one's love

watercolors and oil pastel on muslin

yes, i've had quite a few more small eyed boys (and one small eyed girl) visit me... i don't know much about them other than what i said in the last post, however i have learned that they


belong to a tribe called the 'free people'. well of course that made me love them even more...

colored pencil in moleskine journal

they visited my pocket moleskine...

colored pencil in moleskine journal

(the only girl to show up so far)

watercolors in zecchi watercolor journal

and my new watercolor journal, given to me by kathy dorfer...


kathy is an amazing giver of gifts... it's like she looks into my soul, sees what i want (or need), and then gives it to me. she also gave me a set of zecchi watercolors... these are the highest quality watercolors that i've ever used - they have only three ingredients: pigment, gum arabic, and honey, and for most of the colors i feel like all i have to do is wave the brush over them and the color jumps right up there. i can't say enough good things about them... i don't think they're available in the U.S. (she brought them back from italy for me. yeah...), but they're definitely available in italy and possibly other european countries, too. or, you can order them anywhere by phone. the paynes grey is exquisite - a hint of green as well as the usual blue; and dragon's blood and indian yellow! oh my! (yes, she gave me that travel brush too, in a smaller size that i'd been wanting; and some silk, and, and...)


later she sent me some pogo prints of windows that she saw in italy... now they're making my colored pencil case more beautiful...


so these watercolors are me fooling around in the zecchi watercolor journal (about the same size as a small moleskine watercolor journal)...






i saw a photo of a venetian horse statue in a book, so i thought i'd give it a try. my horses always look so unhorse-like!!


i've started doing more daily journal type stuff in my pocket moleskine, which i pretty much abandoned over the summer. i really *like* doing this kind of thing. it's easy... it's fun, hee!


the face was done with derwent tinted charcoal pencils that i just got. i really like them (if you click you can see the colors at the top of the page)...


i did this with charcoal pencils in the watercolor book and it worked great until i went to blend them, then bits of paper started coming off. shading with charcoal is such a dream... if you're a virgo (like me) and don't like getting your hands all charcoal-y, you might want to try it in pencil form.


i've been out walking some... i feel like the rain and snow can come now - i've been by all of my favorite trees one last time, and met a few new ones to boot...


this is a large area of springs that i discovered last spring. considering that all grass here is now bone dry and brown, this is remarkable. i was wondering if it'd still be green...


this is a new tree that i found a couple of weeks ago and wanted to go back to and visit. you can't tell from the photo, but most of it is dead, which is rare; junipers live so long you just don't see dead ones.


here are five entrance-ways for arboreal homes... the first four were in the tree above, and the last one was


in this tree, which is a completely dead juniper. this area has such a feeling of calm - i can't begin to express it... i was so glad that i got to go back and spend time there. while i was sitting there drawing, three deer 'snorted' at me. my thought when the first deer snorted was "wow, that was a loud exhale!" ha! i looked around expecting to see a giant buck, but it was a medium sized, very inquisitive doe. there were four of them, and they stayed near me for about a half hour. i was beginning to think i was sitting in their spot...


i have some links to share - books and inspiration, but this is already so long i'll stop for now and post them separately in a few days.

until then...

* * *
"One's art goes as far and deep as one's love goes, and there is no reason for painting but that.

~ Andrew Wyeth

XO