More class notes

1. Drawing with high-flow acrylic (or not)

High flow acrylic paint is almost like ink, except its pigment is ground fine rather than dissolved. It has the characteristics of watercolor, but it is water-resistant when it dries. I didn't have high flow acrylic, so I used Higgins Black India Ink. It is better to draw with the high flow because the images are stable. I didn't add watercolor to my drawings -- if I had the drawing lines would get smeared.

Esté calls this theme haberdashery, which in England means sewing-related. Dilute your paint with up to 50% water. Write the ABC's. Turn the letters into something sewing-related.

2. How to make pink with  red paint

Paint

Magenta

Pyrrole Red

Alizarin Crimson

Burnt Sienna

Quin Gold Deep

Pointed Mop Brush

Paint blossoms petal by petal. You can use the brush, your fingers, or even a mushroom. (I didn't have mushrooms, but this appeals to me.) First paint with water, then add a little paint, maybe two rosy colors, and dab it up with a paper towel. You can also dilute the paint with water and apply directly. Add details with the gold, yellow and brown BEST  after the flowers have dried.

If you want to add stems, try to mix Paynes Graywith Hansa Yellow to make a sage green.

3. Using matte medium  and learning to make good purple

Paints

Pyrrole Red

Alizaron Crimson

Magenta

Ultramarine

Pthalo Blue

Matte medium
mop brush
fan brush
dagger brush

Primary red + primary blue = flat maroon

Crimson + Ultramarine + rich purple

Magenta is essential for vibrant purple

Make teardrop paisley shapes with the mop brush.

Use the fan and dagger brushes to add texture.

Cut these shapes out and make them into stencils.

There was more to this lesson, but I didn't enjoy it and I don't like what I ended up with. Maybe I'll show you -- don't have a photo now.

The next two projects didn't inspire me, so I didn't do them. * I must have been in a low place for three days. That's easy to do with an online class offering no credit and where you don't have to look the teacher in the face. Here are my notes, and I hope I straighten up and complete the projects soon! They sound enchanting now.
*Now, a month later, I'm working on them.

4. Drawing lace, controlling that pen

1. Make lacy designs using  repeated letters of the alphabet. Practice with a fine liner -- a pen with water-resistant ink that will not smear when used with watercolor layering -- or dip pen with black acrylic ink or diluted high flow paint. See how different letters and different angles change the outcome. Move the paper around. (I think I'd like doing this! Maybe I was grumpy because I've read about lacemakers in France going blind with their work.)
2. Now get serious and cover a sheet of watercolor paper with black high flow mixed with matte medium. You shouldn't need more than a teaspoon of high flow. Esté says you can cover up a piece you don't like -- my purple paisley will see a second life!)

3. Draw lace like you practiced, using white high flow. Esté says don't dilute the white. She says you can expect it to dry on the pen, so wash the point it off regularly.

5. Making rounded shapes on flat paper or
 Tone gradations = dimension 

Paints
reds and yellows
Brushes: flat and mop

*Artist's Tip: Use separate brushes for acrylic  and watercolor.

Paint bulbous forms -- as for Christmas ornaments -- with flat brush. Start on edge, paint toward middle. Use a few colors. Add the white high flow in the center., while watercolor is still wet. But don't mix them!

6. Making paper lanterns that really glow:

A longer break than planned

Dear Friends,
It’s not that nothing has happened, it’s just that I’ve stopped writing about it. I’ve been on a longer break than planned. 
From these 3+ years of sending blogs to you I’ve learned so much:
1. You are with me. 
2. Most days are interesting, in a good way. 
3. Some are not. 


I’m going to continue, though not daily, maybe weekly.  Things are evolving.  There are so many ways to communicate. If you have any ideas, let me know!

Love,
k

Here are some recent pictures:

Flowers at Patrice and Jay's
Patrice loves color and it shows
Key Biscayne
Christmas Eve

Blue vases on a shelf in my bedroom at Key Biscayne

Papyrus by the pool
Key Biscayne

San Diego
I think this view is from near the zoo
I went to San Diego last month with my neighbor Sandy
Our old neighbors Kate and Jack led us on a great tour of the city

Kate painted this watercolor of Zing!

Only in Miami: Remember those flamingos at the race track?

x

Miami memories!

Here's a contour drawing of a flamingo. I colored it with Copic markers. 

x

Scribble and paint

Written yesterday:
Dear Friends,
It’s 4 p.m., and soon I’m driving to Woodland, to attend a benefit for the ArtFarm project that I love. It’s the program that welcomes artists to spend time at Yolo County farms. Yolo is next to Sacramento County; the counties meet in the middle of the Sacramento River. There will be displays and tastings from farms and wineries — if I remember right, there’s lots of food, and music too. And an art auction, at the Hotel Woodland.  I expect the whole scene to remind me of small farm towns in Ohio.  I’m meeting Mary Kaye and Leigh there. 
Here’s some scribble and paint. Can’t keep away from colors! 
Love,
k

Stupendous poppies

Dear Friends,

These flowers are stupendous. I encountered them a week ago when Zing! and I were walking through Sutter’s Fort State Historic Park, and I just had to go back to see them again. Sunday, when I finally got to draw them, people gathered around — not to see my work, but to see the flowers.  Everybody started talking. I learned they are called Matilija poppy and are named after an Indian chief. They come from southern California. They shed their flowers and turn into sticks after summertime. And their nickname is the fried egg poppy.

… and when I checked the web, I learned Matilija poppy is native to chaparral and coastal sage scrub habitats, primarily from Santa Barbara County, and that it was a candidate for state flower, but  was beat out by the California poppy. Below my drawing is a photo I took yesterday. 

Love,

k

Two days to draw an artichoke

Written June 10

Dear Friends,
I would have drawn an artichoke for today, but I ate it.

Janie, Sandy and I just came back from Ella restaurant (I have been told people around here call it Ella, not Ella’s…) where we celebrated Sandy’s birthday and also her purchase of a condo here. She liked renting here so much that she bought a place. That’s when I ate the artichoke. 

Other than that, I did organizing, paperwork and budgeting. I would rather draw an artichoke.

Written June 11
And, yes, I did get some artichokes today. The recipe is from the New York Times. Dip the leaves in lemon juice, garlic and salt, whisked together with melted butter. Or maybe olive oil. 
Love,
k

Flower season

Dear Friends,
Flowers abound here and I'm aiming to draw one a day.

Love,
k

Dogwood on 7th Street

Christmas trees can grow on you

I'm getting attached to this tree!

Terrible trees: Santa would not approve

Written last night:

Dear Friends, 

Here’s my tree again — this time I measured the relationships— trunk to tree and length to width, etc., trying for an exact picture.  The bottom 3 pictures are mistakes — what happens when you pull the original along the printer bed while a copy is being made. Santa would not approve.

Love, 

k

My real tree

Terrible Tree #1

Drippy

Terrible Tree #2

Squished

Terrible but Tolerable Tree #3

Leggy

Christmas, nasty and nice

Written last night:
Dear Friends,

Today at the gym:

You know what it’s like -- everyone but you is taut and sculpted and wearing designer stretch things — while you are barely able to crawl up the steps, and you might still be wearing your slippers because you’re half asleep. That’s the super-confident way I approach the gym, anyway. They do a pretty good job at keeping up a sleek, intimidating facade… until this morning  — there was a cryptic sign on the front door that said the lockers don’t work, but it meant all the toilets and showers were out of commission. This is a bad thing at a gym. It turns out someone had flushed 10 terry towels down a toilet over night. It would take a while to fix things. Go to Starbucks across the way if you need a restroom. 

Don’t tell, but some very un-Christmasy part of me was happy. The gym is such a muscular enterprise, but they are human too! Yay! Now, let’s go to Starbucks…

And here’s my little tree — I got some lights today.

Love,

k

From panic to pears

Written last night:
Dear Friends,

When I first moved to Sacramento I panicked over everything, big and small. It’s getting better, so good that now I can even tolerate the inevitable computer glitches  (One took an hour of phone calls today) 

… I've been meditating 15 minutes each morning ... I like the pointlessness of just sitting ... 

I also drew and painted pears. 

Love,

k

3.5" x 5"

ink and watercolor

12" x 12"

pencil

I flew above the sidewalk

Written last night:

Dear Friends,

Less than an hour ago I was flying low above the night sidewalk, screaming “Oh! Oh! Oh!” and Zing was stretching his leash in the opposite direction, while a man on a bike was entangled on Zing's leash between us. You know how you feel when you’re flying and think to yourself, “I wonder what I’m going to break when I land”? Well, luckily, nothing but a skinned elbow. I checked each of Zing’s legs, and he didn’t squeal in pain. The man on the bike was also fine. He  was going fast, didn’t ring his warning bell (that’s rarely done) when he saw me but not Zing. I think that in Sacramento it's not exactly illegal to ride a bike on the sidewalk.

I should walk with Zing close by my ankle but I don’t. I let him on a loose leash so he can wander in the grass. Patrice gave Zing! a blinking night-time leash for Christmas, but I wasn’t using it. After we got home, a little shaken, Zing! made me take him for another walk with the flashing leash. “There,” he said. “That’s better.” (Thanks, Patrice!)

Also today, I had fun drawing this back-to-school owl on a little notebook for Juliana. I love this bird. I actually drew it in Tallahassee, and copied it for her today.

Love,

k

I'd rather draw a goat than milk one

Written last night:

Dear Friends,

I got lost in the country again, but ended up in the right place — a goat farm at 8 a.m. Other artists found their way too, and we all drew, painted, and took photos … we were even invited to milk a goat. I declined, and instead spent two hours (after that it was too hot) sitting on a low stool exchanging stares with these animals across a (mildly) electrified fence. They were all kinds — fuzzy and sleek, floppy ears and some barely there … and they didn’t smell bad … I’m not good at drawing animals yet, and mine ended up resembling people I know.

On the way home I stopped at the Davis Art Center, where a friend is having a poetry reading tomorrow.

Then I couldn’t’ resist the Davis farmers market ... I just can’t pass one by!

Patrice asked me to show Zing! this photo that she took at her farmers market in Chicago this morning. Zing! admits these big city dogs look happy, but said he prefers to walk. That way, he leads me.

Love,

k

Zing! can't get past the cover

Written last night:
Dear Friends,

I love my Sundays, even if they happen on Monday.

That was today — uneventful, unless you count that I drew an apple and finished a book — The Ten Thousand Things by John Spurling. It’s for the Crocker art book discussion — fiction about a famous Chinese artist drawing all the things in the universe, or at least his universe, and everything else that is happening around him at the start of the Ming Dynasty. Talk about "lost in a book" — I was just lost! I need to read it again, with a map of China and historical timeline. I like the apple, though. I guess I have 9,999 things left to draw.

Love,

k

Artist Eduardo Carrillo, 1937-1997

My drawing of the artist Eduardo Carrillo — I was looking at one of his self-portraits at the Crocker Museum. The exhibit includes surreal oil paintings and large work celebrating Chicano life, but I prefer his more intimate drawings and watercolors.

A day filled with beauty

Dear Friends,
Yesterday was filled with beauty.
Mary Kaye picked Zing and me up at 6:45. We dropped Z at Wag Hotel in West Sac (Grateful Dog doesn’t open until 9), and drove the winding hills west to a farm in Solano County. It’s dormant now; the owners, a U-C Davis engineering professor and a wine engineer (That's my kind of engineer!) plan to grow apricots. They opened their farm to artists this week as part of the Yolo County Art Farm program. Every month artists go to a new farm to paint, draw, photograph, and soak up beauty. Such a simple concept!
While I hardly matched the skill of the others, I’m sure I outdid them in awe. Most of them were from around here, but I’m not used to these rounded hills and flabbergastingly blue sky.
I got to sit where golden hills meet brilliant sky and draw. 

Love,
k

 

This artist brought sun protection

Weeds

Just a bowl of cherries

Cherries from the farmers market

Boring but useful

Written last night:
Dear Friends,

Today's most exciting thing was the HOA meeting.

Have I got your interest yet? 

No! 

Boring or not, I’m going to the meetings because I want to know what’s going on where I live. If Clark were alive, he’d go and I could stay home, but now it’s up to me. I feel like a responsible grownup. I even volunteered to be on the communication committee. 

Tonight was boring, of course, but useful --  and I did draw faces.

Love,

k

Loose-blooming orchid

Dear Friends,

Yesterday I made this pencil and watercolor drawing of the orchid in the living room. It’s looser because I’m using a pencil, not black pen, and bigger sketchbook. I hope flowers are blooming for you too! 

Love,

k

Getting back to messy

Written Wednesday night:

Dear Friends,
Today I started painting again. The really messy kind — flowers, with fingers and not even a brush. I spilled paint on the floor, but was able to clean everything up. I haven’t painted this way since Clark died. He would be happy. 
In another kind of art altogether, here is a drawing I began a week ago, as the train pulled across the I Street Bridge. It looks like spoons, but it’s really the pointy tops of a fence surrounding a little house.  I got carried away!
Love,
k