Imaginary Trip to England

It's been another fun trip with Laure Ferlita. This time we went to England and what a comprehensive trip we had! We went to some pubs of which I painted my favorite. We went to a national park in Wales called Snowdonia. Touring some interesting neighborhoods was part of our trip as you can see by the house and castle doors I've painted. Seeing some historical stuff like a ruined abbey and Stonehenge were even part of the trip as going to the palace and seeing the changing of the guards.

Exciting and I learned so much about sketching with watercolor. I encourage anyone who has wanted to try watercolors but has been too afraid to hop onto one of her trips and have fun while learning. She is starting up a couple of general (no trip this time) classes in watercolor journaling also so click on that Imaginary Trips logo button on the right and join us.

Fake Journal - Page Seven

I know Fake Journal Month is gone (and I only did six pages for it) but I've decided to keep it going and when I see or think of something fake I will add it to my collection. This drawing shows something so very fake it is hideous.

Now mind you, I am not slamming all TV dinners. I love the Marie Callender meals and both are made by Con Agra but some like this Bangquet are simply trash. Reading the ingredients the chicken patties are made of chicken, soy and lots of other stuff. I don't mind soy. I eat it in my Jack-in-the-Box tacos I think but here it does not taste good and if you look at what you get nutritionally you'll find it quite dismal. Many of the calories come from fat. By the way, the veggies they show on the cover are MORE than what I found in the dinner. I tasted it and threw it away. Really. Marie Callender dinners have lots of real potatoes/rice and vegetables with a small amount of real meat. They are very different items and I was shocked to see they were both made by the same company. Worse, I go to the store and see some old men (they are older than me so they are OLD) buying huge stacks of the Banquet dinners when they go on sale. Can't beat 88 cents can you? Well maybe if you want some food....

This time I used a dark brown Pitt pen and watercolors to paint in my drawing. I didn't think the watercolor would work so well on the inked background but it turned out fine.

Note: If you'd like to be able to draw and paint like this and better then look at my previous post about a class on journaling here.

Dove's Nest

The doves that built a nest in this tree last year are back. This year's nest looks rather flimsy to me. I sure hope the parents know what they are doing! The eggs arrived some time about a week ago. I don't know the exact date. It looks like two eggs again.

Journaling Class Coming Up!

If you've been thinking about journaling and thinking about watercolor with it especially then I would like to send you over to Laure Ferlita who is offering a beginner's and not-so-beginner's journaling class in June and July. The link is here and it looks mighty good. The picture here is one of Laure's and it's along the lines of what she'll be teaching. And don't even think you can't do it! I've taken her trips classes and she is a great teacher. Her classes are loads of fun and worth the money. I am signing up for the journaling classes myself just to have more fun and more guided lessons as I am not quite getting what I want on my pages yet. Will I see you there?

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers. It's a quiet day for me with my husband still recovering from surgery. I spent the morning drawing this sketch, then baking a Burnt Sugar Cake which I will have to eat all by myself since my husband doesn't like it and there is no one else around. Aw, poor me, lol. Then I went back to my sketch and added gouache. Now, what to have for dinner is the question. It seems today is mostly art and food for me! My son called to say happy mother's day and I am waiting for my daughter to call later. Life is pretty good.

Surgery Over

Hi everyone. My husband came through his surgery just fine. No heart attack, no extra blood loss even though it was described as a difficult extraction. Too much info? That's okay 'cause that's all there is. Now we are on to healing and then me getting back to more of my art work!

This page was made with torn paper (and a bit of cutting) collage. I did it while waiting in the waiting room during the 5 hours of surgery. No, it didn't take 5 hours to make the page. That only took about 15 minutes - about the quickest ever. I had to take the photo with my cell phone so it's a bit blurry.

Tucson VA Hospital

My husband is having surgery soon at the Tucson VA hospital so we had to go down for some pre-ops which ended up including a stay overnight for a cardio-catheterization. I took the opportunity to do a couple of sketches from his 3rd floor room window. It is a beautiful old place and they are keeping it up quite well (the room wasn't so great and the food was inedible but the hospital is lovely).

One sketch is on watercolor paper using watercolor and the other is on some Canson MiTientes brown paper so I used gouache on that one.

Fake Journal Page Six

I have found out that a line drawn to show the shape is not really there on the object in reality. I actually knew this but hadn't seen it put into words really until I saw a blog post on Drawn2Life where Jennifer talks about why she draws as she does. Very interesting and I suggest you go take a look at the post if you haven't already. So anyhow, it led me to my current take on "fake".

I drew a continuous line drawing of my lamp I painted several years ago (it was a $5 lamp from a dollar store and I hated it till I painted it to match the furniture I'd painted). It was harder than I thought as I find I have to hold the Pitt pens so vertical to get them to draw that my hand started to hurt. I need to find a pen that will write at a slant which may better suit my left-handed curled grip. I colored it in this time with markers. Hope you enjoy it.

Apple Blossom Time

Good morning everyone. I thought I'd share some photos I took yesterday of my apple tree and rose bush. Aren't these so springlike? Spring is well underway and I'm loving it!

Fake Journal - Page Five

Today's fake thing is my plastic flower pot I got from Wal-Mart this year. It looks like ceramic but it isn't. I went for it because of the price and the hope that I could move it if necessary once it was full of dirt.

Hopefully my tomato plant will take hold. The first one didn't as the wind bent it in half. I'm going to get a tomato cage for this next time I go to town. I don't think they are fake yet but they have reduced the number of rings to 3 and I seem to remember 4 years ago.

This is ink and gouache. I like how the gouache covers the background mostly. I'm not using it so thick as to hide all the ink or background but it's not totally transparent either. If you haven't tried the gouache I would recommend it for your tool arsenal.

Fake Journal - Page Four

I have my fourth page done for my fake journal. This page has my fake flowers on it. I made french beaded flowers and put them in clay I had stuffed into this watering can. Then I sprinkled a little dirt over the clay to hide it. I love these bright flowers but of course, there is no real substitute for real ones.

I painted the watering can after a question was asked in the Oils class I am taking with Nel . What color do you paint a metal thimble was the (paraphrased) question. Nel said to paint it the colors reflecting off of it as the metal doesn't have it's own color exactly. Well tonight I needed to paint a metal watering can so I played by using blue, teal, red, orange, yellow and purple in this painting. Didn't it work great? Thanks Nel.

I Won!

I was enjoying Jennifer Edwards blog which has great artwork on it. She knits and she paints. You really should go over to Drawn2Life and see for yourself. Anyhow she had a drawing for some of her notecards and I WON! These are the cards I got. If you like them she sells them on her website Yarnworks. Do take a look as you will be glad you did.

Thanks so much Jennifer! I love them.

Well I have a third page done for the idea of fake. What do you think? Is the milk we drink today real? I used Pitt pen and gouache to do this page.

I am working on my latest class which is a virtual trip to England with Laure Ferlita. I'll post about that as soon as I get some paint on my page. Stay tuned.

It seems the theme of my fake journal is "fake" as in this is not the color of the original flower so therefore it is a fake. I have no idea what other fake things I am going to come up with so stay tuned.

Fake Journal - Day One

Well the first of April has come and gone but I am finally posting what I did. The first was a busy day as my husband was having a medical problem and my daughter and her kids were coming in to visit for Easter. After everyone settled down for the night and I still hadn't thought of what to put on my journal I did this as a first page. This is more real as in how I was feeling but let's face it, a fish that can deal with being out of water must be a fake one, right? I drew this with pencil as it was all I had at hand that late at night. Anyhow, I've started!