".

And here he is:

Mixed media - wax pastel washes

Another color version of the sculpted magic horse, this time with wax pastel wash.

Sketch, sketch...

Pen and ink and graphite.

Used a nice, wet brush to take color from the wax pastels; applied it using lots of water:

Layering and blending colors.

I enjoyed using water soluble wax pastels in this manner... and it's very easy and quick, too :-)

Gosh, another mixed media magic horse... in w/s Neocolor II

Some photos showing another magic horse, this time playing around with Caran d'Ache  water soluble Neocolor II wax pastels.

Graphite drawing of an imaginary horse; I drew this with the horse sculpture (see this blog post) in mind:

7B pencil on 140# hot press water color paper

Choose some colors and lay them down in a sketchy manner:

Define some features, too.

Blend the wax pastels with water and add more depth with graphite and charcoal:

I like the intensity of the colors.

Neocolor II wax pastels are lovely to work with; they "melt" onto the paper.  With water, a little bit goes a long way.

A magic horse and washable markers... a test

As in my previous post, the creative impetus for this comes from Carla Sonheim's 2014: Year of the Fairy Tale.

Never having worked in washable markers where I add water to them, I thought I'd do some testing.

First, sketch an imaginary magic horse in graphite and then color with markers.  Use a brush to add water:

Get the colors down.

Next, more layering and blending:

Add the eyes :-)

Then details with graphite and charcoal:

Finis

These washable markers are a bit difficult to blend using water but they are easy to clean up and very inexpensive.  This was a fun experiment.

From sketch to sculpture

The creative impetus for this post is from an assignment for Carla Sonheim's 2014: Year of the Fairy Tale online class.

This is the sketch:

Hm-m-m, I wondered how I could fashion those legs... ones that would allow this horse to stand on its own.  I used a spool of wire.  I didn't know how to create proper "joints", therefore, conceptually I would be creating a three-dimensional "one-liner".

With my wire as my "ink" and needle-nose pliers as my nib, this is the result:

Begin at one point and keep going.

3-D one liner :-)

For bulk, I cover the wire form with aluminum foil and then applied the modeling "clay":

Yay, still standing.

Big head and big tail.

I really enjoyed making this little guy.  I still have a lot of wire left on the spool...

More Mixed Media Horses

Horses for 2014: Year of the Fairy Tale.

I had never used washi tape before except in creating a few greeting cards to send to friends.  However, I had seen several instances of its use in collage and I liked them a lot.  So-o-o, combine washi with paper collage... et voici, more horses :-)

 

And then just washi tapes:

If you'd like to see more from before, click here for yesterday's post :-)