Pencil and watercolor ~ practicing figure drawing. While I was working on this, George Michael’s song with the lyrics “I’m never going to dance again, guilty feet I’ve got no rhythm” (Careless Whispers) was playing.
Ballerina in Black
watercolor sketching
Painting on the Patio Tonight
My sweetie took his mom out to dinner tonight and I stayed behind to rest, make soup, and paint on the patio. It’s hot in my artist loft right now – there’s a sprinkling of rain outside.
En Plein Beach
Today was amazing at the beach; I took some beautiful photos, so gorgeous that I’m almost ashamed to show you what I “doodlewashed.” My sweetie and I walked in the sand and surf, and I got lots of steps on my FitBit. Then, while my sweetie headed back to the Beach Market (versus Farmer’s Market) to buy some big, luscious tomatoes and cucumbers, I sat on a bench, took out some art supplies from my backpack, and went to it. I was barely able to get something down when he came back, and we had to get back home, so I tried to finish this up after dinner. While my doodlewash isn’t much to brag about, the upside is I am totally inspired to paint more, more, more when we go back to the beach (it’s only 19 miles from our house), and in the meantime, I have tons of great reference shots to reflect back on. I tried to soak in all the great color and shades, the way the light reflected on the water, and the beautiful pastel hues in the sky, water, and sand. There were birds and shells, and … ahhhhh … can’t wait to spend more time there, looking, feeling, and painting.
Still Life ~ Flowers and Fruit
Today was another day of laborious yard work. I don’t mind it too much – it’s great exercise. And I get a closer look at all the plants in the yard. We whacked the heck out of a bush with the red flowers (we don’t know the name of this plant either – it was here when the house was purchased). I rescued a couple of sprigs from the burn pile to put in a vase so I could paint it later, along with some kind of evergreen. The whole thing has a rather Holiday/Christmas feel to it, and I thought it would be nice to paint the vase arrangement with a depression glass bowl filled with homegrown citrus fruits (lemons and grapefruit).
Here you can see my work area…
This is just a sketch/study, meant to be loose. I enjoyed creating it. I hope you enjoy viewing it! Thanks for stopping by.
The Butterfly Bush
We don’t know the name of the bush from which I plucked this sprig,
but butterflies like to flutter around and about it
so we call it the butterfly bush.
Faber-Castell PITT artist pens
Yesterday, I bought neon pencils and tried them out with a simple geometric design. Unfortunately, the neon pencils were a big disappointment; they looked great in the package, but on paper, I had to press so hard and the color that came out was more of a chalky nature than neon bright. So I tried fooling around with the geographic image using my scanner. I got some fun results, but … those pencils had to go back! Barnes & Noble stood by their products and took the pencils back this morning. In exchange, I paid a little extra for a set of four Faber-Castell PITT artist pens. 
I used two of the pens to create my little sketch of my dog on the chair, the thick brush for fat strokes in the eyes and nose, and then a finer tip for everything else. I like these pens – they are filled with Indian Ink and waterproof. Perfect for “doodlewashes.” My paper is pretty thin and can only handle light watercolor washes (very light!), so I finished up the coloring with markers.
I have lots more in mind for these pens. But it was nice trying them out on my dog.
Onto something else…
Have a creative, joyful day!
All The Little Twigs
Practice piece, Ink and watercolor ~ Banff, Canada. If you are an artist, it’s good to sometimes take a photo of your artwork and turn it into a black and white photo to see if you’re capturing depth, tones, etc. This is just a quick study on lightweight parchment paper, not a finished painting. I was going to draw all of the little twigs. Well, at least I drew a bunch of them. After playing with colors and lines on the computer, I was itching to get back to paper. Here it is in color …
Reference photo: Mine taken on the way to Banff in Canada.
Tea for Two ~ and Two for Tea
Watercolor and graphite on parchment paper. This is a lovely vintage tea cup and saucer I bought eons ago, whoknowswhere, and now I find the dear little cup has a chip. I shall drink out of it before the big move and immortalized it with a sketch / doodlewash. These little cups and sauces are so nice when having friends over for coffee and cake or tea and cookies. I used to want to collect them and had a few … but over the years, they’ve chipped or broke. And now I realize why I don’t use my mom’s china for everyday, as Mark wants to do when we get to Florida! P.S. The sketch was of my afternoon tea and for my evening tea, I am having Yogi brand green tea and blueberry flavor – it’s outtathisworld. The tag on the tea says, “Uplift everybody and uplift yourself.” How true!
One more seed harvesting: Clematis
One more “harvesting” – the Clematis seed. Clematis grows on a vine. This shows the flower, leaves,
the seed with its furry “tail” and an unopened flower bud. If the unopened bud dries up and never flowers, what would have been the curly yellow center of the bloom would be a giant seed pod. The furry ends on the seed would have matured into the yellow furls you see at the center of the flower.
Sand Salt Moon 
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