Lime 03

Last night I tried working with watercolor pencils. My daughter had been using them, so I thought I would give them a go.

EEEK! It was awful. I couldn't use them to paint my way out of a wet paper bag. But at least we were able laugh about how bad it was. Then I thought maybe I could save it with a little conte drawing on top of it. No good. But then, what about pastels? Better, but still bad. My daughter drew a cocktail glass on her. It reminded her of a slice of lime. So I drew some on mine too.

My daughter asked my not to post her pieces yet, but here is mine.

Lime 02

This night went better with my daughter. We had time and she was able to take some instruction from me. She was trying too hard to make the lime realistic. When I told her to loosen up and have fun, she said "Art can be fun?" I said sure, experiment, throw some paint around, enjoy. She said her art teacher at school wouldn't let them do that. Everything was very regimented and had to be realistic.

Now she is enjoying herself and flexing the old brain muscles. She was using watercolor pencils. Then she started stamping some acrylics. Then making thumb prints. She didn't want me to post her piece, so I won't. But here is mine.

Arte Y Pico Award

To my happy surprise I was awarded the Arte Y Pico award for my blog.

"Arte y Pico" is a blog from Uruguay whose blogger has come up with this award, (http://arteypico.blogspot.com/). Quoting her blog, she says: "What is the meaning of the expression: And basically, ironically, it translates into a wonderful phrase in Mexico, “lo maximo.”

I was awarded this honor from Peggy Stermer-Cox (her blog) Thanks Peggy!

The blog that started the award is in Spanish. Since I don't know a work of Spanish I stole the above info from Peggy's blog. After accepting this award I now have to award five other blogs the same award. The deal is to pick 5 blogs based on their creativity, design, and art.

100 Days

My eleven year old daughter read a book where a girl had to do a project of drawing an apple every day for a hundred days. At some point her grandfather took a bite from the apple. The girl liked that and took a bite everyday from the apple.

I thought about it and thought what a great idea to draw/paint the same piece of fruit everyday for a hundred days. I told my daughter I was going to do the hundred day idea and my daughter wanted to do it with me. Then my daughter counted on the calendar and the last painting will be on my wife's birthday.

We chose a lime. My daughter already has ideas of cutting it in half and juicing it at some point. We started last night. We didn't have much time because of a very busy day so I though we could do a quick charcoal for our first one. My daughter quickly got frustrated and took her piece to her room. I finished mine up. I used to love doing charcoals, but I couldn't get into it. I don't think much of this piece, but it is a start.

Odd one out

I have no idea what these flowers are, so I started calling them odd one out. Ink drawn with an eyedropper. I got a lot of ink on my fingers and hand and so smudged, on purpose, the ink on the paper. 1/4 sheet hot pressed arches.

Flower Shower

Here is the latest of the eye dropper pieces. I used a beer bottle to get the black ink rings. 1/4 arches hot pressed watercolor paper.

Bee Hive Post Card

Here is a watercolor post card I made for my friend. It is from a picture he took and sent me.

DaffyDill

Watercolor added to the below inked picture.

New inks

Being happy with my test ink I right away jumped into some new ones. This time for real. On hot pressed watercolor paper. I was trying not to get tight and keep the loose feel from the test pictures. Total failure. I felt I went over board and got too tight. I took a deep breath and decided I would finish these and learn from my mistakes.

The next morning when I looked at what I had done, I thought, hey, these aren't too bad. Ahhh, the life of a fickle artist.

Testing Testing

Here are some new pieces I am experimenting with. I worked on bristol board so I couldn't work the watercolor as well as I would like.

Step 1: Drew the picture with the eye dropper from the ink bottle
Step 2: Worked with a rapidograph pen
Step 3: Added watercolor

Flower Bee

Here is another bug piece.

The Wicket

Watercolor & Pen & Ink. 1/4 sheet hot pressed watercolor paper. I used a rapidograph for the inking.

While I was working on it my 12 year old son looked at it and laughed. He said he liked this one. I told him it doesn't have a title yet if he would like to name it. He said to call it the Wicket.

Cherry Tomatoes

I used cold press watercolor paper for this. I had a difficult time with the rapidograph pen. Not liking the ink part I dragged my feet working on this. Well it's done now. I'm not that happy with it, but here it is. On to the next piece....

Tomatoes in color

Finished the inking. Not very easy with the cold pressed watercolor paper. I bought a few sheets of hot pressed today. Can't wait to get back to that. I put on the first layer of paint.

Cherry Tomatoes

This piece is from a picture I took of cherry tomatoes in my garden last year. It took me a couple of days to get a composition I was sort of happy with. I'm still not sold on this but I am plugging away regardless. Also I ran out of hot pressed watercolor paper. This piece is on cold pressed. It is difficult to ink on the cold pressed. Here is what I have so far.

Ice Cream Man

I kept laughing as I was working on this piece. It was something I drew in my sketchbook and took to the next level. I used Arches hot press watercolor paper, 1/4 sheet. I first did the ink drawing with a rapidograph pen then added the watercolor.

Diner Doodles

Had lunch at a diner today. Took my sketchbook. I like the large face next to the tree. I'm going to explore that technique.

Mean Mr. Chicken - Finished

Here it is all done and finished. Came out pretty good for my first watercolor in a long time. I'm trying to push myself into a more abstract feel. I think I captured that a little here. On to the next piece.

Mean Mr. Chicken

Here is the start of my latest watercolor. It is on a 1/4 sheet of 140lbs watercolor paper. I'm working with a limited palette. Viridian Green, Cadmium Red, Prussian Blue, Burnt Sienna and Sepia.

Work doodles

Here are some more doodles I did during work. I have my sketch book out again on my desk so I may upload more in the future.

I'm back

It has been a while. I took out my sketch book this morning and started sketching again. I am starting a watercolor tonight.

Daily Doodle

I have started keeping an open sketchbook on my desk at work. During the day when I need a mental break or an idea hits me can sketch right away. For some reason pulling my sketchbook out from the cabinet behind me was a big deal. Now I sketch something every day. Here are a couple.

Factory Man

Here is a quickie charcoal. I pulled out two images from my reference file cabinet and worked away. Around 18" x 14".

Godzilla

I am working on a Godzilla charcoal for my son. I even have some models to work from. You can see them in the upper right corner.

Mount Woman

I had a lot of fun with this one. I penciled the woman's head and breasts. After that I just started inking and let me pen take me where it wants. This is 11" x 14" on bristol board. Done with a 3 x 0 rapidograph pen.

Quirky

Here is another piece I had planned for an upcoming fashion based show. I tried to get a Klimt like pattern going. I guess the idea was better than the end result. I'm not that thrilled with this piece. Oh well, they can't all be winers.

This was done with a rapidograph pen and a water color wash. I have been using bristol board because it takes the pen & ink so well. But it is not the greatest for watercolor. I am working on a new piece on bristol board then I am going to try hot pressed watercolor paper.

Mr. Ballet

Here is a quick one I did, for fun. What I was trying to do is loosen up my line work. Successful in that I think.

Hick

Here is the finished piece.

Hick - WIP

It's been a long time since I did a pen & ink. It's like being home again. Think there is something meditative about hours of hatching. This is 10" x 14". I started with a bamboo dip pen then went over to a number 1 rapid-o-graph pen. When I am done I will give it a water color wash. My next piece I don't want to be so outliney. But I am happy with this one so far. I got the picture from an LL Bean catalogue. I just changed it a little.

Catch Anything?

I finished this a couple of weeks ago. Just got around to photographing it. It is a conte crayon on Canson Mi-tients paper.It's around 18" x 24"

Doodles

Here are a few doodles from my sketchbook. I did them straight out in ink.

I'm back

It has been a while. I have been in an art funk for a while. The other day I took out my sketch book and started doodling again. It was GREAT! I'm going to start working in this direction again. I did some test work with different pens then added a watercolor wash.

I have a fountain pen that I like a lot, but the ink wasn't waterproof. (upper right image). I tried dip pens with waterproof ink, but it slowed me down with all the dipping. I like to work loose and quick.

On to more testing...