Tints and Hues

Digital Eraser

2011-09-22T13:59:00.000-04:00

I'm working on a new piece and having some problems with composition. After several hours of sketching in an element and then erasing it, the thought hit me that I could be drawing on my computer and erasing by "un-do"ing. Much easier than constantly erasing. Here is what I came up with:

I used Paint.net which is an excellent free drawing and graphics program from the University of Washington. You can see where I've put in limbs and leaves. (It's kind hard to draw those leaves with a mouse!) However, this method was much quicker than drawing by hand.

Now I'm adding in the limbs and leaves on my drawing. I will need to do gray-scale of the main images to work out the lights and darks. Everything but the background will be done this way.

I like to think of this technique as the digital equivalent of doing thumbnail sketches.

More Lilies

2011-07-28T11:36:00.000-04:00

This is a Munson seedling. Another one without a proper name. It definitely should have one as it is quite unusual with it's pink eye and red petals. It definitely stands out in a crowd. I had some troubles with this getting the shading right under the front petal. The bottom of the petal has some green on it and it almost fades into the stem.

Daylily Project

2011-06-26T16:29:00.000-04:00

I'm working on documenting my lily garden. I have around 25 different varieties of day lilies. That's what happens when you live 3 miles from a day lily farm! The one on the left is a red spider lily, somewhat different in appearance than the usual day lily form. It always reminds me of a sunset.

This is Alabama Jubilee. It's one of a new breed of day lily that has exceptional strong stems. It stands up through wind and rain.

I'm also experimenting with the new SoHo colored pencils sold by Jerry's Artarama. They are somewhat harder than Prismacolors. They have a nice range of colors, especially in the blues and greens. These pieces were done completely in the SoHo's.

This doesn't work well on the gray paper, so it will probably get drawn again on a lighter shade of paper.

And these are seedlings that don't have a name. I got them at the day lily farm. The owner told me that they were seedlings from some crosses he had made and as such, didn't have a name. But I like them, especially with the white edges. They are quick to multiple. After about 4 years, I have an entire section of them in my lily bed. I think that they might have to be some dividing going on in the fall.

Here are a few other day lily drawings that I did last year when I started this project.

Clematis Blooms

2011-04-20T18:41:00.000-04:00

I am growing a clematis vine in a very large pot. It's just covered with blooms. At last count, there were over 45 blooms, each about 6 inches wide. It's just beautiful. I just had to try my hand at a few blooms:

These are done in a Canson MultiMedia sketchbook with Derwent inktense watercolor pencils. I experimented with colored pencil over the top. The center blossom has the flower center done in graphite.

Hedychium with Sphinx Moth

2011-03-09T15:58:00.001-05:00

This piece is for a colored pencil botanical show at the NC Botanical Gardens in Chapel Hill.

It's a ginger lily (hedychium) with a hummingbird or sphinx month. Last summer I had several sphinx moths show up and they were really attracted to my ginger lilies. I'd never had any of these moths in my garden before. So I "googled" them and came to find out that they are the moth of the common horned tomato worm.

Now I know why I've not seen them around my garden before. I have (or maybe had might be more appropriate) a colony of parastic wasps. These are very beneficial insects if you are trying to garden organically. They lay their eggs on caterpillars, especially tomato worms. Their larvae then use the tomato worm as an incubator and food source until hatching as wasp. So I'm not sure how any tomato worms escaped the wasps. It could have possibly came from someone else's vegetable garden.

This piece is on Magnani pastel paper that's a light blue in color. This paper is great to work on. It holds many layers of color. It has a slight texture, but it was easy to cover. It's tough too - I used a Vanish eraser to completely remove the leaf on the left. (Still not happy with it!) After finishing the piece, I sprayed it with the new Krylon spray for pencil, pastels, and acrylics. It's clearly labeled that way on the can. It left a white residue on the piece. I was able to use my fingers to remove most of it. It doesn't show on the background. The spray caused some areas in the piece to separate. I don't think it dissolved. It just looked like it moved aside from it, much like oil moves from soap. I have fixed those areas. The whole piece is rather flat looking now.

Needless to say, I won't be using the Krylon anymore. I've never had any problems with the Blair spray for digital photos that I normally use. It's archival and dries completely clear. And as it usually the case, I don't have time to redo it. So it will have to go as is.

Downy Woodpecker

2011-02-18T11:45:00.000-05:00

My chapter of the CPSA, DC114 has been asked to provide an art show for the NC Aquariums. This is our third year and we're pleased that this venture has gone so well. The Aquarium provides the theme and for this year's show, they have chosen "The Maritime Forest".

This is a downy woodpecker. These birds are fairly small, about 7 or 8 inches long. I took the photo of this bird last winter and he was hanging upside down.

This is a small piece, only 7 by 5 inches.

On a side note, I can't believe that I haven't posted anything since November of last year. Where does the time go! Sometimes, I just don't think folks are really interested in the everyday mundane stuff.

More Ducks

2010-11-30T14:05:00.000-05:00

These ducks are hanging in the Wilmington Art Association Gallery as part of the CPSA DC114 Explorations in Colored Pencil show. Both are for sale and are $100.00 each. The show runs through December 31.

Ducky

2010-10-15T12:53:00.000-04:00

It just can't be 2 months since my last post. Time doesn't fly anymore - it's supersonic!

I have been dealing with tendinitis in my Achilles tendon. Sometimes I've had to be completely off my feet and at other times limping around with a cane. So you'd think that being forced to sit would inspire me to do lots of art. Not so.

Here is my latest. Part of a series of 4 water birds, this is the canvasback duck. These are small pieces, about 7 inches by 5 inches and will be available for sale at the Wilmington Art Gallery in December.

Daylily Project

2010-07-22T13:48:00.000-04:00

I'm documenting my daylilies. I have about 30 different varieties planted in several large flower beds. I've wanted to do this for a while and finally started on it.

This is Yazoo Wild Violet.

Unfortunately, I've don't remember the name of this one.
I will have to look it up.

July! Already!

2010-07-14T17:43:00.000-04:00

How it can be July already. It seems like it was just April last week.

Tomatoes are coming in by the bucket full. We're eating fresh salsa by the quart. Or course, that's not so bad. Green beans will be ready by the end of the week. My husband's row of purple hull pink eyed peas will be ready by the end of the month. This is the best part of summer - fresh vegetables from the garden.

My sweet dog, Ozzie has Lyme Disease. We hope that we've caught it in the early stages. He's on antibiotics for 30 days or as long as it takes to get it in him. He's very smart and you can't give him the pills in the same way more than once. Poor boy has also snapped a tendon in his leg. He can't have surgery until his Lyme Disease is under control. Lyme Disease affects how his blood clots and causes joint pain. I did not know that dogs could contract Lyme Disease, but they can and so can cats. There is a vaccine available, so have your buddies vaccinated.

Ripples moving out

2010-06-26T08:26:00.000-04:00

When you drop a stone in water, it makes ripples and they move out across the body of water. On the other side of the water, they may be so small that you can't see them, but they are there and have made an impact, no matter how small.

So it is Kelly Light's Ripple blog. Started as a one-person effort to help the Gulf Coast animals, she has raised over $5000.00. She has done this ten dollars at a time. Artists are contributing trading card size works. Each is priced at $10.00. Children are doing works as well as some known artists.

I'm working on my piece and hope to have it ready next week.

Garden Veggies

2010-06-08T16:10:00.001-04:00

Tomatoes are growing in my garden. I have quite a few plants this year - about 15. My husband got carried away at Lowes. We are experimenting with container gardening this year. This tomato and about 25 others are growing in large flower pots or 5 gallon buckets. All are doing very well. I have a few plants that may have tomato wilt and if they do, that means that they came that way from the plant nursery. This big boy might be ripe by the 4th of July.

I found this fellow wondering through the squash plants. She can bring her crew over anytime. We have to deal with squash bugs and squash borers. These squash are actually growing in 5 gallon buckets on my deck. That got them out of the regular garden when the squash borers have had a feast in past years. But the squash bugs have found them. Luckily, praying mantis like to eat squash bug eggs. She is a small mantis - only about 2 inches. But with her help, we've managed to get a couple of squash.

On to the next thing...

2010-06-01T16:46:00.000-04:00

My neighbor has a beautiful blue hydrangea bush and she has graciously allowed me to cut the blooms.

This is a small study of one of the blooms. It's only 6 x 6 inches. It's done in Derwent inktense watercolors.

Also, lighter subject matter. Not so realistic, but more artistic.

This is probably the first of several studies in preparation for a still life piece that I have in mind.

Red, White and Blue

2010-05-14T11:43:00.002-04:00

This is my piece for the Red, White and Blue show that is being hosted by the town of Cary, NC.

This is also the reason that there have not been many blog postings. This piece took a while and with gardening season too, there just wasn't much time left. Plus, I didn't think my followers would be too interested in cucumber seeds and chive plants or the woes of tomato diseases.

This is titled "Native Colors" and is about 14 x 18 or so. It is on blue Tiziano paper. It'll be framed up in an 18 x 21" frame with a mat opening of 11 x 14. After the show is over, I plan on framing it in in a larger frame so that more of the background blue paper shows. It's a "big" image and it needs a lot of background around it.

Garden Tour

2010-04-20T11:16:00.000-04:00

I took my camera with me this morning as I checked out the plants in the various flower and vegetable gardens around my house. Come along with me.

First, the container plants.

This is a clematis. It must have 30 blooms on it. It is growing in a large container with a study trellis. It's been in this pot for about 4 years and appears to be doing just fine. It really is lovely and so nice to have flowers on the deck already.

Next to the clematis are the chives. These are the regular onion chives and they have nice pinky-purple blooms on them. These are edible as long as you haven't put chemicals on them. Flowers in your salad!

The blueberries are coming along nicely. This is a dwarf bush, bred to grow in a container. It's starting its 4th year. Last year I got about 2 quarts of fruit from this small bush - a handful at a time. It's just wonderful to go pick fresh blueberries for breakfast. I got this blueberry variety at Park Seeds. They will start ripening in late June.

Just to prove that my peach trees do bear, here's a tiny new little peach. I will never get to pick it, because the squirrels will get it when it's about the size of a ping-pong ball. It's a battle every year with those rascals and they seem to win most of the time. Plus I'm fighting a wild grape vine that like grows in the peaches.

Look what I found in the daylillies. It's my cat, Poppie. He like to sleep between the plants. You can't even see him until you're right on top of him. It's a good place to snooze.

Finally, I found an Iris blooming. This variety is called Swazi Princess. Some years it's much darker - nearly black and some years, it's more on the burgundy side. I think iris are so beautiful, orchid-like sometimes and such great colors. I saw more buds on my other colors, so more blooms are on their way.

I'm so glad to see color in the garden and green on the trees and in the yard. Winter was cold this year and very gray and brown.

Spring Blooms

2010-04-06T18:37:00.001-04:00

Spring has sprung in my yard. We've had temperature in the 90's and the pine pollen is everywhere and covering everything. We call it the "yellow haze". The good thing is that with the warm temperatures, all of the trees have "let go" all at one time. So it'll all be over with soon.

My cherry tree is covered in the most beautiful pale pink flowers. This is a double weeping cherry tree. I often see my neighbors riding down to my end of the street to take a look in the spring.

Daffodils are blooming. This is an open corona type.

Grape Hyacinths. Such great color.

Yes, this is a daffodil. It's kinda' hard to find these bulbs, but just look at that bloom.

Coming in for a Landing

2010-03-12T18:08:00.000-05:00

I'm calling it finished. This is a osprey coming in for a landing in the nest. Her chicks usually hatch about 2 weeks apart, so I tried to make one chick younger than the other. I had so many problems with this piece and I'm not exactly sure why. I used Bristol board. It was ok, but I think I like the Magnani Portofino watercolor paper better.

The light is all over the place in this. It's coming in from the right side, but it also looks like it's comming in from the top and the left side.

Then there are the clouds. I just couldn't get them the way I wanted them. I put a couple of layers of 10% cool gray on them, followed by the shadow colors and pure white for highlights. The biggest problem is that they seem kinda' flat - not puffy.

This will be going to the North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island. If they like it, it will be part of a summer exhibit that will also be shown at the Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores. The theme for the show was "High Tide on the Sound Side" and should be composed of wildlife and plants that are found along the sounds in North Carolina.

This is all colored pencil. I was hoping that it would be good enough to enter into the CPSA show too, but I don't think it would be juried in.

I'm glad I'm done with this. Definitely and exercise in perseverance and determination.

Wings to go

2010-03-08T16:33:00.000-05:00

Making progress. This has been one of the most frustrating pieces that I have done in a while.

I think some of the problems have come from the paper, which is Strathmore Bristol. Bristol is often recommended for colored pencil, but I'm not so sure that I like it. It doesn't hold as many layers as the Tiziano I've used for other pieces.

Light source has been a problem too. The light in this piece is coming from the left side, but it's not too evident. And there's some amount of backlighting from the reflection of the cloud.

I'm planning on getting the body finished tomorrow. Then comes framing. Acceptable, but I'm certainly not happy with it.

This one's finished!

2010-02-27T17:02:00.001-05:00

This is my shawl I've just finished in the last few days. It's made with Cherry Tree Hill Alpine Baby, a mohair, silk and nylon sport weight yarn. It's such loopy stuff that it's almost like trying to crochet with velcro. It's almost impossible to unravel. It took me a while to find a pattern that I thought would work with this yarn. I finally settled on the Country Cotton Shawl from Lion Brand. I tried several sizes of crochet hooks before determining that a size I would handle this loopy stuff.

So here is the finished product. My skein of yarn has about 1000 yard in it and I used nearly all of it. Even though I hated crocheting with the yarn, I really do like the finished product. The color path runs from greys to blues to a speck of white here and there. This shawl weighs less than 8 ounces - isn't that amazing for the size. It's warm and light weight. I'm thinking of adding a button or two to the front so that I can keep in closed a bit easier.

This and That

2010-02-24T11:43:00.000-05:00

Wow! It's been more than a month since my last posting.

Persistence is what I've been practicing. I've started over on the osprey piece 4 times, finally settling down on a purely colored pencil piece. That might have been a mistake, as it took me weeks to get the sky done. The clouds have been nearly impossible, although they are coming along. They don't look very cloud-like to me. I'm starting on the bird now. I hope this will pull everything together. Maybe I need to practice the 10-10 rule. Every 10 minutes, step back 10 feet and look at your work.

Some of you know that I have another blog, doviesaprons.blogspot.com. I find that I can't keep both going. So I'll just be posting everything to this blog. That means that there will be more than just art here. I also crochet, knit, sew and occasionally cook gourmet. For example, this winter I've made 3 shawls and I'll be posting about them soon. Just recently I made French moelleux au chocolate.

Thanks for being patient.

WIP

2010-01-18T17:29:00.000-05:00

I sincerely hope that my few readers have had great holidays and a good start to a new year.

I'm starting on a new piece. The drawing has taken me quite a while - several weeks in fact. This is an osprey and chicks. Composition is sometimes a problem for me. I had several other versions of this. But I figure that the more drawing I do, the better I get at it. Hopefully this piece will be accepted for a summer touring show at the NC Aquarium.

This year's Christmas Card

2009-12-04T09:54:00.000-05:00

I did this piece last December and some of your may remember it. It was part of the original Virtual Sketch Date. So this year, I'm using it for my Christmas card.

I'm having them printed by Shutterfly.com. I've had cards printed by them before and they have done a good job. Plus their prices are reasonable and they are fast.

So with the holidays approaching, I want to wish each of you, dear readers, a joyous holiday season and a happy and prosperous new year.

The next few post may not be art related as I'm doing some sewing for gifts and I've made my 3 year twin neighbors aprons and chef's hats so that we can make cookies.

New Shots and Changes

2009-10-30T15:24:00.006-04:00

Take two on the heron in flight. I've modified the ripples in the water some. I thought that the other was just too much white for the background.

And a new shot of the wading heron. Just a bit better color, nothing in the artwork itself has changed.

I've sprayed both of these with archival spray - it's an acrylic spray that claims to preserve paper works for an extended time.

Herons

2009-10-26T17:04:00.006-04:00

Here is my wading heron. This piece is in colored pencil on dark blue Tiziano paper. Many thanks to Alan and Elaine Wilson of naturepicsonline.com for allowing me to use their photography as inspiration.

This is my heron in flight. Both pieces are 11 x 14 inches. I'm using the paper itself as the background with rings and reflections as just a suggestion of water.

Horse Feathers

2009-10-08T13:27:00.004-04:00

Not really....

Just a quick peek at my current project. I'm about 25% finished.

I'll be at "A Day Downtown" in Fuquay Varina October 31st. I'll have some original art and photographs.

Mandeville Vine Studies

2009-09-12T10:48:00.004-04:00

...and you thought I'd fallen off the edge of the earth!

Summer is a busy time in the garden - planting, weeding, fertilizing, weeding, transplanting, weeding and more weeding. Now fall is nearly here and I'll be prunning and cutting back dead flower stalks. Next comes raking up millions of oak leaves to use for mulch.

But in the meantime...

I have been doing some studies of my mandeville vine in preparation for a much larger piece. These are also experiments. You might notice that each leaf is different in color. Some are colored pencil on top of watercolor, come are just colored pencil and a few are lighter green colored pencil on top of watercolor shadows. The bloom is on top of a pale pink watercolor. I have found that the pinks in the Prismacolor lines are kinda' lacking. The background is colored pencil on top of pale blue watercolor. I used an artstix blender and instead of blending the background, it pushed the colored pencil around in such a way that I ended up with a speckled looking background. Not quite what I had in mind.

This one just didn't turn out anything like I wanted. It has the look of a tropical shirt print. The background was darker until I went over it with a white artstix. It made it too light and it's not an even tint any more. The biggest problem is that the background and the flower are nearly the same value in color. So the flower doesn't stand out from the background as much as the piece show above.

These are small pieces, about 6 inches by 6 inches, on Magnani Aquerello hot press paper.

Back to the studio for more experiments.

Update

2009-08-29T16:36:00.002-04:00

I have sold my work titled "Topsail Treasures". You can see it in the blog post here.
It was bought by another artist, which just floors me. I guess I'm my own worst critic. But it makes me feel validated, that as an artist, I am doing some good works.

2009-08-10T17:00:00.002-04:00

This is one of a few studies that I'm doing in preparation for a larger piece. This is a Mandevilla vine that I have had growing for several years.

I have been able to keep it going through the winters by prunning it back rather severly and cutting back on watering. I move it inside to protect it from freezing temperatures. It makes it through the winter and once outside in the sunshine and warm spring air, grows like a weed.

Another Brush Footed Butterfly

2009-07-31T17:38:00.003-04:00

This is a another brush footed butterfly that showed up earlier this month. It was all browns and grays and when it lit on a branch, it was very well camouflaged.

It has black and white antenna like the earlier brush footed butterfly I found in my backyard. I haven't been able to identify what kind of butterfly this particular insect is. However, I'm pretty sure it is a butterfly, rather than a moth.

It's been quite an experience going on safari in my own backyard. I've taken hundreds of photos of butterflies, dragonflies, flowers, beetles, leaves and spiders.

Man on the Moon!

2009-07-20T16:38:00.001-04:00

Where were you when man walked on the moon?

A lot of you were not even born yet. But I was a youngster, allowed to stay up way past my bedtime and watch that historic moment. I still remember how absolutely awestruck I was. My school class has watched every Apollo launch.

Now that I'm an engineer, I have so much respect for the astronauts, the ground crews, the control crew and the thousands or engineers who came up with new materials, new methods, new ways of manufacturing, and new computational methods. Now, 40 years later, we still are reaping the benefits of the Apollo program.

I firmly believe, that we as a nation, need to head down this path again. The new industries and scientific discoveries from the space program are just what we need to push us out of this recession and put us in a position to have jobs again and be in the scientific forefront. Wouldn't part of the money spent on the war in Iraq have been put to so much better use in NASA research?

More Backyard Sketches

2009-07-14T15:37:00.003-04:00

We had a good rain yesterday. Today I have huge Fireball hibiscus blooms. They are about 8 - 10 inches across and spectacularly red. These are cold-hardy plants and will die back to the ground after the first frost. They sprout up in late May, normally after everything else has come up. There are many varieties of these cold-hardy hibiscus now. These particular plants were ordered from Wayside Gardens and are growing in very large deck planters. But I need to divide them up and relocate a few this fall.

Did you know that hibiscus are in the same family as okra. If you look at an okra bloom, you will see the resemblance.

This sketch was done in the early afternoon in graphite and colored pencil. I was sitting outside working on this and I noticed that my colored pencil were really creamy - much more than normal. I was under an umbrella working, but the heat of the day softened my pencils.

While I was sitting there, a hummingbird came to visit twice and let me know that he'd like the deck feeder refilled as well. Too bad I didn't have my camera with me. Hummer photos are so hard to take.

Practice, practice, practice

2009-07-08T11:50:00.004-04:00

I'm not traveling for any art workshops this summer. So I'm doing the next best thing. I'm working through Arlene Steinberg's Masterful Color: Vibrant Colored Pencil Paintings Layer by Layer.

These are the first three exercises/demos in the book. The iris is my current lesson and it's in the first stage of underpainting. I'm using Prismacolors and a Canson Biggie sketch paper - so nothing fancy here!

Working this way has advantages. No airfare, car rental, hotels, etc. I can stop and start at will. (But I'm trying to put in several hours a day on this.) I can do the same lesson a hundred times if that's what I need to understand the process. I'm in my own little studio with Mickey the cat offering criticism when needed. Being an artist is a solo type of profession. You have to be your own boss and set a schedule you can stick to. It would be nice to have a teacher occasionally, but times being what they are, this is good too.

I really like Arlene's work. She and Gemma Gylling own and run the scribbletalk.com forum for colored pencil artists. It's a great resource.

More backyard...

2009-06-24T16:55:00.002-04:00

This is an Asiatic Dayflower, according to my Wildflowers of North America field guide. It is one of the very few really blue flowers - not a shade of violet, but blue. These dayflowers are rather small, about an inch in width and each flower only last for a day.

I have several small patches of these around my yard. They may be weeds, but how can you call them weeds when they have this truly blue flower.

This drawing is in my sketchbook and was done with prismacolor colored pencils.

look in your own backyard

2009-06-19T14:37:00.004-04:00

I spotted this brush footed butterfly in a backyard flowerbeds this morning. I was fortunate to get a quick photo before it fluttered off. I was able to identify it using the Butterflies and Moths of North America website. I think it's a Pearl Crescent, but I could be wrong. Lots of butterflies look similar.

Some things I noticed: this insect has black and white striped antenna with orange-red tips; the body was actually furry looking and this is not a large insect, about 3/4 to 1 inch long in the body with maybe a 1 1/2 or 2 inch wingspan.

This was a quick piece in colored pencil.

Artists just see things differently?

2009-06-18T09:02:00.003-04:00

Do you think that artist just see things differently? I've often thought so. I know I can remember the color of something much better than my husband, or even most of my friends, even to the point of being able to match the color while shopping.

A study done by two Norwegian professors suggest that in fact, artists do see the world differently. We look at all of the details.

Remembering Molly

2009-06-15T11:26:00.003-04:00

Molly passed on early this morning. She was the happiest dog I've ever known. She had been with us about 6 years.

She had been abandon at a gas station close to my house. She barely weighed 50 lbs and she was not a small dog. I brought her home and with some food and love, she regained her health. She loved to run. She would rather run than eat. She chased squirrels and was a better mole catcher than the cats. If you were going for a walk or run, Molly went with you. She knew a few commands - she could sit and give you five. She loved the water too. I'm not sure what breed she was, but probably had some Chow or Newfoundland in her.

I don't know exactly how old she was, but probably around 10 or 12. I'm glad we were able to give her a good home for some of her life.

Be happy and run free Molly.

Mixed Media

2009-06-13T15:07:00.004-04:00

This is a mixed media piece that I have finished (I think!). It is the windows at 28 Rue St-Jacques, Paris. I love the wrought iron at the windows.

This is mostly a pen and ink type of piece, but I added some colored pencil highlights.

I want to branch out from doing just colored pencil works. I used to do oils and acrylics, so there will be more mixed media pieces.

I'm thinking of doing more window pieces from other cities in the world.

Independence Showcase

2009-06-03T18:48:00.002-04:00

I am happy to report that "Past Prime" has been accepted into an online show, the Independence Showcase.

The showcase is being put together by Tony Moffitt. He is inviting over 100 gallery owners from around the world to view the showcase. If gallery owner sees something that interest them, the owner will contact the artist directly.

A round of applause goes to Mr. Moffitt for helping artists in this downturn in the economy.

"Past Prime" can be seen in my previous blog post.

Cat-a-tonic

2009-06-02T17:53:00.005-04:00

We are "cat-a-tonic" these days. My husband's cousin died in April and left several cats without a home. We have taken Mickey, shown here and Bronson.

Mickey may not have been Mike's cat, but he was at the house, hungry and had been in a couple of fights. He is such an elegant boy - long legged and very Siamese like. He may be an Oriental or something along those lines.

We took Mickey to the vet after he and Bronson had an argument and Bronson got the best of Mickey by biting his tail! Somebody had taken care of Mick at some time - he was neutered and showed signs of having had minor surgery in the past. The vet thinks he might be between 4 and 6 years old.

He has such a handsome face.

This is Bronson. An instigator and proud of it! When he was at Mikes, he was the low cat in the pecking order. But at our house, he's trying to be in the middle at least. He's already realized that he's not going to be the top cat. Bronson is very playful.

What a clown he is!

We weren't sure that we would keep both of them. We didn't know if they could learn to get along with each other. Plus we lost our 15 year old cat, Ziggy in February. We just were not sure we wanted another cat so soon.

But Mickey and Bronson have moved in now. Cat-a-tonic, that's for sure!

Memorial Day Thoughts

2009-05-25T10:35:00.004-04:00

Today is Memorial Day.

Today is also my maternal grandmother's birthday. She would have been well over 100 by now, but still I remember her birthday.

I don't have too many veterans in my family. I think our age is such that my parents, aunts and uncles were too young for WWII and too old for Vietnam.

But my husband's family has several veterans in it. His father fought in the Pacific in WWII. He was in the Navy and arrived at Pearl Harbor a month or so after the attack. He was on a supply ship at Iwo Jima and he was on the Missouri when the peace treaty was signed. We didn't get a lot of details about his service from him. He said that he say too much blood and too many things that no man should ever see.

My husband's uncle was a gunner on a B-52 bomber. It's a wonder he survived the fighting. He was stationed in England and flew bombing runs over Germany and France. He used to tell us about being trained in Montana because flying over the land looked like the area in Germany where they would be flying.

Published in Ann Kullberg's new book

2009-05-20T16:08:00.003-04:00

I'm in Ann's new book!

It is a critique book and she take me to task. But she's right about what she says! My artwork is shown on page 88 through page 90.

You can purchase a copy from Amazon or from Ann Kullberg's website.

On a more serious note, today is 3 months since I lost my beloved cat of 15 years, Ziggy. Sometimes it seems that I can still see him out of the corner of my eye as he zips through the house. We still miss him. My hubby's cousin died in April and we will be fostering his cats for a while. Poor kitties - they miss their person.

Group Effort

2009-05-13T18:13:00.005-04:00

My local chapter of the Colored Pencil Society of America, DC114 is doing a group project for the society's conference in Atlanta later on this year.

We chose to reproduce an impressionist painting that is part of the collection of the North Carolina Museum of Art. The work is by American painter, Frederick Carl Frieseke (1874-1939). It is called "The Garden Parasol" and was painted in 1910.

The artwork was divided up into a section for each of us who are participating in the project. To the left is my section.

It was difficult to capture the paint strokes in colored pencil. I had to think about what colors were available in 1910. Certainly some of the newer pigments were not even invented then. I think Frieseke would have had Cerulean Blue, Alizarin Crimson, Cadmium Yellow, Burnt Umber, Raw Sienna, and White. I've seen the painting in person and I don't think he had a pre-mixed green, but made his own from cad yellow and cerulean blue. At least for me, colored pencil is not my first choice for an impressionist work. I think I ended up using my pencils more like pastels. My work is close but it's not quite the same colors as the painting. It will be interesting to see how the entire projects looks when everthing is put together.

You can see the Frieseke's entire work here.

when it rains...

2009-05-08T11:09:00.002-04:00

What happens when it rains on a bale of straw? You get your own mini wheat crop.

The kernels on the grain head were actually more difficult than I had thought. But I like the turned leaves.

It was a good drawing exercise.

Dogwood Branch

2009-05-04T16:42:00.002-04:00

This is a quick sketch of a dogwood blossom branch. All the dogwoods in our yard had nice blooms on them this year. Some years, an early frost gets them.

Postings will be a bit sparse for the next few weeks. We have had a death in the family.

These dogwoods remind us that spring means resurrection for the spirit and for Mother Nature.

spring is here

2009-04-06T10:25:00.005-04:00

Spring has finally arrived at my house. Everything is in bloom. First to bloom was one of my orchids. This sketch is right out of my sketchbook. It is colored pencil on top of graphite. I didn't want to erase the pencil and am tyring to figure out how to use the pencil so that I can leave it in. Something along the lines of griselle. But colored pencil is a transparent medium so the graphite often changes the intended look. These days, graphite is not a true gray or black tone anyway.

The next one is a sprig of weeping cherry blossoms. I planted a weeping cherry about 10 years ago and now it is just covered in the spring with thousands of pink blossoms. It's one of my favorites in the spring. Butterflies love it. There are often two or three swallowtails on it.

Stay tuned. More sketches are comming. On the list are dogwoods, azaleas and jasmine.

However, first comes the taxes!

Is it done? Maybe?

2009-03-17T17:38:00.004-04:00

This may be my entry to this year's CPSA show. This was my Grandfather's hand drill. He used it many years and I could almost feel the places where his fingers rested.

This drill was a pain to draw - everything had to be so precise. I don't think I could have done it, had I not taken drafting in college.

I didn't set this box on a table or add any background other than the paper color. This is fawn Stonehenge paper.

I'm never completely satisfied with any of my artwork. I always see something that needs improvement. If you're an artist, and you don't see something that needs work, then your ego may be bigger than your artwork. That's just my opinion!

However, I'm fairly satisfied with the wood grain in the box and the gear wheel. I'm still looking at it, thinking about the shadows, and highlights.

This may be the first of a series of old hand tools that have been passed down to me through the family.

In the spring and summer, I want to do flowers, so old tools may have to wait for a while.

Separated at Birth

2009-03-06T08:12:00.002-05:00

I knew I couldn't be the only one who noticed that Robin Williams (is there anybody on the planet funnier) and Bono look like they were separated at birth. I think Robin is a bit older.

Could definitely be cousins. Got nearly the same nose.

Since your ears and nose never stop growing during your lifetime, Bono will look more and more like Robin Williams over time.

2009-02-25T11:04:00.003-05:00

Here is the shark eye shells that are part of a 3 image piece that I'm working on for the aquarium show. Shark Eyes are found in shallow sandy flats and drill through through prey's shell for food. The holes that they drill have beveled edges. I have picked up many of these over the years. The largest one I have is about 2 1/2 inches in diameter.

These are venus clam, a pair. The real shells are much, much smaller than this work. They are only about an inch across. I really, really, underestimated how hard getting the "basketweave" pattern on these shells would be.

I will be adding these to my fineartamerica.com account so that will be available for prints.

Fuquay Varina Centennial Art Show

2009-02-22T18:02:00.002-05:00

"Past Prime" and "Solo" have been juired into the Fuquay Varina Centennial "Paint the Town" art show. They will be hanging at the Community Center on Main Street March 6,7 and 8.

I am happy to be juried into the show as there only about 25 artist exhibiting work. For more information go here

You can see "Past Prime" and "Solo" at backcreekgallery.com

Remembering Ziggy

2009-02-20T11:49:00.003-05:00

My cat of 15 years crossed over to be with his brothers this morning. He was a wonderful friend and I will miss him dearly. He has such spunk. He was truly my furry four-legged child.

2009-02-15T18:44:00.000-05:00

A small work, only 7 x 5 inches. It's the first of three shell works that are going into a frame and mat set designed to hold multiple photos.

This is a welk shell, native to NC. I found the shell some years ago.

This is Prismacolor pencils on navy blue Fabriano pastel paper. I've had this paper for several years and I think that the color has probably been discontinued by now.

A Pleasant Surprise!

2009-01-14T10:15:00.004-05:00

This is "Past Prime". It is a mixed media piece of watercolor and colored pencil. It was juried into the "Explore This 5" 2009 CPSA show. The show will be online this year. Awards will be posted on Feb 1.

It's the first CPSA show I've been juried into. Although, they were only 250 entries this year, and 50 were selected for the show. So if we do the math, that means that 1/5 or 20% were accepted. (That was to keep me from going on the big ego trip!)

I'm in some pretty good company. Names I recognized were Pat Averill, Vera Curnow, Kay Dewar, Elizabeth Patterson, and Ranjini Venkatachari.

December VSD

2008-12-10T10:31:00.005-05:00

Here's my take on December's sketch photo. It was so snowy and cold looking. I didn't see much color and so I thought the ink drawing with just a touch of color would fit it.

This is a small work, 7 x 5 inches. It was done using a Sakura Pigment pen in a couple of sizes. The color was added with Derwent Inktense pencils.

I did take a bit of creative license with some of the elements in the photo.

You can view a larger image by clicking here

Visit the Virtual Sketch Date Blog here.

November Virtual Sketch

2008-11-22T11:33:00.003-05:00

It's not exactly a sketch.... more of a manipulation. But I've been fighting bronchitis for most of the month and this is about the best I can do right now.

This was done in Photoshop Elements. It's been cropped, light and darks have been pushed, and then the charcoal and chalk filter has been applied.

It turned out abstract looking. I might have to try a print on velata paper. Velata would preserve the "charcoal" fuzzy look of things.

I'm an amateur photographer too, but then I think most artists will work with whatever media is in front of them - pencils, paints or pixels.

Experimentation

2008-10-25T09:42:00.006-04:00

I'm experimenting with Yes! canvas, using the trio of pears reference from the virtualsketchdate blog. Yes! is advertised as being able to handle any kind of wet media. These are both small pieces, 8 x 6 inches.

The first image is the Sharpie marker version. I'm not too happy with the makers on canvas. They took too long to dry. I even let some of the layers dry overnight, but when I put more maker on top, it dissolved the layer underneath. This could be a good thing if you want to mix the colors, but I was looking more for the previous layers to act as an underpainting. But it is much more graphic than what I normally do.

This is the watercolor version. Not too thrilled with this one either. It was quite difficult to get the watercolor to stick to the canvas. Just the least bit of water dissolved the pigment right down to the white canvas. I had to let the watercolors thicken up until they were about like acrylics. I used lots and lots of watercolor here. It's not exactly brushed on, but more pounced on with an old brush. This was the only way I could get the paint to "stick" to the canvas.

I can see that there are possibilities here. Maybe I need a different kind of watercolors. I started with Windsor/Newton straight out of the tube, but I ended up using Yarka semi-moist pan colors. It was easier to maintain the viscosity of the paint. The white is watercolor gouache and as you can see, it picked up the underlying shadow color, even though I waited 24 hours before putting it on the canvas.

It might be me, because watercolors are not my media of choice. I've painted in oils and acrylics in the past, but I found the Yes! canvas to be difficult to handle.

However, I love the fact that this image is now on canvas. I've sprayed it with fixative and I think that it could be sprayed with Krylon clear to completely seal it. Then it could be framed without glass - something I can't always do with my colored pencil works.

Pear Trio

2008-10-23T11:50:00.003-04:00

Here is my drawing for October's virtual sketch. I'm working on doing more graphite work. This is in my sketchbook and was shaded with a pure graphite pencil and brush.

The Color Version

2008-09-30T17:00:00.003-04:00

Here is my painted version of the peony from the September virtual sketch date. It is done with Derwent inktense watercolor pencils on pastelboard. This was my first time using the pastelboard. It holds watercolor paint like it was an acrylic. It just doesn't move and that was very different from using paper.

This was my first time with the inktense pencils as well. They are surprising. It takes the lightest touch with them, especially with the darker colors. When you put the water to the strokes, they just explode with color

Peonies in Vase

2008-09-27T11:17:00.001-04:00

peoniesinvase, originally uploaded by janpope.

I'm participating in the virtual sketch for September. The reference was such a lovely floral that I couldn't resist. Besides it gets me back in the sketchbook after a summer of gardening. If you'd like to see a more detail image, you can look at the Flickr version.

The original reference was provided by Sharon on the Virtual Sketch Date blog. There are links to a larger image on Flickr. This photo had such great contrast that I knew it would make a great black and white image. I'm thinking of doing this in pastels as well.