Friday Challenge- Bugs

For our first challenge I thought  we should stay in theme with my last post, all about BUGS. Keep your eyes peeled for something interesting and not poisonous. I caught a moth in a jar so I could sketch it and then let it go. I also have been fishing things out of the pool and painting the dead! LOL I cant wait to see what you post, remember, even bugs are beautiful!

I had an idea for the summer! BUGS

I had an idea for the summer. I am going to be watching my grandkids several days a week and I love to have them outside with me. The other day we found several bees floating in the pool, one of which was a Carpenter Bee. Rachel tried to save one of the honey bees from a watery grave and got stung in the process. This made them all decide that my pool wasn't safe! It had too many bugs. So we ended up that day with a bunch of casualties which were laid across the pool decking like a war scene.

After the kids left I thought I should draw them, the bugs I mean. Then last night I was sketching out back since it was so beautiful. One of my favorite things is to pick fresh veggies from the garden and prepare them outside in my outdoor kitchen and eat outside. It is a dream come true for me every time I get to do it! So anyway, back to my crazy story. As I was sketching I noticed a huge moth on the wall of the building. We caught it in a Mason jar and I thought it as a tobacco moth which lays the horned worms that eat your tomatoes and look like creatures from another planet. Actually, once I looked at it and looked it up I found out it was a White Lined Sphinx Moth not the tobacco moth. And although in the same family I am not quite so repulsed. So I caught it and decided I now almost have an insect collection! 

I took one of my pages in my sketchbook and took the mason jar and set it on the page and outlined around it so I have circles all over my page. I decided it would be fun to make the kids each a page too. Now every time we find a bug this summer we can record it by drawing it first then looking it up. I will let you know how it goes!

I finished my kitchen!

Well I bit off a bit more than I thought. Tommy Kane challenged us to take the time and draw the details. That is great but the time it took was a bit overwhelming.

 He wanted us to spend at least 3 hours but because I decided to do this in my large Moleskine sketchbook it took much longer. I really do love this double page spread, a memory forever of my kitchen now.

My hand painted backsplash etc. It was nice to see all the details and record them forever.

Starting with breakfast in the shadows

I mentioned some time ago that I would share a different way to paint your shadows. I like and prefer to add shadows while I am painting because I like the magic that happens when the paints mix on the paper. Sometimes I apply them to a dry painted surface so I can better control the mixing and sometimes, although rare, I do pre-paint my shadows. Many artists do this and so I thought I would show you one way to do it so you can try it and practice. You need to find your preferred method for shadows and that only comes with practice.

Most of you know that I often start my day by painting my breakfast. I was getting very bored with that since my breakfast is often the same thing and can get boring both to paint and to eat! On this morning I decided to do the shadows first so here is my process.

 I started by sketching my cereal bowl with Cheerios and bananas. Once I got my angles right I was ready to start painting.

I do my rolling eraser trick and remove most of the pencil lines and then started painting with cobalt blue. Cobalt Blue is considered a medium blue.

Once I had the blue painted in and it was completely dry I started to paint the Cheerios. 

As you can see I added the bowl color along with the bananas and the spoon. I left the white in the middle of the cereal to represent milk and it works. I also added some darker blue to some of the areas to make them more defined. 

I then finished up with a background and I might have added text, not sure. Let me know if you try this method and what you think. Its always safe to experiment with Cheerios, they are good for you!

Sketchbook Skool

I signed up for Sketch book Skool with Danny Gregory. Every week we get new homework to do and they feature a new sketchbook artist. It has been a really wonderful experience since everyone doing the classes is very committed to doing the homework and sharing both successes and failures. Its all a learning process and by sharing both you come to trust the other people and you realize you are not being judged.

That is what I always loved about our group, it was a safe place for the students to paint, sketch and share. I enjoyed seeing everyone grow and improve with practice. I just hated being a nag. It has to be something you do because you love it. It has to be something you do because you have to. Once you feel like you need to do it you have to find the time and book your self time to be able to do something you love.

Time is always hard, its hard because we always sacrifice our own dreams so we can make sure we make everyone else's happen. We are always putting our things aside for their things. Its about finding time, we can all find time. There is plenty of wasted time everyday, pick 20 minutes of that wasted time and devote it to something that will live on.

This week Tommy Kane talks about spending lots of time doing his sketches. He spends at least 3-4 hours per sketch making sure he captures most details. Our homework is to sketch our kitchens and to spend at least 3 hours doing it. I have spend 2+ hours so far and I am not finished. I have to break it up into segments of time or I would never get it done! Here is my sketch so far, no paint yet, we have to draw it first, in pen then paint.

I am drawing with a gel pen, why I am not sure! I want to show the objects in the for ground as well as the objects in the back to create depth. Lots of work still to do.

Picking what part of my kitchen to paint was the biggest challenge as I have high ceilings and to capture it in a horizontal format was a challenge.

Grab the inspiration when it presents itself

We are given special snippets of amazing subject matter, sunsets,flowering plants and moments that we need to learn to recognize and grab in our sketchbooks. I have a horse chestnut tree that really doesn't grow in my area. I wanted one so bad that my mom bought me one and I am fighting to keep it alive. This year it seems like it might have adjusted a bit to our weather and it put on some beautiful blooms. We got some unseasonably warm days and I knew that those blooms would be gone so I grabbed my sketchbook and made my way to the garden. Each season is fleeting, grab it before it's gone!

Revitalized

After much thought and consideration I think I am going to revitalize this little blog for crazy sketchers. I am hoping it will gain in followers but if not I will continue to post alone. It is something I love and I am excited about, I hope you will join me. 

I painted my grand daughters new shoes! After months of complaining about her shoes she finally showed up in shoes that fit her and were good for a five year old to play in. Take a picture if your subject matter won't stop moving! Try different angles too. I actually took this picture from my angle, looking down on her shoes! I decided to use a mask to keep my white dots white and be able to lay down some nice washes.