A Face a Day

I've wanted to try sketching a face a day ever since seeing Pat Howard's continuous line ones. Mine are done with pen without previous pencil sketching or erasing.  The first page was done from some faces I found online, and the second is my granddaughter.  I was going to start this project on New Year's Day, but while my enthusiasm was still fresh I decided to start now.  Hopefully I can keep it going at least during January.

Christmas Sketches

I spent Christmas week with some of my grandchildren.  These are the sketches that I managed to get done in a house with three adults, and eight children.  It was noisy, crowded, messy and fun, but not a lot of room to sketch. 

Some Sketches From My Oklahoma Thanksgiving Trip

Floral Sketch

Well, I know I've done some sketching between August and now, but it seems like I have not been posting.  Even this one was done several weeks ago, but I hadn't gotten around to putting color on it until today.   This was done from a photo of a bouquet that I received on Mothers' Day.  In my Strathmore Visual Journal.

More in the Folding Journal

Catching up with some of my posting.  These are sketches that I did when the grandkids were here in July, except for the last one that I did from a photo.   Some of the images are sideways - a glitch with my camera interacting with blogger, I think.

Folding Journals (continued)

Today we went to The Gardens at Wyckoff to sketch instead of going to the pool because it was cool this morning.  After packing up pencils, pens, and watercolor pencils for each of us, I forgot to pack my watercolors, so I did my (top three images) sketches with the kiddie Prang set I brought along.  Jadyn sketched several roses and used watercolor pencil and graphite.  And she sketched herself at Central Park from a photo.(bottom two images). 

Grandkids Week 1 - New Folding Journals

 My granddaughter, Jadyn, is here for a week, and we made folding, "meandering" journals per Cathy Johnson's video, made covers for them, and these are some of the sketches I've done so far.  They show some fiber art that we did the first day she was here, our trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, relaxing the next day after all the walking we did in NYC, and Jadyn making me a necklace that resembled one we saw at the museum gift shop.  Hope to do more sketches today.

African Violet

My friend Anna has a couple of African violet plants.  When they are in bloom I try to do a sketch or a painting of them, since I can't seem to grow those myself.  I don't think I get enough light in my house.  I don't think I've ever sketched the purple one before, but I love the contrast of the purple and the greens. 

Sketching at The Gardens

I sketched these two page spreads today at The Gardens in Wyckoff.  It was a little too early - most of the roses and peonies were just starting to get buds.  But there were a few early bloomers, and some flag irises.  I haven't been there in a few years, but I'll have to plan another trip soon.  It's really a great place to sketch flowers.

Thank Heaven for Little Girls

This week's theme for one of my journaling groups was to pick a color and make a page showing what that color means to me.  I picked pink because it reminds me of my littlest granddaughter.

Art Journaling Online Workshop

This month I've been taking an online art journaling workshop.  It's about working in layers, and we've prepared pages with washes, salt, alcohol, etc.  We've added rectangles with watercolor pencil, and we've added writing and lettering.  Quite a bit different than what I usually do in my sketchbooks (I think mine are usually more sketchbooks than journals).

Sketching for Fun

In the last few days, several artists who I admire have put a sampling of their sketchbooks/journals on Facebook, so I wondered if I had enough books to do the same.  Actually, this is only a small sampling of mine - all I could reasonably fit in one photo.  But it's a good sampling of what I do for fun when I'm not creating larger paintings or hanging out on Facebook.  LOL!

Grandchildren Journal Page

I posted this on my watercolor blog, because it's done watercolor, but it's also done in one of my journals, a theme page for the We Art Journal Facebook page.  The theme was something that we love.  I liked the way it came out so much that I ordered a t-shirt with this design.  I hope the sizes run true.  It's not easy to find a commercial t-shirt that will take eleven names.

Sketchcrawl #43 - solo crawl finding signs of spring in my neighborhood

And the "sideways gremlin" strikes again!

While I was taking my walk this morning, I was thinking about where I could go to do a solo sketchcrawl.  I noticed a few little signs of spring, like some forsythia blooming, and Easter decorations, so when I finished, I went back out and retraced my route with my sketchbook, pens and small watercolor kit.  I did four small sketches.  After this past winter, (and snow on Monday), it felt so good to be warm and to see just the tiniest sign that spring was really going to make an appearance this year. 

Sketching in NYC

In NYC for the American Watercolor Society Show, I did two sketches in nearby Union Square - one before the show and one after.  The second one never got finished because by that time the vendors were packing up and Joan was waiting for me to finish up so we could catch our train  home.

I seem to be having problems with my images uploading sideways again. 

A Bit More Involved Than a Sketch

I'm participating in one of the Strathmore online workshops this month.  I did this sketch/drawing for Lesson 2 on tone and shape, with emphasis on shading and drawing ellipses.  I procrastinated a lot about starting, and ended up with a cloudy day with not too much light coming in my kitchen window.  And my stonewear is black, brown, and off white, which made using tone with a pencil a bit challenging, but I think I nailed it.  A couple of my ellipses are a little off - more noticeable in looking at the scan than when I was doing the actual drawing.  Here is my "Sugar and Creamer" done with #2B and #4B Derwent sketching pencils.

Barns and Silos near Goshen, NY

I did these from the car, after my sister and I picked up our paintings from the Northeast Watercolor Society members show in Orange County, NY.   The first scene was done as a quick watercolor vignette and then in ink.  Farm 2 was done across both pages in ink. 

Myrtle Beach Sketches

Last week I attended a collage workshop at Myrtle Beach with  my sister Joan.  We also did some sketching on our own, both before and after the workshop.  The first is a sketch of a palmetto behind Marlin's Restaurant and pier.  The second is a shrimp boat - I'm not too familiar with shrimp boats, and they have a lot of masts, arms, wires, ropes, chains, and assorted "stuff" that's hard to paint when you don't know what it is, and what it is for.  I sketched what I thought might be important.  The last one is a little watercolor of some palmettos and the marsh in Murrell's Inlet.