the stocking were hung…

by the chimney with care in hopes that St. Nicholas would soon be there. A quick watercolor sketch while watching TV last night.

broccoli

In keeping with the red and green colors of Christmas I have pulled out a couple of pieces of broccoli from the frig. There were so many greens, warm and cool in this vegetable. It was fun to try and capture the texture of the "flowers" even though I did not managed to get it the way I had hoped. Now only 5 more spreads and a back page to go before this sketchbook is completed.

Christmas bow

The sketchbook filling marathon continues. Another page down so I can see that I will be able to fill this book before the end of the year if I keep this steady sketching pace.

red apples

Two more watercolor sketches of more refrigerator foods. I am trying to make sure I sketch everyday. After printmaking classes are over, next Wednesday, I have to move on to creating a half sheet watercolor painting every week. That way when a show comes up I should have some nice paintings to enter.

red, yellow, and orange

Peppers in my arches cp watercolor sketchbook. I think that there are only about 9 more page spreads in this book. I am beginning to wonder if this paper is rough instead of cp. It is very hard to journal on these sheets.

I would like to finish this sketchbook plus the watercolor sample book I made before the end of the year. But I don't think I will have or make the time to do that. I will be luck to get this one completed.

more ripple plate prints

I stopped by the printmaking studio today and picked up the prints from last week. I tried some more color combinations. My favorite is still the ripple plate in French ultramarine blue with the orange trees collagraph plate over the top. Since that plate kept sticking to the paper and pulling a layer of paper off it won't make it into my final print portfolio but it will make an interesting series of mix media pieces I am planning on working on in January 2010.

nativity set

We decorated the inside of the house yesterday for Christmas. This nativity set is actually white and gold. It was the only one we could find in the small college town we lived in our first Christmas. I really wanted one that was colorful It never had a shepherd. Over the years we have only lost one piece, a sheep. We had a cat that would chew on the pieces and carry them off. Not sure what she liked about them because she never touch anything else in the house all year long.

ripple plate with collagraphs

No photos today. It was raining and I didn't have a larger portfolio to carry the finished ones home. I worked with the ripple plate and collagraphs again today. I tried out some new color combinations. First printing the bubble plate in ultramarine blue on the purple and then lime green on another purple. Then I printed 5 more of the ripple plates in the blue. Tried the tree plate in orange on three of those. But again I ran into the problem of the paper peeling and adhering to the collagraph. Hopefully, one of these worked. Going to try using a couple of more layers of varnish on the tree collagraph to see if that is the problem.

Thanksgiving trip

I took a recycled book, Mastering Your Memory, which I had gutted and filled with 22 pages of Arch 140 cp watercolor paper on this family visit. We were so busy that I didn't quite finish 1/2 of the pages. All of the sketches I did do were done on the airplane or in the hotel room. The paper was so rough that my Pit artist pen only left scratchy marks on the paper. That was interesting but I found that my Pentel GFKP and pencil worked best. It was nice to be able to use watercolor instead of gouache.






The Marriott has these wonderful "I need some me time" door hangers.

Autumn Cliffs

This is the painting I submitted for the Loudoun Sketch Club fall show at the Hillsborough Vineyards and Winery in Hillsborough VA. It is a watercolor with a bit of rice paper collage and gesso for texture. I did three similar paintings but like this one the best. The show is up until 7 December 2009.

LAA show

Yesterday I dropped this watercolor off for the student show at the Loudoun Academy of the Arts student art show. The show starts next week. This one was chosen because it was the most successful one I did while taking Dell's watercolor class. I don't think there are any prizes or chance of sales but it gets me out there, which is a goal.

two more sketchbooks

Two more sketchbooks completed, only one more to go. The golden tan and brown cover is one of my etching prints of the Queen Anne's Lace. It is 5"x6" and filled with Dick Blick drawing paper. The thin orange, gray, marroon, and navy one is approximately 4.5" x 7". The cover is made from my large but shrinking stash of scrapbooking paper which is left from my short but expensive venture into the scrapbooking world. It has 5 signatures of left over printmaking paper. Either one should fit easily into my purse.

7 Gypsies sketchbook

I call this one "7 Gypsies" sketchbook because I think that is the name of the company who made the cardstock I used on the cover and end pages. It is an odd shaped book, 7.75" x 4.5" closed. I don't really like landscape format sketchbooks but this design was the result of using printmaking paper scraps that were sitting on my desk. There are 5 signatures with 4 pages each, making this a very thin book. I didn't add my usual tabs used to add envelops or insert paper or finds. It may be perfect for a short trip or a theme sketchbook. I have 3 more books waiting to be sewn together. One also uses left-over printmaking scraps of paper and will also be thin but a portrait format. The other two use Dick Blick's sketching paper and are much thicker.

Virginia landscape #2

I had worked on using engraving to darken the trees on this plate. I also went back in and scraped out some lines and added others to correct a perspective problem with the buildings. After a proof print I decided to cut off a section of the plate of both sides, changing the 9 inch square to an approximately 6.5 inch by 9 inch rectangle. Then I printed it with black ink on a golden hand made paper a friend had given to me.