Farm Sketches

Had the opportunity to spend Thanksgiving at the Farm with my family.
The view of the Tetons from their place.

My brother playing the upright base.

The chickens we love. All of us get a lot of enjoyment out of these girls.

From an old bird watching book.

The railroad tracks “in-town”.

My dad’s bluegrass group. Growing up, there was always music in our home. My dad playing, practicing with my grandma. My dad just got back into playing music a couple of years ago and it’s so wonderful to hear him again.

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A date by myself

This summer my family went for nearly two weeks to see my husband’s family in Montana. I really couldn’t be gone that long with the classes I was taking and my thesis project so I stayed home. It was weird to be home alone with just the dog, and it was the first time my husband had taken the kids on a trip by himself. I worked a lot but I also took advantage of a saturday to take myself on a date.

First, I went to LeCafe de Paris. A french cafe, that is one of my favorite spots. It’s usually packed so we rarely go when we have the kids.
I treated myself to a lovely breakfast and did some painting while I waited for my breakfast.

coffee

cafe

breakfast: yum 🙂

Then I browsed the saturday market where I enjoyed a local singer-songwriting duo. I did a quick painting of them singing. After they were done they asked if they could see it and loved it so I signed it and gave it to them.

Next, I wandered to the Basque Festival. Boise has one of the largest Basque populations outside of Spain. I did some sketching/painting enjoyed a basque wine beverage and watched the dancers.

I did a quick watercolor while watching these kids and a guy came up and asked to buy it. I quickly explained, I’m not an “real” artist and it wasn’t done. He really loved it and his daughter had been one of the dancers I had painted. So I gave it to him. He insisted I sign it and take 5$ for it. He was thrilled and I was too, I’d just sold a painting!

Loved the contrast of the old sheep camps against the modern downtown.

Home of one of the founding Basque families.

Here’s the thing about painting out in the “real” world. People are always curious and want to see what you’re doing. It’s hard to hide! And I have to work on being more confident about my painting. Is it the best ever? No, but it’s also not the worst either! And I’m working on owning up to being a “real” artist.

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Lavender Festival Watercolors

This summer I made an effort to pack my watercolor kit with me and do a little painting. All of these are approximately 4×6 on hot pressed Arches paper.
Went to a lavender festival with my sweet girl.

I packed an extra water color kit in case my girl wanted to paint.

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Experimenting with Patterns and new pens

Just got two new pens. Lately I’ve been playing with patterns from nature and making them very abstract, I can be such a realist sometimes that it helps to shake things up.

First the new Sharpie pen. It’s waterproof and archival safe. And writes like a Sharpie. Love it!

I was thinking of grass with morning dew, or seaweed with bubbles.

Second, Sharpie Liquid Pencil. I don’t love this one as much as the pen but it’s fun to work with and erases well. Be warned if you write hard it will leave an impression in your paper.

This one I was thinking of microscopic paramecium. Can you tell I’m a science teacher?

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A Work in Progress

I just finished up my grueling research class and have a week before I start another class. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, it’s December!
In the meantime, went on a “team-building” golf date with my fellow teachers. I took lots of pictures and was mostly focused on the birds and landscape. There were several red-winged blackbirds flying about a few of the water features. I love how their yellow and red patches are hidden until they start flying.

I started a large experimental piece centered around the red-winged blackbird. This is on a 18×24 Arches watercolor block pad.

First, I taped off rectangles that loosely inspired by the idea of the golden ratio.

Then I started cutting out my inspiration pieces, a bird from a calendar, definition of a blackbird and image from a dictionary, along with some of the birch bark I have saved from my tree.

I have done some watercolor painting, here and there, collaged my images. And so far I’m liking it.

Here a close up of a colored image and painted scene.

And here another scene of reeds with a nest hidden in the reeds. An image from my vintage bird calendar and information about blackbird nests, along with birch bark.

Right now, this is really making me happy. I like the paintings I’ve done and I haven’t yet decided if I will cut these into small pictures or frame this as one large collage. I like the idea of a large framed piece with the white spaces in between each scene.

Have a happy day.

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A different kind of art journal

While trying to maintain my balance I am reminded constantly that I’m not a very coordinated person most of the time and I stumble and fall. One thing that has made me very happy is my “new” art journal.
Originally, a 50 cent book that smelled funky.

The title amused me, and I thought to actually use it’s ideas but that didn’t happen.
Last summer I ripped a few pages out of each signature, randomly stuck pages together with acrylic medium as part of my grand scheme to make a book about our summer. I randomly painted a few pages and ignored it for months.

Then this February I grabbed my new paint brush (from my sweet hubby who missed his wife who painted and was happy) and my small watercolor kit and started to paint in the book. Mostly doodles with paint but still it felt good to paint. As I played I tried watercolor painting on a gesso surfaced and this caused a big AHA! moment.
My method is to scrap a light layer of gesso on the book pages with a credit card (best use for those evil things!) and as I scrapped I let some of the text or images to show through. Very random.

Then I started drawing big flowers, thinking of bright colored hibiscus type of flowers. Added a lot of color, and then took a pencil that came in a big set of drawing pencils and it’s called “3b wash”. I found accidentally in another experiment that this pencil smeared and ran when it got wet. And these just made me incredibly happy!

Next page was a self portrait-sort of. I want spring, I want growing green things almost more than I want my statistics course to end!
So I thought of how happy I am digging in the dirt, how crazy excited I get when I spot the first crocus or tulip bit of green pushing through the soil, and my self portrait became something entirely else!

This page had some oppsy color drippage from my earlier experiments that were not covered very well by the gesso so the face is a bit odd, but again this makes me pretty happy.

And I have come to understand that I need to paint everyday, and that watercolor is really my preferred medium. Every morning I get up at 4:30 to study, do some homework and then I take a little time to paint in my book before I go get ready for work and get my family up and ready to head out the door.

What makes you happy? Remind yourself and try to fit it into your day if you can!

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hand bound book

So what can I do with a watercolor experiment that didn’t quite turn out to be the masterpiece I thought it would? Rip the pages down into a smaller book. In my last post I shared my Susan Cornelis inspired watercolors. I had used my favorite Arches watercolor paper and I have a very hard time not using every little scrap of that paper, or re-using it by painting on the back.
I decided that I would use some of these paintings in a handmade art journal.
First I ripped down the pages to the size I wanted, turned out that was approximately 3 x 4 inches give or take. I created my “signatures” in pairs and alternated folding the paintings so that there would be plain facing painted surface.

I found this roll of upholstery thread at my favorite thrift shop. It’s great for sewing book pages or for sewing buttons that you want to be able to hold up to a lot of use!

I am always experimenting with new ways of binding books. This time I thought I’d try making a book with a glued spine and glued the signatures in to the spine.

Finally finished it out with a bird button I’d been hoarding and a bit of twin to loop around for a closer.

In the end, I had a small cute journal that is just the right size for carrying in my purse. I’m not 100% with the binding part of the book, as some of the pages stuck together and it doesn’t lay flat like I’d like.
Now on to the next project!

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Wet into Wet Watercolors

Recently I was looking for some inspiration to get my creative juices flowing and found this youtube video by Susan Cornelis. It’s a lovely video to watch, and looking at how she creates these lovely pictures out of what starts out as random-looking splotches is truly amazing.
So I mixed up some watercolor paints and started playing.
Blue no. 1

Blue no. 2

Red no. 1
This one reminds me of an oriental poppy.

Red no. 2
Reminds me of tie dye.

I love these, but I have to admit this is not my style and I don’t have the eye that Susan has to “see” the picture or the story that emerges from the ink and paint. What I love is playing with paper and watercolors and letting the color move where it would like.

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Winter Water Colors

While on break I managed to break out my old water color travel kit and use the new brushes my sweet husband gave me for Christmas.
Back in my college days, before being employed full time, before babies, I used to carry this little kit with me everywhere. If you are looking to get into water color or get back to it here’s a basic kit:
– small color kit- mine is a set of 12 half-pan colors from Windsor Newton that I’ve had for nearly 10 yrs.
– at least one portable brush. Dick Blick has a few
– water color post cards, or do like I do and rip 3×5 in cards from a large piece of water color paper
– small plastic bottle of water
I have a brush that has a water reservoir built in that works fine and is easier to find than a travel brush, but I prefer to dip and paint

Here are the paintings I did this last week.

Winter Trees with farm cat

Cow Study

Skunk Cam

My dad was trying to catch a skunk that lives under his chicken coop so it would stop killing his chickens, he placed a small video camera on the coop to attempt this.

Mom’s Cabinets

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Watercolor interpretations of a vacation

Last week our little family drove all over the great states of Idaho and Montana.

I took over 500 pictures from our various adventures. Now I have to sort, edit, and do something with all of those–later. For now I wanted to share my watercolors from the week. I had my paint kit, my favorite travel brushes, a pad of watercolor paper, and a small moleskin notebook. I ended up leaving the watercolor paper in my suitcase, it took up too much room in my travel bag. Instead I tried using my moleskin journal to paint in along with my journaling.
Back in the old days–before getting a career and having kids–I would carry my watercolor kit everywhere and painted postcard size paintings everywhere I went. As I get back into this habit and remember how much I love to paint I have found that I have to get back in “shape”. When traveling and sketching you have to be quick, flexible and not get hung up on the details too much.

The other thing I have had to remember is that this is not always a solitary activity and when people see you with your little book they are curious and want to see what you are seeing. I don’t mind talking to strangers, I’m pretty open and my husband will tell you that the best part about traveling with me is that I always meet people.

The hard part is sharing what I’ve painted. I don’t know of any artist (of any medium) who doesn’t feel a little twinge when they share their art. I know my sketching is rough, maybe my colors and composition are totally off, why do you have to look?, this is just my little way of enjoying myself, and maybe I just plain suck. These are all thoughts I have when I get asked what I’m painting. But I show them every time. Since everyone I met on our trip saw these I thought I’d share them with all of you.

And finally as we drove home through WA and OR–which is a lot of dry dusty terrain.

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