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!

SUMMER'S HERE!

Nothing to post, but summer IS here, and there is so much going on!  I need to come up with a plan to get back into the swing of things...  so much to do, and so little time.  I'm running around in circles like my head's been cut off, and really getting nothing at all done -- sound familiar?! So, I've gotta plan, gotta schedule, and gotta make it happen!...

A Sketching Workshop and Some Clippings

First, my updated goal calendar...  Not so much artsy stuff.  I'll have to make it in my bigger journal next month...

It will feel great when it's all filled up!!!  That said, I purposefully took this weekend off to let my legs rest a little.  I was going to wait until Thursday night to ride again, but then the Bikin' Bettie's seem to have a fun ride planned for tomorrow night.  And I have bike club.  ...  We'll see what happens.  (I'll have to take Thursday night off from riding if I make it out with the Betties tomorrow.)

So - mini-goal:  Check out at least one online workout this week!  I've been meaning to do that for a while, and I've had a couple of opportunities, but have still put it off.  

I took a Travel Sketchbook workshop this Saturday, 2 hours at Jerry's.  I took some notes, and she had us do a couple of activities: blind contour sketching (my red pepper) and a label.  She talked to us about design elements of a page and how she plans for it, how she adds stuff in to make it look like a neato page...  It was pretty cool.  As much as I know about desktop publishing, I'd have thought that I could do an artsy-fartsy journal page, but it's two totally different things...  You can't clip and maneuver stuff on a page in your sketchbook like you can with stuff on a computer.  She should really write a book.  She could have a chapter for each element you add to the page.  I tried to take notes on my page:  the drawing, the title, repeated doodles, colors, writing... and there was more, but that's all I got on my page.  

And now for clippings and pages from my school sketchbook...  

Art and Journaling

So, I've got goals.  Not important goals, but important-to-me goals...  maybe.  At least, I have goals...

Anyway, combining the two, art and journaling, has never really been a goal of mine, but why not?  I've certainly seen some stuff that I like, so maybe I can start getting it together.  And, let's start with a very small step: a calendar.

So, I drew the calendar by hand, watercolor pencil first, then watercolor...  And now I'm tracking my goal for the month: working out.  I'm motivated by seeing what I've done, so I'm putting in mileage.  And what I already know that I've got to do is find a way to do more workouts during the week.  But, honestly, it's hard:  I've got to get my face time in with the kiddo, then make dinner, then bedtime routine, then I'm exhausted and I try really hard just to stay away long enough to pump!...  One would think I could work out during this time, but I have to pump at 10:30, and if I workout just before I get ready for bed, meaning in that time between getting the little one to bed and pumping/going to bed myself, I would have a really hard time falling asleep!...  so, it's hard.  

But I digress.  

I'm mixing art and journaling.  We'll see what happens.  Probably not much to start with, but maybe I'll get more art into my journaling one day soon.  Wouldn't that be nice?  :-)

Maybe I need bigger paper?  

Then I'll have more space to paint/draw artsy fartsy stuff into my calendars...

Back to Work!

Working on working out, being active.  That's what I'm focusing on this month.  That said, our Girlie Group has homework to work on goals.  So I brainstormed.  And at the top of the list was "Art every day."  So I figure I should get back to working on that...  

And, yesterday, here's my art that I did with one of my students...  I want to show Ms. Lopez, the art teacher.  And I want to do more stuff like this...  just do-ing it.  

And now, I'm back!!!

2 More Assignments done.

Here are two more assignments from the SketchBook Skool Playing class.

Dot drawing... checking out what happens when you lay one color over another.  I used primaries.  

I suppose it's a learning experience, but I found it unexciting.  

On the other hand, I loved making INK MONSTERS!  Blow some ink around, and then do something with it!  It was fun.  And I was surprised how scared my kiddos were to be creative.  They had no problem blowing the ink around, but then had a hard time turning them into monsters.  I think they wanted the blots to be something, to look like something.  But I had fun being creative with the blots, and I think I'll have to do more in the future!




And a quick sketch for the day...  my google smile!
Back from when I was pregnant and didn't even know it yet.  (I may have been days pregnant at this point, and it was already affecting me -- I remember how wiped out I was after that bike ride!)

I've got some catching up to do!

Yikes!  I didn't realize that I'm 2 weeks behind!!!  I have loads of excuses, but let's just skip them...

Here are two that I found at work today cleaning out my desk...

This one was the one that I had done at school, and it went along with the watercolor pencil one that I did at home.  I used markers since I was at school.  I should do more of these; it really is quite relaxing and fun.  

And this is one that I colored around Halloween, so not original, but coloring is Artsy-Fartsy too!  For this one, I used my Faber-Castell Pitt Pens.  

I still need to find the journal I had for school.  So many drawings in it that I didn't record here.  That said, I may have brought it home.  I should look in both places, and really try to get it back.  

Taking another class...  Craftsy's "Sketchbooks: Drawing the Everyday"

Here's my blind contour drawings of my left hand.  

I also added another flower to my bouquet, a quick watercolor sketch of a bluebonnet.  I have one more flower to go before I can frame it for my mom and abuelita.




And here's the actual "bouquet" - which I started doing with a prompt from Illustration Friday who knows when.  Obviously, I did not finish the assignment that week, but I'm okay with that...

So I thought I had counted the number of things I've done, and I was comparing it to the calendar.... in fact, I'm sure I've done that.  But I thought I'd already recorded it in the blog, and I have not.  But I did a count tonight, and I'm about even for the month of January.  But I need to start making up for what I've missed in February.  And I need to remind myself the reason I need to do something everyday...  it's not so that I can actually [accidentally] create a masterpiece one day.  But you journal or paint or sketch every day so that you can get better.  It's the process, the learning that takes place.  Each day builds upon the previous day(s).  And any days spent away from that process, I feel, are like taking two steps backwards.  You don't just pick up where you left off...  

Keep at it, my dear -- talking to myself now...  Truck through it.  Keep artsing.  Keep fartsing.  Keep learning.  Keep growing.  Just keep on keepin' on...  :-)

And one last one... just playin'...

an emotional one + some coloring

Ugh - I know Life has to present crappiness so that we can appreciate the non-crappiness, but the crappiness still sucks really bad...

Just added color...