Personal palette

A couple of months ago I began experimenting with my color palette.  Then coincidentally Lynn's May lesson (for Year of the Spark) is about defining one's personal palette.

I doodled my current color palette:

Created under the influence of a rain-soaked Spring :-)

Packing tape?

I use packing tape in art-related activities only when I wrap artwork for transporting or shipping... until now :-)

Carla's Year of the Spark lesson for May is about using packing tape with other media to achieve some unexpectedly interesting results (yay!).

Packing tape + results:

Packing tape, acrylic paint, charcoal

Packing tape, acrylic paint, pastels

Packing tape, acrylic paint, charcoal, pastels

Making some room

I plan to paint some larger canvases and I prefer to stand while doing this, hence the decision to move my large easel back into my studio.  To make room I did a bit of rearranging and tidying.

Remy, my studio buddy, was "helping" me and it was a nice opportunity to take a break to sketch him - before he moved :-)

Remy, lying down.  Quick!  Grab a sketchbook and pencil :-)

Earlier this morning, a couple of warm-up drawings:

Ball point pen

Dog in graphite

Painting to the rain

It has been raining every day for seven days.  I quite enjoy rain without wind - the rain falls straight down and there is a calmness to everything.  The grass is a beautiful deep green and colors are more intense.  The soft light is wonderful for painting, too.

Remy and I didn't go walkies due to the heavy rain and the threat of scary thunder and lightning.  We spend most of the day in my studio; Remy was snoozing and I was prepping for some other projects.

I also painted this:

Mixed media piece - "The Magic Day"

My how you've grown :-)

The final lesson from Diane Culhane's "Doings of A Doodle" online class - growing your doodle!

Mark a grid on a larger canvas and then doodle away:

16" x 20" canvas

I used a fairly limited color palette to finish the doodles.

Introducing the grid

Painting assignment, Lesson 5*:

Line and circle doodling on a grid

I enjoyed painting this so much I did another one :-)

"Signal"

*Diane Culhane's online class, "Doings of A Doodle"

Painted Doodle

The progression continues in the World of Doodle to the happy addition of paint (yay!)

For Lesson 4*, one could choose a existing doodle or create a new one.  I doodled a new one which grew into something more like a tableau:

Rice paper on wood panel  - acrylic paint and Sharpie marker

The rice paper was really fun to draw on with the Sharpie and it enabled me to be very specific in my imagery.  Also adding paint gave "mass" to my doodled scene.

* "Doings of A Doodle" online class by Diane Culhane

The Doodle Grows and Remy and the Rain

More from Diane Culhane's online class, "Doings of A Doodle".

Continuing with the emphasis on a single doodle, Lesson 3 was about "growing" the doodle.

Here is my sheep in a mushroom forest in small, medium and large in grey colors, ocean colors and sunshine colors, respectively:

Doodling a different perspective

The weather has been chilly and grey with thunderstorms.  Remy really doesn't like the sound of thunder and he pretty much shuts down when he hears it.  I am pretty certain that he would rather have sunshine and blue skies return...

O, he does love the sunshine :-)

Little Doodle Book

Diane Culhane's online class, "Doings of A Doodle" has emphasized that one's own doodles are a source of inspiration - they are tiny treasures.

Lesson 2 prep - making an eminently portable doodle book so that one has a nice surface to use whenever the opportunity arises:

Watercolor on gessoed 140# watercolor papers

Slip a folded sheet inside another folded sheet to make an unintimidating book of just eight pages.

My first doodle book:

Sides 1 and 2

Sides 3 and 4

Sides 5 and 6

Sides 7 and 8

Doodles In Isolation

Another exercise from Diane Culhane's online class, "Doings of A Doodle". 

From my sketch books, choose some favorite doodles.  Isolate them and place each one on watercolor paper.

Instead of being lost in a mass of doodling, each selected doodle is spotlighted:

I doodle birds often.

A rare cat doodle

I love dogs.

A sheep in a mushroom forest.

Doodle

Diane Culhane's online class, "Doings of A Doodle" is just finishing up.  The class has been a fascinating exploration of the doodles that begin (somewhere) in the brain and move to the hand and then to paper.

Doodling from left to right:

At the edge of the page I just kept going :-)

A really interesting exercise that I had never done before was to doodle while reading (no peeking at the paper - a "blind doodle"):

Blind doodle while reading a mystery.