Returning to Our Feeders

During the summer months, the birds most active at our bird feeders are the Cardinals and the Doves.  Occasionally we MIGHT see these others but for the most part, they are seldom seen at the feeders until around August or so.  They continue until the summers months when they evidently  prefer bugs and other natural foods (only a guess on my part).

We changed brand of food back in August and now sticking with only black sunflower seeds.  That might be another reason as before we were getting the lesser expensive mixes that possibly were not quite as enticing. 

FIbook75x75 / Stonehenge Aqua / Albrecht Durer watercolor pencils (dry) / Mechanical Pencil 05

Who is Your Favorite Online Art Supplier?

My top favorite trusted art suppliers:

Fountain Pens / Ink:

Other Art Supplies (in order of ordering preference).  When choosing who to go through, I compare prices first.  Then I look at the minimum dollar amount I have to reach that gives me free shipping.  Another thing I take into consideration is how fast the order is processed and arrives at my doorstep (based on order history).

I used to use Amazon before any other place; but, these days it's difficult knowing if you are purchasing actual name brands or knockoffs.  I've been burnt a few times so I tend to go through these other websites when ordering online.  Might be a little higher priced but at least I feel more confident that I'm getting the real thing. 

As for supporting local businesses, we have a local art supply (DK Art Supplies) that I use occasionally and would love to shop more often; however, for many people, price is a major consideration and often local means much higher prices compared to ordering online.  Those times I do shop locally is when I only need a single item rather quickly or do not have time to wait until I have a large enough order to get free shipping from other sources.  Plus local businesses can only maintain a limited choice of supplies and brands.  DK Art Supplies WILL order anything for you they may not carry; however, if that's the case, it's just easier to order myself.

Cathy Johnson's Sketch With Me - CHANGE

This month's event set by Cathy Johnson is about this time of year and CHANGE.  For many people change can be summer to autumn with changing colors.  For us here down south, there's not a GREAT deal of change due to seasons.........at least with foliage. 

We do have birds showing up now at the feeders that don't through the summer.  The mockingbird will return to the feeders  The black caps and titmice do as well.  We have migratory birds coming through and checking out the feeders like various finches.  There's a bit more activity with hummingbirds.   Another change we see is that the Sandhill Cranes don't come around as much through the neighborhood.

What inspired me or grabbed my attention representing change was/is the tree in our front yard.  What is our biggest show-stopping display with any type of color change is what we thought was a Golden Rain tree.  Doing more research, I've learned the tree may actually be its cousin......the Chinese Flame tree.

Both have the bright yellow flowers that develop late summer followed by paper thin tri-sided seed pods that range from an orange - pink - coral - red color......depending on their maturity and the way the light hits the pods.  Today was cloudy in the afternoon with a passing storm and they looked blood red.  Beautiful coloring!!!  There are only a few areas in our tree with the yellow flowers remaining.  What helps distinguish one tree from the other are the leaves.

FIbook75x75 / Stonehenge Aqua / QoR watercolors / Lamy pens with Dark Red and Dark Green ink

What Overcharging a Rechargeable Battery Can Do

An experience to remember with regards to rechargeable batteries.  Don't leave them plugged in even using a USB port on a CPU.

This battery is from my previous Samsung S5 cell phone I use for other than telephone....mainly as a home thermostat remote.  It also has game apps I didn't want to bog down my current cell phone.

I went to change the thermostat the other day and noticed the phone looked and felt weird.  I noticed the screen was pulling away along the edges and bulging in the center.  Also found it was bulging along the back where the phone was no longer laying flat.  Upon removing the case and back to the phone, I found the battery was inflated.......bulging front and back.  And researching what can happen with batteries, learned this could have ended poorly for us either catching fire or exploding.  Lesson learned and BEFORE anything bad happened.

Replaced the battery with a second I had on hand and my phone is back to normal with screen back in place (and NOT plugged in).  :-)

FIbook75x75 / Stonehenge Aqua / W&N watercolor / Lamy w/Urban Grey ink

The Pumpkin Patch Near Us

A Church a couple blocks from us set up pumpkins and gourds to sell with proceeds going to groups like Boy Scouts, etc.  They do this every year.  I haven't been out this year to stop by but pulled up photos I took last year to sketch from.

FIbook75x75 / Stonehenge Aqua / W&N watercolors / Lamy Vista w/Doc Brown ink

Pentel GraphGear 1000 Mechanical Pencil Set

This evening, two of my sons treated us to Chinese for my birthday.  My birthday was actually last week but due to work schedules, we normally have to celebrate holidays and birthdays when we can grab an opportunity to be together even if it means days or weeks after the fact (sometimes before).

After we ate dinner, the boys surprised me with this awesome gift I've been drooling over for months but wouldn't purchase for myself. 

Knowing their mother, they knew I'd be sketching using the new pencils and my middle son made a comment that not only would I be sketching, but that I would sketch them...........and of course they were right.  They were not even out of the driveway before I started sketching my gift :-)

The pencils feel great in my hand with a nice weight to them.  I love the lead guard on these that retract when you click the clip on the side.  I am also impressed with the quality of lead........especially the .3 lead which I struggle with breakage in other brands (even with a light touch I'm known for).  I was able to use the .3 on this paper surface and not break the lead.  That's encouraging for when I want to use the super thin lines for hatching.

I also love the color coding that tells me at a glance which lead it holds.

FIbook75x75 / Stonehenge Aqua / Pentel Mechanical .5 / Pilot Vanishing Point pen w/Lexy Grey ink.

Live Bat in Bathroom

Yesterday while on the job, Travis came across this bat hanging on a bathroom wall at one of the houses he had to work a startup on the heating and air system.

He tried to get as close as he could to take a photo and the closer he got to it, the bat moved as if trying to make itself smaller and not be seen.  Travis definitely didn't want to spook it to where it might fly at him.  There was only natural low light in the room so he wasn't able to get the best picture but enough to where I could make out features once I lightened the photo in Photoshop Elements.

Another worker came in to do some work in the bathroom and saw what was on the wall and decided to hold off and leave until the bat was gone.  We just hope someone didn't hurt it.

FIbook75x75 / Stonehenge Aqua / Lamy AlStar w/Urban Grey ink (just a touch of inking) / Graphite / Watercolor pencil

Opal and Jake

As I go through another spell where I lack motivation or inspiration to do anything, I brought out my two favorite "models".  I can always find a way to sketch these guys.  This is exactly what I needed and enjoyed working these two three different ways.

The first two were sketching with Ipad and Apple pencil using two different sketch tool brushes.

This next is working in my journal with pen and ink plus watercolor. 

FIbook75x75 / Stonehenge Aqua / Lamy Vista w/Doc Brown ink / W&N watercolor

Capturing the Moment

I was fortunate to have looked out the window at the right time for this, as he didn't stay in this spot or position long at all.

Quick sketch capturing his head just poking out among the leaves, which I almost missed.  He was in the top leaves of a 3 foot shrub making his way to the next shrub.

He's a welcomed sight knowing he helps take care of a few undesirable critters we'd rather not have around the house.

FIbook75x75 / Stonehenge Aqua / W&N watercolors / Lamy with Dark Green and Lamy with Document Brown

Favorite Autumn Decor

We may not see the autumn colors here in Florida as we did up north; however, I do have various items I can set out that do.  My favorite being these shelf sitter dolls.

Started this page late last night into early morning hours and finished after I woke up this morning.  I may add a title or some description lower left but brain too foggy (lack of sleep) to think what I might want to say  :-)

FIbook75x75 / Stonehenge Aqua / Lamy Vista w/Doc Brown ink / QoR watercolors

Miya's Favorite Treats

Something I learned today when I decided to take treats out of their bags to sketch.....make sure your dog is not around to hear you in the bags or see you with their treats.  Thought I'd never get through sketching these with Miya bugging me for them.  Didn't help trying to cover them up.  I ended up giving her the smaller treats after I sketched them and then went to do something else to get her attention off me and the treats.  Finally finished the page early evening.

FIbook75x75 with Stonehenge Aqua / Lamy AlStar with Urban Grey ink / DS watercolors

Acorns and Palm Berries

I haven't done a great deal lately.........basically taking a bit of a break.  Even with that said, I've managed these two pages in my journal.

Both pages I'm using a Platinum Carbon Desk Fountain Pen I haven't used in awhile.  Plus I loaded it with Noodler's #41 Brown, which I haven't thought to use.........mainly out of the fear of it clogging my pen.  One of my friends uses this ink and hasn't had issues so I went ahead and loaded my pen with it as I like the different tone that it has compared to the DeAtramentis Document Brown ink (although I do like it too).

Out of all my extra fine nibs, I think this pen has the finest of all.

Initially I was only going to work the one twig with leaves and acorns but then decided to work others I had on hand I've picked up from the yard.  And with this sketch I felt a tug of war between the left and right side of the brain.  I was struggling with focus capturing what I saw rather than what I thought I was seeing.

I was going to call it done but then decided to add a bit of color to the only one with leaves.  Also decided to use a greenish brown pigment I seldom use........Raw Umber.  It along with the Sap Green gave me the flat look I wanted where the leaves are drying out.

And today as we sat without power, I worked on this one off and on.  I took one of my autumn figurines and replaced the pumpkin and haystack with the Palm berries Terry has removed from our tree.  We don't like leaving them in the palm for fear of the berries falling and our dogs getting a hold of them.  Our understanding is that this particular Palm berry is toxic to dogs.  My son's lab likes to pick up everything so this way we remove temptation.

October's Challenge Between Friends

This month was my turn to choose the challenge.  I had a couple ideas in mind and last night I finally settled on one.

October's challenge is to choose a hand made / hand crafted item we may have created and sketch it.  Then we had to sketch each component that went into making it......it had to have a minimum of six components.

Years ago I was very active in crafts ...... from beading, to crochet, knitting, wood cutting, to paper crafts.  I chose this paper witch I made for Halloween that is about 25 to 30 years old.  I thought it was fitting for this month :-)

FIbook75x75 / Dip Pen w/G Nib for the paper doll / Lamy Vista for the rest of the sketching.  Document Brown ink used and DS watercolors.

I purposely left off the shadows (for now) as I have other ideas I'd like to use the illustrations for and prefer they not have shadows at this time.

Eastern Lubber Grasshopper

I wonder if these are the culprits leaving their mark on our plant leaves ...... probably.  We also have snails that like to dine on our plants that we have to remove from time to time.  Glad our plants are being enjoyed by other than ourselves..........ha ha.

We see more of the larger green and yellow grasshoppers than we do these black ones.  Some of the black grasshoppers have yellow stripes whereas some have more of an orange to red stripe.

FIbook75x75 / DS watercolors / Falcon w/Lexy Grey ink

Season for Acorns

Seems our oak only drops acorns every other year and this year they are starting to show up everywhere.  They are tiny compared to the acorns we had up North but the leaves of this oak here are also very different........smaller and of different shape.

This also goes along with Cathy Johnson's theme Seasons for this month's Sketch with Me event.

FIbook75x75 w/Stonehenge Aqua / Doc Brown ink / DS watercolor

Side Note to myself - Black for the beetle is Aliz Crimson plus Paynes Grey giving it a slight reddish-purple tone.  Used the same color for the shadow.

Sketch With Me - Seasons

This month's theme for the Sketch With Me challenge is seasons (Cathy Johnson's monthly challenge)....sketching anything that represents what the season is like where we live.

The last few days could fit into this as I walk around taking note and sketching what's going on right around our house but saved working these last two for the actual challenge.

While northern states may be seeing a drop in temperature and beginning to see Autumn colors, there's not much in the way of change here.  The weather is still hot and humid, although we did have a few nights where it actually dropped into the upper 60s and that was a Blessing!!  But days are averaging low 90s.

Instead of seeing signs of color change you see up north (before flowers, trees, and shrubs go dormant), we are  seeing new life, budding, flowering, and fruit production.  We still enjoy color but not in the same way.

We do have a Golden Rain tree that the green leaves will soon change to yellow but it will be another couple weeks before our tree does that.  Then we will see the seed pods dropping everywhere. 

All in all, our season is basically the same as it's been since April.  If we're lucky, it might start cooling off by December; however, Florida has basically two seasons........Early Spring and Summer.

Bananas in Our Back Yard

When I was out taking photos of the Angel Tulip flowers, I remembered Terry saying we had bananas growing.  I walked over and there were two plants that had bananas.  One with only three and one with sixteen.

These bananas are dwarf in size compared to what you see at the grocery store.........maybe six inches in length.  I have no idea what type they are or what they might be good for.  I know I tried eating one a couple years back but didn't like the taste at all!!  It was nasty!!  We may not know what they are good for but enjoy watching them grow and producing the flower and bananas.

Stonehenge Aqua watercolor paper / Lamy pens with DeAtramentis Document Inks - Brown, Dark Green and Dark Red / Daniel Smith watercolors.

Starting a New Journal

I purchased a couple of handmade sketchbooks from a dear friend of mine and started one of the two last night.  

The sketchbooks I purchased are 6 x 8 inches and 7.5 x 7.5 inches.  The 6 x 8 has Fabriano in it and the square format has Stonehenge Aqua.  Since I've been working in my handmade sketchbook with Fabriano, I decided to start the one with the Stonehenge (one of my favorite papers) for a change.

The first page I decided to work a simple color chart of the colors in each of four palettes I alternate using.  Although I basically use the same colors in each brand, they are different either in tone or transparency.  I like to experiment too with brands and this collection has taken years to build.  My Winsor and Newton paints go back to 1992.  Holbein not too long after that after going to class that gave out a few tubes and I purchased other colors I wanted to use.  Daniel Smith came years later and ones I use most with QoR next in line.  

Second and third page I wanted to work a comparison with different pens and inks...to include the hacked fountain pen with the Zebra G nib.  The TWSBI Eco has a dryer feed and after doing this, I will probably load it with a darker grey ink or even black versus the Urban Grey now in it.

And today we learned two of our new rooted trumpet plants have a flower growing on each.  Took photos and immediately came inside to make this entry in the sketchbook.

Konrad Fountain Pen and Zebra G Nib Hack

One of my close friends sent me a photo a couple mornings ago of her pen with a Zebra G nib replacing the standard nib.  She used a Noodler's Konrad pen to do the hack.  I've seen this done with Jinhao fountain pens but never using a Noodler's Konrad.

At one point (some time ago) I looked into maybe buying a Jinhao fountain pen to give it a try but decided against it due to the heat setting I didn't want to mess with.  After sharing with my friend about this, she mentioned if she could do it, so could I so I gave it a try since I already had Konrads just sitting in a drawer with no intentions of using (don't like the fiddly nibs and the bodies are not exactly of the highest quality).

First attempt was not real successful using a red body Konrad.  I had trouble getting the feed/nib into the body and also pulling back out.  Once I finally got it into the body, it took several attempts at heat setting using hot water (brought just to boiling in microwave).   One has to dip the feed/nib into the hot water and hold it there for about 30 seconds to soften the ebonite (rubber) feed and then press the feed into the nib while it cools.

I managed to get the feed to almost fit the nib but there was still a gap I needed to continue working on.  The feed needed to be closer to or resting against the inside curve of the nib there near the tines.  After several attempts, I was able to get it rather close and decided to try the pen out.

The pen itself leaked ink where the feed/nib fit into the body.  Upon close examination, I found the opening was warped.  Not sure if that was already an issue or if the hot water did anything to the plastic.

Went back and grabbed another Konrad (yellow/orange body) and using the feed/nib I was already working with, went through the same process only this time with the different body.  It worked after only one attempt with the heat setting ... allowing me to place the feed/nib into the body and pull out without too much trouble.  The feed finally "molded" to the G nib to include near the tines.

Loaded the pen with ink and now after a couple days later, all seems well.  There is no leakage where feed/nib go into the body and it's feeding ink OK.   Not as efficiently as it would with the regular fountain pen nib but well enough without too much hassle.

Personal notes after playing and doing more research (after the hack):

G Nibs are super scratchy and do not do well on paper with any tooth.

G Nibs are meant to be used with dip pen bodies and thicker ink....ink that is not designed to work in fountain pens as they will clog and damage the pens.

G nibs are not meant to be in constant contact with ink as they will quickly rust.  If hacked into a fountain pen, rusting could cause issues trying to change out the nib to a fresh one..........possibly ruining the pen.

G nibs wear out quickly and why you get several in a pack.  Not sure I'd want to have to mess with changing them out.........especially if I have to go through heat setting each one to the same feed.....seems kind of a hassle to me.

Not sure I really needed to do this as I'm really not concerned with thick/thin lines in my sketches like Manga artists try to achieve.  Nor do I try to work calligraphy style lettering.  I find working thin and thick to be taxing on my hand; and, too time consuming and I really don't have that much patience with lettering.  I prefer other artsy methods of adding wording to my pages.  But I guess it was worth experimenting just to see if I could do what several other people are doing by hacking a dip pen nib to a fountain pen body.

Doodling with the hacked pen:

Terry's Flowers

Yesterday, Terry ran to Publix to pick up a few items we were out of.  Upon return, he surprised me with a bouquet of flowers with Autumn colors, including various mums, carnations, whatever the purple/blue flowers are, and tiger lilies.

With this sketch, I thought I would sketch a few of these flowers with "brush" rather than pen and ink. 

One of the things I've noticed when I don't use ink is the fact I want to fiddle with the brush.  It takes me longer and to me the results often feel "stiff."  Plus the sketch looks naked to my eyes after all this time using pen/ink and watercolor.....lol.  But it was a change and that helps keep me motivated.

HSFab01 sketchbook / W&N watercolors