Thursday, February 28, 2019

Flowers Blooming - Discovery Gardens

These are from photos I took this past Tuesday when a few of us decided to sketch at Discovery Gardens.

Most of their plants have tags telling you what they are.  Of course I had to photograph those few that didn't.  I'll have to remember to ask them our next trip there.

Sharpie Pen / KG


The only thing I do know about these next flowers are that they are from a succulent of some sort.

Lamy Vista with Urban Grey ink / KG



Tuesday, February 26, 2019

Pencil Sketching

These next two sketches are both worked with Mars Lumograph HB pencil. 

The burlap looking container (which is actually a flower vase) holding sketching supplies started out with intentions of taking pen and ink plus watercolor but I ended up losing myself in the pencil sketch, shading along the way, and just left as is.  There's just something to the sound and feel of the pencil lead on paper I love.  I could go further with darker pencils to build up the values but I decided to stop where I did.  At least the HB does not smudge like the darker/softer pencils do and I didn't feel like messing with a fixative.  The plus...........I can always return and add darker values, if I choose. 

Worked late last night / early morning hours.


Although our group didn't have a planned outing today, I wanted to go back to Discovery Gardens.  Each time we go, something else is blooming and I'm always finding new things I didn't see before.  I sent an email out to a few regulars to let them know what I was doing and invited them to join me........three came making it a really beautiful relaxed time together :-)

At first we weren't sure if we should attempt it or not as it was forecasted to rain starting morning hours on one weather website and afternoon on another.  It was super cloudy looking like it could rain at any time.  We decided to take our chances and so glad we did.  We sketched from 10:30 a.m. until 12:30 p.m. and it soon after we left, it started to rain.  GREAT TIMING!!!

The morning was cloudy but pleasant.  Low humidity, no blaring hot sun, and cool.  We were able to sit where the cacti grow since the sun wasn't out to chase us away.  I chose the young cactus,  again only using an HB pencil.


Friend's Grandson Fishing

With permission, I sketched this little fellow fishing here in Florida. 

This brings back so many memories taking my three sons fishing.  As a Mom of three boys, I was the one who took the boys fishing and camping.  Their father wasn't into that but I was (and still am).  My father raised me to do all the outdoor sports to include hunting and I even played around repairing cars back before everything became computerized.  I was the eldest of three with one brother three years behind me.  He never got into any of the outdoor activities like I did.

Because the emphasis was on the grandson, I decided to only take color to him......leaving the background as is.

Lamy AlStar with Lexy Grey ink / Daniel Smith watercolors and in KG sketch journal.

Monday, February 25, 2019

Sketching My Little Buddy in New Journal

For those who follow this blog, you've all come to know who Opal is.  Anytime I'm wondering what to sketch on any given day, I can always sketch Opal.  And when I start new journals, I have to include him at least once.

So here is Opal in a fresh journal. 

Daniel Smith watercolors and TWSBI Eco fountain pen with Urban Grey ink


And More Tree Practice

This is trying out two other hatch mark techniques.  So far my favorites are those using the squiggly and the stippling techniques.


And with starting a fresh journal book, I was inspired to finally grab my paint brush.  I'm using three different Daniel Smith greens - Rich Green Gold, Serpentine Genuine, and Green Apatite Genuine.  The tiny bit of blue is QoR French Ultramarine and the Brown was from my playing with color mixing my own brown.....puddles already on my palette either from mixing a yellow with a purple or red with a green.  I didn't think to pay attention to what was what with the puddles I had mixed.......ooops.



Saturday, February 23, 2019

Cathy Johnson's "Sketch With Me" Monthly Facebook Event

Cathy started this Sketch With Me group where one weekend out of the month she suggests a theme and invites others to sketch with that theme in mind.  This month is "Home" or what makes us feel at home.  Could be a place in the house, a place outside in nature, a home cooked meal........anything that might make us feel at home.

This is my spot.  Worked on Strathmore 500 WC paper, Lamy AlStar with Urban Grey ink, mixed brands of watercolors


Gift for Husband

My husband's family goes back to a Wintun Indian tribe out of California.  He has a dream catcher, several collector plates and other items with the Native American theme.

The dream catcher has a rugged looking resin Indian attached in the center.  I chose to work with hatch marks hoping to depict that ruggedness rather than blending for a soft look.

There are things about this I could easily change or add to but he loves it "as is" so I won't make any changes.  This took many hours to complete building values with nothing but hatch marks.  Outside of eye strain due to the number of hours in this, I found it very relaxing......like one would with zentangles.

Friday, February 22, 2019

Sketching a Friend Sketching

I've been working on this the last couple of days after receiving a picture from a dear friend here where I live and who's part of our sketching group.

He and his wife made a trip to India and while there, shared a few photos..........one of which was him doing what he loves doing..............sketching.

As soon as I saw the photo, it just called out to be sketched.  It was late at night when I started it by sketching with an HB pencil on Stonehenge 90 lb paper.



The next day I had a hard time deciding on what medium I wanted to use........pen and ink with watercolor, color pencil (watercolor pencil dry), pen and ink only, or graphite.  I did the next best thing..............saving the original pencil sketch on paper for watercolor, I scanned the pencil sketch and uploaded to my Ipad.  Using Procreate (sketching App), I can work this in multiple ways emulating the other mediums.

I started out using the pencil tool 6B using color rather than just black, which has a really nice texture looking like color pencil.  I left the top area behind his head for writing a paragraph about Lee being in India.  At first I just wanted to color Lee sketching rather than adding anything more to the background.


After I worked the color version and debating on if I wanted to take it further with color, I worked him again in pen and ink only using the Fine and Technical pen tools.  I decided I didn't want to add any description to this one.  For me this was great practice with hatching and cross hatching.


Once I was finished with the pen and ink sketch, I decided to go back to the color version and finish the rest off in color.

At first I had written out above his head about his trip but didn't care for how it looked so I erased it.  I chose to keep the area behind his head plain with no structural detail and only a short single line description of who this is.  I also darkened his hat since I added color behind him and the hat appeared to get somewhat lost even with the light wall shading.  The wall and ground were done using the charcoal pencil tool.


Eventually, I will work the original pencil sketch using pen and ink plus watercolor giving me several different versions that took care of my indecisiveness about what medium I wanted to use or the look I was hoping for.  :-)




Practice with Trees - Different Methods of Ink Lines

Using Procreate and Apple pencil, I've been practicing sketching trees.  Once I get a good feel for what I am doing, I plan to repeat using my journal and either fountain pen or dip pen. 

This first one using squiggly lines to build everything up.  As I look at the steps here on screen, I see I might want to lighten some of the middle front just a bit.   I used my neighbor's tree as my model but time of day wasn't great for lights and shadows..........I had to use my imagination.

The tree this is modeled after is very dense and you really don't seem much in the way of gaps showing limbs.  This is what I see throughout the day sitting at my desk.  It's located right across the street and is very large.  I believe it's in the oak family.

I used the Technical pen tool for this similar to a Micron 3 pen.



This next one is from imagination and I chose to use a different method for creating my values.  I left more white space in the clumps within the canopy and used hatching/cross hatching/squiggly hatch marks for the darker areas.  The above is my normal method so this next way I'm not sure if I like or not.   I love this method when others use it but not sure about my line work.  Will continue to practice.

Also using the Technical pen tool.  I have it set emulating a Micron 3.

Monday, February 18, 2019

Leaf-Footed Bug

Yesterday while my husband and I were outside, this bug landed on a hibiscus close to where Terry was standing.  Not one we normally see, I ran inside to grab my cell phone to take its picture.  Terry trying to hold the limb from blowing in the breeze startled him and he flew off.  A little while later either he or another one returned and I was able to get a few photos.

Looking it up, I've learned this is called a leaf-footed bug.  It's quite large and not exactly one I'd want landing on me.  I was fine getting close to it as bugs don't normally make me crazy (except bees and ticks) unless they unexpectedly land on me.

Stonehenge Aqua / Lamy Safari with De Altramentis Document Brown ink.  I used Paynes Grey and Bt Sienna for this (QoR watercolors).



Found Treasure - Dried/Hard Tree Fungi

Terry was out weeding and mowing taking advantage of the really beautiful weather we had yesterday.  He came across this attached to a left behind tree stump from where we had to thin trees and shrubs a few years ago from our yard.

It's light weight but hard as a rock.  The tree stump it was attached to is a Camphor Laurel tree. 

Right off it looked like a foot to me.  One way like a foot and the other way like a boot. 

Decided to sketch this in carbon pencil - 2B.  Stonehenge 90 paper. 






Sunday, February 17, 2019

Pen/Pencil Case

Today has been one gorgeous day!!!  Sunny, breezy, and low 80s.  Husband was weeding and cleaning up a small garden bed in the back while I supervised (ha ha) and worked off and on sketching this pen/pencil case.

I started the sketch with pencil late last night and added pen and ink today.  Then had to leave it for awhile as I tried to decide on what medium I wanted to use.  I was trying to decide on watercolor or watercolor pencils because of the texture of part of this case.  I ended up using both........watercolor and then taking some black watercolor pencil adding a little bit of texture on the inside part of the case that folds over as shown.




Saturday, February 16, 2019

Candle Holders and Pot Sitters

Although I've titled this candle holders, I'm really not sure what they are.  I found two of these years ago and was drawn to the crackled glass and metal stands.  They look like something one could place a small candle in so I'm guessing that's what they are for.

The pot sitters are two lizards on one and I have two turtles hanging on the other.  I chose the lizards to sketch as they are more colorful. 

I came across these pot sitters at ACMoore, an arts and craft store in Clarksburg, WV   Used to be one of my favorite craft stores before moving to Florida.

The little dangly balls comes from when I used to do beading for miniature Christmas tree ornaments.

Stonehenge Aqua 140 lb watercolor paper

Lamy AlStar with Urban Grey ink for the main sketching and writing. 

Lamy Safari with the same ink as the extra fine nib leans more towards a dry feed I preferred to depict the crackled glass.


Hand Lettering Presentation

Coming up on Tuesday, Feb 19, 2019, our sketching group meeting at the Leesburg Library will be a presentation and hands-on practice with hand lettering.

Another lady in the group, Susan Fink, will be sharing examples of her father's work where he created business logos and lettering as a profession..........like the Chiquita brand logo on bananas, Daniel Steel book titles, etc.

Following her presentation, I will share various examples of how we can work titles / headings / description wording / word art to our journal pages using our own hand writing as well as a few examples where one can use free font websites like dafont.com for inspiration with a huge library of fonts people can try to emulate on their pages.

For the last two months I have been doing a lot of research between websites, youtube videos, and books for ideas.  I've been doing a lot of my own practice.  What I've found is that I prefer to just use my own handwriting rather than try to follow fonts or calligraphy lettering styles.  And it seems I lean towards block or bubble lettering more than anything or faux calligraphy.  Not sure why but that's what I enjoy most.  I AM trying to work other styles in as well depending on the subject of my sketches.  As an example.......what I did back in October 2018 for Inktober.....either as individual titles or worked within the illustration itself.

Sources of Inspiration


Books:

Card Maker's Hand Lettering Workbook - Nancy Burke and Marian Rodenizer
The Art of Whimsical Lettering - Joanne Sharpe
The Art of Creative Lettering - Becky Higgins
The Art of Drawing Dangles - Olivia A. Kneibler

Google Search - Images:

Hand Lettering Alphabet
Hand Lettering Art

Google Search - Videos:

Hand Lettering Alphabet
Hand Lettering Art
Bouncy Letters
8 Hand Lettering Fonts to Draw
Hand lettering / Typography Tutorial (speed art)
50 Hand Lettering Ideas - Easy Ways to Change Up Your Writing Style
Bubble Letters

Downloadable Fonts:  I don't download but instead click on the font to see the alphabet

Dafont.com
1001freefonts.com

Buntings, Banners, Line Divisions, and Doodles:

Draw Buntings and Banners
How to Draw a Banner - 3 Simple Techniques
How to Draw a Banner with Torn Edges
Hand Lettering Accents
Embellishments/Letter Dangles/Eye Candy - Alexanderienne - Several Videos in the Series

My Own Examples


Faux Calligraphy:



Bubble Letters:


 Mixed:





Using font styles from Dafont.com:



Various Practice Styles Using One's Own Handwriting:



Inktober 2018 Lettering Examples - Stand Alone and Within Illustration:




In addition to playing with hand lettering, we will practice with drawing ribbons to house lettering for those who wish to get a bit fancy as well as shapes and banners.

Ribbons:




Shapes and Banners:



Other - Charms / Dangles / Word Art




Friday, February 15, 2019

My Everyday Sketch Bag / Handbag

I bought this bag specifically for a sketching bag through Amazon.  I've tried various different bags but this one is my all time favorite.  It's not too big but big enough to carry the essentials I need for sketching.  And as a handbag, I don't normally carry very much with me beyond what I really need....wallet, keys, phone, IB, lip balm........and mace.  I'll often clip a small camera to one of the metal rings to the shoulder strap if I plan to be on a sketch crawl but if I forget, I have my cell phone.


Sketching gear that goes with me everywhere includes:

Thin customized palette made from a NeoColor II crayon tin
Small sketchbook (no larger than 4x6")
At least two fountain pens
Micron and/or sharpie pen
Mechanical pencil
Kneaded eraser
Mini sprayer
Ballpoint pen
Waterbrush
Tissue.

Fabric Traveler's Journal, worked on Strathmore 500 Imperial 140lb watercolor paper / Lamy Safari with DeAltramentis Document Brown ink / QoR watrcolors