'mrs. anna markowski' ~ oil paint on chocolate bar wrapper

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via brain pickings

'red 22' ~ watercolors and gouache in stillman and birn 'zeta', 5 1/2" x 8 1/2"

i've been practicing painting with gouache and watercolors right out of the tube - no water added.   it's (usually) best to be patient and let each layer dry before adding another, which i'm not very good at.  the other thing i do is add too much paint - get carried away with layers until i'm confused and don't know whether i'm coming or going.    i do a lot of wiping off...  

colored pencils, graphite, and gouache on collaged and painted page in 'zeta'

the right side of a page - i wiped off most of the paint and then used colored pencils to color the eye and lips back in.  colored pencils never cease to amaze me.

gouche, watercolors, stabilo marks all, and colored pencils in 'zeta'

in the end i wiped almost everything off of this page..

 i liked the smiling dog so i drew a line around him for good measure.   ; )

gouache, stabilo marks all pencil, and watercolors on collaged page in 'zeta'

the page i'm working on now.  i can't see where to go with it, so i'll wait 'til i do.  actually, as i sit here typing, i can see a couple of things right away that  need to change!

but i'm resting from intense gouache education right now...  : )

i wanted to tell you about this staedtler pencil sharpener.  i picked it up a couple of weeks ago at a small art supply store, and it's *the best* handheld pencil sharpener i've tried - and i've tried a bunch.   it's the only sharpener i've found (besides the faber-castell handheld sharpener) that sharpens albrecht durer watercolor pencils.  it sharpens every colored and graphite pencil that i have: tombow, prismacolor, faber castell polychromos, cretacolor, derwent, and lyra.  and that little lid closes so the shavings don't fall out in your bag.

stabilo marks all in stilman and birn gamma - 4" x 6"

i've been having a bunch of fun doing watercolor transfers, which i learned about in this book about gauguin.   all you do is get a piece of watercolor (or any) paper damp (just brush water on until it's damp but not runny wet), then press the damp paper against your watercolor painting - or line drawing, like i've done here.  when you lift the damp paper off you'll have a 'print' of your watercolor.  

on the page above i went over my pencil drawing with a stabilo marks all pencil, then i put a damp piece of watercolor paper (i used saunders waterford 200# cold press) on it, so now i have this image in two places. 

 in case you're wondering, the dark thing in the bottom of the pic is a rock holding the page down... 

watercolors and stabilo marks all in stillman and birn gamma

this is what it looks like now...

watercolors and gouache on arches 100# cotton drawing paper

this is a watercolor transfer of the painting in the last post (in my daily book).  i added more color around the edges, and on her face...

watercolors and gouache on arches 100# cotton drawing paper

from a painting in my daily book - this was the first 'transfer',

watercolors and gouache on arches 100# cotton drawing paper

and this was the second.  of course you can add as much  paint as you want to the new images...    it's truly a lot of fun.

back to the gauguin book...  it's very good and i highly recommend it.  while i love his oil paintings, what stole my heart in the book were his watercolors (and watercolor transfers) and woodblock prints.

colored pencils on rusty can

oh!  the walking days are getting short!

this tree is still alive...

'lu ella'  ~ oil paint on sewing pattern paper, 6" x 6"

it seems like only yesterday that summer was starting...   on my wanders i've watched plants from blossom to seed.   i feel like i've seen this summer from start to (almost) finish...

.25 slicci and watercolors in old medical dictionary

until a few weeks ago i painted very little.  i mostly drew with pen,

pencil drawing after otto dix's 'lola'  in pocket moleskine

and pencil.

.25 slicci and colored pencils in old  medical dictionary

i used colored pencils with pen

and pencil.

gouache, watercolors, and stabilo 'marks all' pencil in my 'daily book'

then one day lisa graham sent me a link to gillian lee smith's blog.   i watched this video about her palette and the wheels started turning...  watching her paint here got more wheels rolling...

oil paint on pattern paper, 5" x 7"

a week or so later a friend wrote telling me to try oil paint on sewing pattern paper.

oil paintings on pattern paper drying

my little painting wheels started spinning wildly at that point! 

watercolors, stabilo 'marks all' pencil, oil pastels and gel medium on pattern paper

and so it's been ever since.

i've wondered things like why i never used a palette knife with gouache before, and why did i think a painting had to be done with either a brush or a palette knife but not both?   crazy!

oil paint on pattern paper glued to cover with gel medium

this is the stillman and birn 'gamma' that i started back in april - i've been painting with watercolors in it again.  this morning i glued this painting to the cover...

i'm still drawing...   i got this kind of pocket moleskine - it has thin paper, which i like because pen shows/bleeds through, so i do

'reverse drawings' on the back of the page. 

colored pencils and 8B pencil on stick

 i've drawn on a lot of sticks and rusty cans!

i left that stick at the biggest heart rock  yet.   

it's been a marvelous summer...

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“Painting is to dream. When the dream is over, I don’t remember anything I dreamed about. The painting, however, remains. It is the harvest of my dream.”

~ Friedensreich Hundertwasser (via tumblr)

colored pencils and graphite in pocket moleskine

'fern' is the theme of this week's drawing challenge - hosted by norma, and since my going on and on about a giant fern i saw is one of the reasons norma chose this theme, i wanted to participate...  

it was in early july that i told her i'd just seen a *huge* fern - i don't remember the overall reason for our correspondence at the time, but i do remember that when i told norma about the fern she was, well, norma...   she responded to my excitement as if she herself had seen the giant fern!  we wrote back and forth about it  three or four times!

now, exactly one month later, it seems like lifetimes ago that i came across that fern on one of my wanders.   here it is in all of its fern glory (not that my picture even begins to capture it);  if i were standing next to it we'd be about the same height - a little over five feet tall.

 

i found it one day when i was walking up this stream, which is one of the headwater streams of the creek that i live on.   we have a lot of water here - and a lot of mossy rocks like the ones in this pic, but because the relative humidity is so low there are very few ferns.  there are some, but they're not very tall or robust.   this is, after all, considered to be high desert.

if you've been exploring an area for 15 years and have never come across a fern of any size, and then one day you see one that's more than 5' tall, believe me, it gets your attention.   you can hardly believe your eyes.  you feel it may be the most wondrous thing you've ever seen in your life...

the pedestal the fern sits on;  it's formed from the previous years growth and is about a foot tall....

watercolors and colored pencil

the 'fern pages' in my daily book.   i drew on the can here at home and took it back to leave at the fern a couple of days later.  the deer flies were way too intense there to sit and draw.

i think i'll visit it once more before winter.  i don't want to go too often because the area is a fragile wetland,  but once in a while i'll visit and treat myself to its presence...

for more fern goodness be sure and visit norma ...

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All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness.”

~ James McNeill Whistler

'nola' ~ watercolors, gouache, pan pastels and matte gel medium in my daily book

truly, i'm feeling little desire to blog these days...  

colored pencil and watercolors in daily book

i'm working in my daily book - and experimenting with tracing paper, still!

and still finding a lot of great rust, and going out wandering...  soaking up as much sunshine and fresh air as i can...

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 “You study, you learn, but you guard the original naïveté.  It has to be within you, as desire for drink is within the drunkard or love is within the lover.”

~ Matisse

summer joy

'ella' ~ oil pastels, watercolors, acrylic paint, pan pastels and colored pencil on tracing paper

i've been experimenting with working on both sides of tracing paper...    this pic of ella is the back side,

and this is the front.  although you can't really see it here, the expressions  on each side can be very different.   i've also been experimenting with pan pastels, which i think have great potential for faces...  

same ingredients as above

another face on tracing paper - i can't remember if this is the front or the back.  the wrinkles on the tracing paper are from me ironing it too long!  i was ironing out wrinkles left from the watercolors, and i got carried away...   she's a poor rendition of a painting by gregory grenon, who's a master of reverse painting on glass.

otherwise i've been painting in my daily book, and adding a lot of flower pictures.

oil pastels, watercolors, casein paint, colored pencil and beeswax in my daily book

i've slacked up on using wax so much, but i did use it on this page, which comes before all of the pics i took on the solstice.

like this,

and this,

and this.  i found a lot of good rust on the solstice.  : )

from another day...   it's just been a great rust summer so far!

you can see a little of my colored pencil box here - that's all i use on cans

and sticks.

these sticks and cans have been my main drawing joy for the last couple of weeks...

i've also been taking flower pictures like the state of the world depended on it...

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