Too pretty to eat

...don't you think? Autumn squash sitting in my Italian bowl.

This is my friend, Claire....

...who creates the most lovely watercolor travel journals, photo books, and artistically-rendered class notes.

They are for the most part, in style, the exact opposite of my own. So I love to travel with her via these delicate watercolor images, surrounded by serene white space and lettered masterfully. I asked her to share a few pages from her recent travel to Paris which she graciously has done.

Claire Russell

Claire Russell

Claire Russell

Claire Russell

Handcrafted front to back, Claire Russell

We have a mutual love of travel and other sketchbooks and journals and probably would win prizes for our collections of them. Both of us find obscure titles and proudly share them with each other, as well as the other new artful goodies we have found. At our last lunch, she showed me this accordion photo book she created. Her work is immaculate - another trait I admire but pretty much lack in my own style.

Her name is Claire Russell. You won't find her on a blog or web site, because she doesn't have one! I am working on that...trying to convince her to do it!  But you can find some other work she has done on Molly Hashimoto's site here.

hydrangea....

my really favorite flower. 

sunflower: an awesome flower and my favorite

rose begonia: truly, my favorite flower.

tulip: my absolute favorite flower. 

dahlia: my regal favorite

A combination of a watercolor and some digital playing around on Elements and PicMonkey.

#5 in Flowers Through the Calendar series.

Candy Corny

On a recent early morning  walk I came upon this funny-looking flower.

Having recently participated in  Carla Sonheim's imaginary flowers, it got me thinking that this one looked like it came out of a dream.

So I was inspired to create some new flowers like these,

And I put them in a field, with photos the real ones (do you see them?)

And I named it and put it in verse, because every flower should have a poem written for it.

My days were drab, and life was thorny

          'Til I found this field of Candy Corny
         
          Its petals spiky and cheerfully yellow

          Unhinged my blues and made me mellow.

First things first. Happy  Birthday to my Best Best BBF, over 50 years and counting, Claudia.

Finally completed the February flower. (Yeah, I know....)  This was 3rd version of the beautiful camellias in our backyard...just couldn't love the other two. I will live with this one. I am assigning myself practice with the brush via a Calendar Flower series. I thought I had posted December and January but guess not, so they are below.

On to March flower before March leaves us...magnolias are blooming all over, beckoning me.

February. #3 in series. 

January. #2 in series. 

December. #1 in series. 

Friday Finds and Buried Treasure

1. I still enjoy visiting Carol at Tall Tales from Kansas. I check her blog often.

wallpaper page Carol painted

Lawrence, Kansas

Hi, my name is Carol. I live in Lawrence KS. I write Tall Tales. I tell about stuff that happened to me. Most of it is true.   

Her blog is funny (she's the sister of Mary Ann Moss, Dispatch from LA, so it apparently runs in the family!), full of photos, insights, recipes, and cool links,

"A working knowledge of the location of the best coffee hang outs in my geographical area is something I consider my duty to possess.  So whenever I hear about a spot that I haven't been to, I make it my business to get there.  What follows is a thorough report on two places that have recently been brought to my attention..."  From her latest post. 


2. such as her friend, Jeannette Sclar, whose fresh watercolors you'll find on her Flickr page. She does flowers and leaves deliciously - I find painting leaves very challenging meself - but I enjoy her urban sketching as much.

Jeannette Sclar

3. And one link leading to another as it happens, I got to this video, Maira Kalman Explores Art and Existence. I spoke of her before. And probably will again. Love her.

If you can't get enough of her, find a whole slew of Kalman videos here.

4. I discovered Nate Williams this week, although I cannot remember what path I took to get there. Such is the bramblebush highway of the internet,  yes?  Love the lettering he does. 

Nate Williams

5. I am playing with lettering styles through Skillshare.

Do you know about Skillshare? It's an online course site.  It's a pretty inexpensive way to get quick courses on lettering, calligraphy, mapmaking, photoshop, and other such treats. I signed up for the monthly subscription so I can get anything that comes down the pike (and there are regular additions to the "catalog") with no additional charge (the fees are small for those who want to taste one or two.) They are set up like mini-courses, with even "assignments" and projects, but I dabble in the ideas on my own as I like. There's no deadline, everyone's projects are posted who wish them to be, and, as usual, the work of "classmates" is as valuable as the course itself for inspiration and just general pleasure of viewing. If you go and stay, tell them Diane sent you! 

Painting some Italian memories

Some recent watercolors painted for Molly Hashimoto's class. I used photos from our trip to Italy last year.  I have dozens: so many memories.

the quintessential Tuscany view

garden walkway

Practicing "greens" on market cucumbers

leaf me alone

'cuz I'm painting. 

A tour of Daniel Smith

Lucky enough to be local to the best watercolor paint manufacturer in the world.. a free tour of their plant today. And time to play with some of the paints.

 

Three Goodies

After mulling over it for awhile to consider my level of commitment, I enrolled in Carla Sonheim's year-long fairy tale class. I am fond of fairy tales, much more so now than when I was wee. Every year my teaching partners and I would teach fairy tales to our classes: the structure, folkore, similarities and differences, and artistry - visual and written - of classic and unknown fairy tales. Then students would write their own, illustrate them, print out the tale on pages that were sewn into a book. Then we looked at suns in art and they designed a sun cover which they batiked. It was all long, arduous, and fun as heck and the products were amazing. I'll post a photo or two when I run across them again. Talk about love-hate relationships....like most people, I live in Digital and Film Purgatory; what have we wrought?

So I continue to be drawn to them. I have several beautifully illustrated ones on my picture book shelves. Carla's delicate and whimsical style is perfect for the genre and I will enjoy going through these "assignments" and illustrating fairy tales. I am catching up, as the class started a few weeks ago.

One of our exercises if to copy faces with our nondominant hand to learn how faces"work" - I draw and paint  faces a lot (I love trying to draw faces from the newspaper, cops and robbers, living and dead, heroes and villains.) So I sort of jumped over that part, but did look at some faces while using my left hand and stylized them  as I went along. Then I went back and tweeked with my "good" hand. I did find that using my left hand allowed more freedom of imagination as I drew. More likely to get wonky shapes and lines to build upon. That was fun. These aren't final faces; I will play more until I choose the face I want for my  FROG PRINCESS!

Even if you decide not to take this on, you might enjoy watching that introduction at the top...and you really must see her paper doll tutorial

 2. 

Did you know that Michael's now carries Moleskine journals? 40% coupons make them quite palatable. A bit of art store guilt here, but I'll get over it and don't see my art store spending inhibited much. (Daniel Smith loves me. The Michael's selection is limited, and I actually have a love-hate relationship with Moleskines, but I do like their creamy-thicker- pages-one.  Since I only have (XXXXX) other blank journals on which to do my fairy tale drawings and light watercolor. I bought a red one. It will be perfect.

(Number was redacted to embarrassment of number of other blank sketchbooks, journals, ready signatures, and Anthropologie catalogs to gesso over that I also could have used instead of buying another one. I love using the word "redacted." It's so...current and important-sounding.)

3.

Saw an ad for "Double Scoop" gelatos, which I have put on my wish list. I love those creamy gelatos and will use the larger sizes. I walk around with fingers of various gelato colors quite often from rubbing them into my art work. Delish.

Room with a view

Prague: the city of spires



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Planning My Journals

As I prepare for a trip to Europe coming up soon, I am busy thinking about the journals I will make and take. Lots of decisions to make. I will probably vary what I do for each of the regions I visit, but everything will be in loose pages or signatures. I do not do full books well and i hate carrying them around.

For Italy, I will work "backwards" a little. For sketching and painting, I usually take a photo or use a book and make my drawing from that. I think this time I will first make a sketch or painting from a photo in my travel books. Since on previous travels I've been to several of the hill towns we will be visiting, I want to give myself a little scavenger hunt project. I'll look for the places or items I've drawn, and take a photo as my "evidence." I look forward to the hunt. I think some of my traveling partners will help me look.

work in progress....

I'll make a few loose pages for each, leaving lots of room for doodads and ephemera and teeny little sketches. I like pasting in quotes and tips from travelers. After returning, I'll add the doodads, transfer images, stamp, and have a merry old time. This is a good way that I extend the trip on both ends.

Oh, I will have fun.

What I'm Reading

30 Days of Drawing, Day 19. One Shell 8 Ways

Started in August, just finished; maybe a bit of cheating here, therefore. But I drew #3 and #7 today, so I'm counting it.  Fun. Used a variety of  tools and colors. Ended up totally different than what I had in mind when I started. Such is life. 

30 Days of Drawing, Day 16: Fall flowers

Today in Molly's class we sketched fall flowers, using broad strokes in watercolor and pen and ink. I painted a dahlia and a gorgeous blue/green/purple (pink, red, gold) hydrangea.  Ooo, I love hydrangeas in all their flavors. 

Posed for Christmas Family Photo

Yup. I know. The first 16 days aren't here yet. Maybe soon.

I painted our two cats, Rosie and Ziggy, who wrote our Christmas letter for us this year. 

An excerpt: "I am Rose, a black and white Tuxedo cat with very big bones. Heavy lifting is required for me, but I am worth it. I like laps and backrups and humans in general. I have a special talent: I always know when Mom or Dad have taken a seat in the comfy chair, no matter where else in the house I may be at the time. I am smart that way. I will always find them."

"I am Ziggy. I like to be petted but only from a distance. I really don't want you to get sentimental and sappy, and I won't jump on your lap, no matter the temptation! I have a permanent Got Milk mustache and a silly name. I am, after all, a lovely tortoise-shelled beauty. I think I should be named..."Tulip!" I'll cuddle up to my sister Rosie anytime - we get along very well - but no cuddling with humans, please. That's just the way I roll."

Dancing in the Rain

Dancing in the rain on a misty Sunday afternoon. 

This charming Parisian girl romped around the restaurant area while her folks chatted with others. She was having a great time with her pink umbrella, dancing and singing to herself, and I was having a great time watching her. I decided drawing her would make sure I always remembered the moment.