prismacolor pencils on beach rock - approx. 1" x 1"

what, what, blogging, you say?!  well  i do have somewhat of a good excuse...  last week i went with roxanne to camano island, WA where she taught her bookmaking workshop, 'the thread that weaves'.  we were gone for six days, and oh my, did we have a good time...   

looking towards whidby island

we were on camano island for two days and one of them was gloriously sunny.  you know i was happy walking on the beach while roxanne was teaching.

barnacles and mussels in clam shell

at low tide i saw *so much* life; barnacles, mussels, and shells whose names i don't know.

i was in walking heaven...

 prismacolor pencils on shell and rock

and drawing heaven! 

the other day was rainy so i stayed inside the trailer that sue and bill simpson (earthtone studios) provided for us. words can't even begin to describe the generosity and kindness with which they treated us...

prismacolor pencils on piece of 'beach brick'

since i've been home i've been catching up in my 'daily book' and drawing on rocks, etc. that i brought back with me. 

and i've slowly gotten back to painting with oils.  just so you know, the 'airtight' palette is not airtight!  even though i placed the palette inside a ziplock bag before i left, most of the colors had dried beyond usability.  so i scrubbed and scraped it clean and started over.  this is my palette from this morning -  notice that i'm using very small dabs of everything except white!

that's what i've been up to...  savoring these summer days, i am...

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“Really, I think one’s art goes only as far and as deep as your love goes.”   

~ Andrew Wyeth,  'Andrew Wyeth: Autobiography'

sophia ~ water soluble oil paint on collaged watercolor paper, approx. 4" x 6"

sophia was maybe my fourth or fifth oil painting. i stopped shortly after i painted her to wait until i got more colors.  initially i ordered six colors and yellow wasn't one of them; i thought that raw sienna would be so much more useful for faces, and it is, but you need yellow!

when i ordered more colors i got this airtight palette.  i wanted something that wasn't too big and definitely airtight... 

 i'm *amazed* at how far oil paints go - the smallest dab of color is all you need for most things.  so far i've used a lot of white and a very little of everything else!

me painting with watercolors in my 'office' this morning.  it may be possible to have too much paint, but i doubt it.

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“Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love.”

~ Claude Monet

phoebe ~ wOIL on old book  page on cardboard

i've been painting a lot...  i finished the 'daily book' i was working in and started another one, and outside of it i've been painting with a brand of water soluble, non-toxic oil paints called wOIL.    this is my first wOIL painting and it's no exaggeration to say that i was smitten with the first brush stroke.

amy, lisa, and edouard vuillard, i thank you for making want to try oil paint...  :  )

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“Draw your pleasure, paint your pleasure, and express your pleasure strongly. 

~ Pierre Bonnard