Something a little different

This week I spent a little time every day working on a face.  At one time I did these often and usually in a recycled book that I had made into a journal.  This one is one a plain page in a sketchbook.

The image is from a wetcanvas weekend drawing event and I think I've done a drawing of him once before but that was a long time ago. He was fun but I prefer doing this type of drawing in an altered book sketchbook.  I may think about going back to it one of these days.

Meanwhile, I continue to work on the clutter clearing and am making good progress.  As I work on that and see different things in the studio I'm really wanting the space clear so I can get on to another project.  Three quarters of the way home!

The 100 Day Challenge

 

I’m doing it again but a bit different than in the past. Picasso said Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working. So I’m going to be working but not posting.

My project is to spend at least an hour every day making art but this year I won’t be sharing on social media. Sharing on social media shifts my intention from fun to making good or at least halfway decent works.  The pressure builds, the joy fades and the work shows it.  This time it’s just for the fun of doing the work.  I will still be posting my quick morning sketches but that isn't part of the project, that's just what I do every morning to start my day.

My intention is to start the morning asking myself what I want to make today.  It could be working on something new – or maybe finish one of the many starts I have laying around.  I could be drawing or making a paper clay bowl.  It doesn’t matter what and it doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad, only that I do it just the fun of doing. I'm on day 5 and have already had fun ripping up canvas strips from a painting that I finally decided was not working and wasn't going to because I didn't like any of it.  I do like the strips I got from the ripping -- now thinking about what I can do with them.

 

Another Sunflower

 And I do like this one better

Actually, when I started this I planned on doing Daylilys.  There was a photo of several on the weekend drawing event over on wetcanvas.com last weekend.  I finally decided I didn't like where the Daylilys drawing was going and I already had the paper covered with some yellows so -- why not try another Sunflower. I'm much happier with this one.

This week my Tuesday Painters group went to Herrick Library in Holland to see the quilts on exhibit.  This is national quilt month and all the libraries in our area are showcasing quilts made by women in the area.  The quilts were fun to see but I wasn't inspired to sketch a bunch of books on shelves or any of the quilts so I opted to do some pencil sketches of people, two sketchers and one librarian shelving books.  Then some playing with lettering.

That was fun, I may do more of that -- both the people sketching and the lettering.  Since the pandemic we no longer eat out much and that was when I did most of my people sketching.  I do want to get back to doing it.

And speaking of quilts, I've been talking with a friend who has painted a few quilts that she has made.  I love her work and want to introduce you to her.  I'll be working on that introduction for an upcoming blog post.

What else, more in my art journal and I've read a couple books.  My grandson has a fractured hip and can't walk here from school so I pick him up.  A book helps kill the time waiting in the parking lot.  It also means I need to keep reading at other times so I can try and figure out who done it.  

Spring is coming -- I think I'll paint some daffodils.

The Challenge Continues

 And some turned out quite nice.  This is one and here are a couple more...

And some, not so nice ...  Too many lilacs on such a small piece of paper.  This is about 2"x3". I should have limited the number of branches.

And this one is just way overworked.  I was not having fun and it shows.

These are watercolor.  I'm planning to do a couple more watercolor before moving on to acrylic -- or maybe collage.  

A Floral Challenge

"If an inspiration comes back to you at least 3 times you should take it as a serious

sign from your inner self and consider acting on it."

from The Artist's Quest for Inspiration

Floral has been coming back to me more than three times.  I guess it's time to act on it so that is my 100 Day Project for 2023.  My plan is to try different media, different substrates and different techniques.  I have an assortment of small odd sized papers so those will be the first substrates. Documenting the process is another part of the plan.

The first day I had to clear space on my desk and one of the things left there was a stone my friend Terry brought me from Spain.  She said I was supposed to be able to draw with it so I made a few marks to try it.  It worked and the marks sort of started to look like a flower so what could I do but see where it took me. Ink, gesso, a rock from Spain and lots of fun with brush, pen and fingertips. And I posted it as my first entry in the journal.  

Day 2's piece started by getting the paper wet and adding some yellows along with a bit of Ultramarine Blue and Quin Rose.  I'm happy with the result but it wasn't as much fun as drawing with the stone. And then I ruined it by adding an ink outline.

Today's isn't done.  Once again, watercolor but this time I did the ink drawing first.  Waiting for it to dry before finishing and I have other things that I need to work on so probably won't finish this until late this afternoon.  I am posting my progress on Instagram if you'd like to follow along. Here's a link to my instagram account 

Back To The Challenge But First

 My new travel journal.

We headed south for a short break from the cold and I took along a small concertina sketchbook.  Normally I do postcards and/or take lots of photos with the intention of putting them in separate travel journal once home.  The last part rarely happens.  

This year I had intended to do some collage with ephemera collected along the way.  That didn't happen.  Instead I ended up doing what I normally do on postcards but the sketches are already in the sketchbook. I believe this will be my new form of travel sketchbook.  I can make it with a page a day for however many days we will be away.  Perfect. Here are a few more pages. Some still need color but I've made color notes or taken photos so that can be added.

I've already added the color to the fish that were everywhere at the Thirsty Turtle, an excellent place for seafood in Port St. Lucie, FL

And now, back home and back to the #100daychallenge -- this is a new old piece that got put away because I had no clue what to do with it.  It now has three new layers.  The last one being some collage, papers that I unwrapped yesterday.  More on that after the challenge piece.

The black scribble was the first new layer followed by the graphite scribbles.  The graphite scribbles were done with my new carpenter's mechanical pencil.  Love it, the pencil that is.  And today I added collage in the lower right corner.  That's some of the paper I unwrapped yesterday from the bundles I had put out behind our garage last December.  Here are the bundles unwrapped...

And now I think I'm caught up and hopefully will get back on track.  I've been trying to post every week but traveling got in the way.

Hooray! I Don't Have To Learn A New Blog

Welcome to my blog. I write about my journey as an artist.  I'll be posting about my process, why I paint, what I paint, my art journals and things that get my attention.  Along the way I'll also post about different artists that I like and show you some of their work.  I hope you find it interesting.

This isn't a new blog as I had been planning. My blogging nightmare finally ended. Blogger kept telling me I wasn't me so I finally gave up and thought I'd start a new blog to go along with the website I'm working on.  Problem is the website is slow going as is a new blog.  I suppose you can teach an old dog new tricks but it's harder.

Interestingly Blogger wasn't the only one that seemed to not recognize me and after several tries, a few chats and a couple phone calls to one of those other sites I got a suggestion to try changing browsers.  Thank you WSJWine for finally coming up with something that worked.  I changed and now can get in to all three that I had been locked out of. This old dog is so happy for that.  Still slow going on the website but I don't need to reinvent the blog.

There's been a lot going on since my last post before Christmas. The Ukraine is the biggest. This little sketch is in memory of my Ukrainian friend Chrystyna and prayers for her home country.

There has been so much more happening in my studio.  First, #100daychallenge is on again and  every day I've been working on a huge pile of pieces that I never finished.  I vowed to finish them.  So far I've been happy with some -- here are two of them. The ones I end up not liking I'll gesso over and start again.

                             

I also took a 5 day workshop on bookmaking.  I've made a lot of books but have always just figured out a way to do it. When I saw this workshop available on line I decided to try learning a correct way of doing it and I did. These are the ones I did in the workshop and I tried out one of them.

 My first attempts are not the best but I learned a lot and will make more. 

There's been a lot more going on but I think this is enough for now.  It's good to be back

100 Done

I finished the 100 Day Project.... this was number 100 done along our riverside boardwalk with the Tuesday Painters group.

These next two are also done along the river, one done in Portland and the other here in Grand Haven, same river.

This is one of the other days and the more I see of what I get when I don't use the spiral bound book the more I dislike the spiral for these.  

They still work well for sketching ideas so I won't throw them out but ...

I switched for my dailies and I also began to think about getting some of my wonky angels done, Christmas is coming so a few of my dailies are angels... 

or just the feathers

And once again I got sidetracked making little sketchbooks....

and then read a blog about glued books so had to try that...

It's not spiral and it lays flat, both pluses.  However, I'm not sure how well it will hold up.  I'm taking it with me when I go to Spider Lake for my annual art retreat with above mentioned friend Terry. She and I have been doing these retreats since her youngest and my only were in Junior High.  Now both of those boys are well into their careers and raising kids of their own.

"Stay In Your Lane"

I was listening to a podcast today... Robin-Marie and Sandi Keene, "Creatives Get Real!"  One takeaway I got from it was "Stay In Your Lane."  I am going to make a sign to hang in my studio.  Like Robin-Marie, I am always trying whatever it is I see that looks interesting and fun.  Yes, I have accepted that I am a master of being a Jack of All Trades but even with that, there is a limit.

Right now I'm focused on the art journal and even though I'm not liking some of what I'm doing, I'm learning and that's okay.  I know that I need to change direction in my work but still not sure what direction … so staying in my lane to me means stick with trying the two things you think you want to master, collage and abstraction.  Here are a couple more done this week.

And I have decided I really dislike the spiral binding so this journal is going on the shelf, a new one is getting started.  Here is the last entry in the spiral bound journal.

The spiral bound is still okay for working with my Tuesday Painter group because I paint and journal.  But that's all I'll be using them for.

"And The Beat Goes On"

Why did that song pop into my head?  Possibly a combination of the weeks events..."Rocketman", certainly not Sonny and Cher but music and continuing to work on my 100 Day Project.

If you haven't seen "Rocketman," go.  It's one I probably would have missed had a friend not asked me to take her.  The music was pure Elton John, the filming was colorful, the story was sad but worth seeing and a good ending.

And my dailies.... some good, some not so much.  Today's is one of those not so much but it was a learning experience so that much is good.  I tried some different things working on layers.

Take time and rethink are words that I had cut out some time ago and they were in my morning devotional book.  Seemed appropriate for this one.  I may go back in and do some more, then again, maybe just move on.  

Here are a few more.... and as usual, some I'm very happy with and some not so much..

 The circle in this one is from a pen and ink that I did from an image over on wetcanvas, a the weekend drawing event.  Here is the pen and ink... 

 Those fish just appeared, certainly wasn't planning fish when I put down the black and white but there they are and since I'm a Pisces it seems to fit.

Something I constantly need to remind myself to do.... Listen to the Whispers

 What can I say... it does win.

The kid in the boat is only using one oar which would mean he will be going in circles.  The drawing is mine and sometimes I feel like I'm going in circles.  That is especially true when clearing the clutter in my studio, I clear a space, go to another area to clear, come across something I had forgotten, start working on it again, in the space I had cleared and "the beat goes on."

Still Working On The 100 Day Project

This is day 16.  I took a short trip to Virginia for a wedding so 17, 18 and 19 are photographs...

This one is part of a candle holder at the wedding

 Back home I continued with the painting and/or collage,  Here are a few more....

And one final photo.... with my cousins at the wedding...

So good to be with all of them