Mountain Peak v2

Mountain Peak  

oil on canvas board

9 x 12

I worked on this a bit more today in Lynn Gertenbach's art class. Sorry for the poor photo.  With Lynn's guidance I worked on making the mountain peak the focal point and and more dimension to the trees. It needs a bit more work to be completed.  I am certainly learning a lot from this painting :)   

Mountain Peak

  Mountain Peak  

oil on canvas board

9 x 12

I went out painting with Lynn Gertenbach and a group of other artists.  This is my second plein air painting.  1st plein air painting. The day started out nicely and then the wind picked up and we got cold. I am liking the over all look but it could use some work.  Tomorrow is art class with Lynn so I think I will work on it more then. 

p.s. Naming paintings is difficult.  I do not know what to call this one.   

Sketches- Week 2

 Mouse Poop... Eww

pen on paper

5 x 7 

More from my daily sketch journal (the rest of the sketches I post will be from my daily sketch journal).  This was done on a day when I was cleaning out a shed and dealt with a significant amount of mouse droppings.  For some reason I really like this drawing.  I think it is the composition and the simplicity of it.

  My Icky Feeling Tummy 

pen on paper

5 x 7 

My first sort of foray into illustration/ character design.  I usually dont create this sort of art so this was fun and different for me.  My stomach was not feeling very well this day and I wanted to illustrate what my tummy would look like.  I think it is a pretty successful rendition of an upset tummy.    

  Tide Pools 

pen on paper

5 x 7 

On this day one of my best friends and I went to the tide pools something I havent really done since I was a kid.  I was awesome.  We saw crabs, and starfish, and sea urchins, and little weird wormy things.  It was for sure a fun day.  If you have not been to tide pools in a awhile I highly recommend you go. Seeing sea life is super awesome. 

You may have noticed all of my sketches are in pen.  I like to use pen for these daily sketches because it challenges me.  It forces me to commit to my marks before I make them.  No erasing.  It also helps me to be more confident in my sketching abilities. 

More sketches to come next week and then it is back to school :)

Azores Seascape

  Azores Seascape

oil on canvas board

8 x 10

Done in Lynn Gertenbach's art class.  I didnt know what I wanted to paint today so I brought 2 reference photos.  A moonrise and waves crashing on rocks.  Lynn liked the colors in the water in the waves so that is what I went with.  We changed it a bunch from the reference but I think it still reads as the Azores.  Painting this was a nice departure for me. 1) I think this is the smallest I have ever worked.  I think I like it though.  There is something sweet about the smaller size. 2) I did the second half of this using a palette knife.  I havent used a palette knife for painting since high school, approx 7 years.  I will try and take a better picture tomorrow.

Sketches

Since I am not in class right now and so not creating art as regularly I thought I would share some of my favorite sketchbook sketches.  

  Dwarf Bunnies

pen and white colored pencil on paper

5 x 7 

Done when I first decided to draw daily by following #DrawDaily's prompts.  The prompt for this day was "dwarf"

Hand Study

pen on paper

5 x 7 

Also done during my first attempt to draw daily.  They were a little slow on the prompts this week so I made up my own :) 

Birthday Cake 

pen on paper

5 x 7 

My attempt at following #DrawDaily's prompts failed after just 2 weeks.  Mid August I decided that I would try again.  

 My friend was in the hospital and I was watching her 5 year old daughter.  To entertain her I brought my sketchbook, we played tic-tac-toe, and took turns drawing.  Her being the naturally curious child she was wanted to see what else I had in my sketchbook.  As she was going through it she asked me why I had so many blank pages.  I didnt have a good answer.  I thought about this question for a few weeks and decided I would try to fill my sketchbook. 

One of my fears is forgetting my memories so I decided on one page I would write a simple schedule of what I did that day and on the facing page a sketch of something that happened during that day. 

This sketch was done during the first few weeks on my birthday.  My sisters made me a cake and filled the cake with no blow out candles.  We thought it was going to catch fire.  It had us all laughing uncontrollably.  It was a good birthday. 

So at this point you maybe thinking "Hey August was 5 months ago, and we are just hearing about this now!"  Yes it is true.  I have not posted about my daily sketch journal on my blog.  It took me a couple of months just to tell any of my friends.  I was afraid if I told people what I was doing I would stop doing it.  I wanted to make my sketching a habit before I shared it with the world.  

Recently I updated the look of my blog and was thinking about the name: "Drawings, Paintings, Thoughts".  I realized I have a lot of paintings and not so may thoughts and drawings.  The best way for me to remedy this is for me to open up my daily sketch journal and share my drawings with you. 

For the rest of January on Mondays I will be posting sketches from my sketch journal so stay tuned. 

If you have read this whole thing then I am impressed and you deserve a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup:

Enjoy! 

Christmas Birds

Here we are!  Finally! I was working on these up until Christmas Eve.  I would have posted them last week but alas I was struck down by the flu.  I spent 40+ hours straight in bed trying to recover. All is almost better though, I just have a lingering cough. 

Enjoy the Christmas Birds below.  I wish you all a happy prosperous and healthy New Year!

These are all Christmas presents for my friends and family.  I like to make my Christmas presents (candles, ornaments, etc)  so this year I wanted to give small paintings.  I wanted to do something Christmas related but that could still be hung up all year round.  I also wanted to enjoy doing the paintings.  I love these fat little winter birds.  I hope you love them too.  

Tree Tweet

 watercolor on paper

 6 x 9 

Blue Tit

 watercolor on paper

 9 x 6

Reference 

 

Snow Robin 

 watercolor on paper

 6 x 9 

Reference

Blue Jay

 watercolor on paper

 9 x 6

Reference

Red Robin

 watercolor on paper

 6 x 9 

Chickadee

 watercolor on paper

 9 x 6 

Reference