Before the New Year!

....  because, who needs the new year to start or (re-start) resolutions?!

I know I will want to start doing a little artsy-fartsy something every day.  Again.  And, yes, it should be a constant goal!  So I'm starting up again.  Today.  (apparently.)  And before the new year...

So, here it is.  My play with a couple of washes, a couple of different fonts.  And if I could just practice washes and fonts this week, then this week will have been successful!  (imho)

So I bought a couple of "Doorbuster" classes on Craftsy.  And this is from one of them:  Illustrated Nature Journaling with Gay Kraeger.  The rest of my homework this week:  practice blind contour drawings, quick gesture drawings, and more washes, including gradient washes.  

Thought to myself:  If I add more to this page, for example,
if I color or draw in the second square, to the bottom right,
then I can just add a date to my page.  

Oops! A couple of more from the gap days...

I found a few more in my carry-all journals...

From the down south Dr. Sketchy at the Golden Goose with Coco Lectric.  Very cool.  I went with Iraida.  I wish she would post her stuff too.  She is so good.  

Drew it during bonding time with a student of mine.  I think it's quite good, followed the directions totally...

Practicing a journal page like from the Jerry's demos.  Not bad.  And I tried to do each rendition of the pepper differently, I think it came across...

Working up to a project for the house.  What do ya think?!

"You really do that stuff?"

So, one of my co-workers said something very silly to me today.  She said, "oh, you really do that stuff?"  Meaning, you really paint and draw?

"Well, I'm not claiming to be any good at it, but I enjoy it, yeah, I really do that stuff..."

She thought I just faked it to find common ground with a particular student of mine.  Which in and of itself is not very offensive at all.  If I could fake it well enough to fake common ground with a student to gain trust, yay me!  But, yeah, no...  I really like all that artsy-fartsy stuff.

And to that end, let me post some of the stuff I've been doing lately, and sprinkle it with some words here and there maybe...

This one is an inspirational quote on an old painting I had on an index card:  

I don't work with Inspiration.  Inspiration is for amateurs.  I just get to work.  

- Chuck Close.

So, we just moved into our new house, and with 4 bedrooms, I am able to have my own room.  My room becomes #1 guest room, but I'm happy to share with the occasional guest!  In the meantime, I have my own room!  Artsy-fartsy stuffs are mine to be organized in my room!  Yay!  

I can actually leave my sketchbook / journal out and my paints out, so that I can just pick up where I left off the next day.  I have no one to clean up for.  Just my own space to be as creative as I can be in.  

So, that said -- one more Yay! -- I'm planning on a checkerboard bulletin board.  The bulletin board would be the black squares, but I might paint them blue, and the white spaces in between, I can use to display my artsy-fartsy stuffs.  And I thought, what a great inspirational quote to display!  So, maybe it will be my first, when I finally get the bulletin board.  :-)  (I have my own room!)

This is from my second and third night of painting at the new house.  

The house of the Knollwood Garden Faeries.

I painted it last night, no pen drawing first.  Then tonight, an exercise out of one of my books was to do a background wash around a previous painting, so I added that, along with some other playing from my book.  

And this was from night one.  Imagine the Backyard with different features.  The one I like the most is the tree, the tree wins, and I need to buy one soon so that it can start growing big, fast.  

Other than that, I haven't done much lately, other than move, eliminate homely possessions, go back to work....  I've been busy, things have been in disarray, and I've been waiting desperately to move into my new home and find my space.  And, as happy as a bug in a rug in my beautiful new room, that is me.  Quite happen to challenge myself to an artsy-fartsy thing a day, every day, in my wonderful OWN space!

July Urban Sketchers' and a Journal Demo at Jerry's

We went to the LBJ Library and Museum today for the Urban Sketchers' group.  Didn't even go inside...  But it was a nice breezy morning, and aside from all the ants crawling around (no bites), it was okay...

I made Iraida do a few quick-minute sketches to help her get faster.  She's been saying that she'd like to speed up her sketches and not mind the details so much, so I took the exercise from Dr. Sketchy...

The quick sketches made it easier to get to the longer sketch of the library.  But it was still a sketch...  I think by the time I finished, Iraida was just starting (from top down) on the columns...

We would have stayed longer, but it started getting hot.  So we packed up, got some lunch, and headed off to Jerry's for Sharon Z's demo...  

I tried to talk Sharon into writing a book on how to make and compose sketchbook pages.  There are so many books that show samples of sketchbooks and journal pages, but there are few that actually explain or teach how to make good pages to the novice.  I figure that they start making those pages themselves after years of practice.  This book, the book I tried to talk Sharon into writing, would help the novice to get there much faster.  It's really about composition, layout.  You can continue working on the drawing and sketches, continue to practice and learn with all the many pages that you create...

Sharon did say that people have been bugging her to write 2 books:  calligraphy and journaling.  And she made a half-handed comment that I could help her with the journaling one.  Perhaps I will send her an email so that she has my contact information, and I can help her to actually do it.  That would be pretty freakin' awesome!  :-)

Oh, and my brother's pages...  I'm so proud of him for actually trying and sticking with it.  He didn't even want to be there, and he did a great job...

June 10 - Urban Sketchers' Meet Up at Mozarts

I haven't posted any of these, so I suppose it's time...

If I can figure out how to post them on the meetup page with relative ease, then I will...

Thanks Iraida!

Yay!  I found me an artsy-fartsy friend!  Iraida and I have been hitting and missing as far as days out to draw, but we made the last Urban Sketchers date and saw a pastel demo on the same day.  I only wish there was more time to hang out...

Anyway, a day or two (or three) ago, she sent me a drawing challenge:

Not really sure where she got it from, but as long as she keeps sharing what she's doing with me, it helps me to stay motivated to try to keep up as well...  So, here's days 1, 2, and 3:

Only 27 more days to go!

And this Saturday will be another Artsy-Fartsy day, with an Urban Sketchers outing in the am,
and a Jerry's demo in the afternoon -- a repeat, actually, of Sharon Zeugin, who I liked very much, with her making us make a journal page of our own during the last demo...

Yay me!

A good first day back, I'd say!

A few days ago, I had circles in my mind.  Then I saw Daisy Yellow's new workshop:  circles.  Then I noticed her Index Card A Day challenge.  So, I thought it appropriate that I start back with an index card of circles.  And I like how it turned out...

Then I hated the second one.  I used Portfolio 24 Water Soluble Oil Pastels, which clumped up quite a bit.  This picture was taken when it was still wet, but all it really did was soften up the edges.  Hmm, I'll have to play with the pastels more, but I'm really not fond of how they clump up... 

I went out with Iraida today, and it was nice to practice some English and Spanish...  Here's a card with a word that I learned today.

And I found a couple of old index cards.  I don't remember doing them, really, but it was nice surprising myself...

And we have some artsy-fartsy time scheduled for this weekend!  Yay!