Yard Pix, Sketches, Nature Journal, Pastel Journey

I had a really busy day yesterday, but mostly devoted to one kind of art or another. In the late morning I went out to the north yard and sat on the bridge to try to capture the Adirondack chairs sitting under the trees. I am still having a really hard time with these chairs and think I'd better do more practice with them. At any rate, despite the fact that the wind was just about blowing be away and the wind chill was putting a serious cold in my hands, this is what I accomplished.

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By the time I got indoors, I needed some serious warming up, so I reheated some turkey vegetable soup I'd made the day before. Yummy!!

I still love my Debbie Mumm dishes.

It was a beautiful day despite the wind, so once I'd warmed up, I put a hoodie back on and headed out with the camera. I've been impatiently awaiting the arrival of the lady slippers, but realize that it really isn't time for them yet. I do have their greenery already.

And while I was walking around the horseradish that the hubster planted smiled and waved just begging to have its picture taken, so I obliged.

And then I couldn't ignore the shade garden full of lilies of the valley, Jacob's ladder, and hostas. And they are lucky enough to have a natural frame of a weathered fence and a pile of bricks.

All this communing with nature, reminded me that I wanted to start a journal with a nature theme and try my hand at some botanical sketching - nothing formal, but I am drawn to things that don't move when you try to sketch them. I had a lovely book written in German with a leaf image on the front that seemed to be a good candidate. I wanted to know its title to see if it would fit with the theme, but every translation software that I tried just gave me back what I entered. Does anyone know what this says?

The title doesn't appear on the front cover and I love the leaf pattern.

Here is the first page of the "Nature Journal". I think it is a spent dandelion, but it wasn't identified by a name just a number. I found it on Wet Canvas.

And, finally, I tried my hand at another pastel in my Merrill Reader, but this time I used Portfolio oil pastels. I am quite pleased with this one and will try my hand at the Mungyo soft pastels on the next one with the hope of doing a better job than on the flowers that were my first entry in this book. I need to get some fixative so I can turn the page and not have these two get two familiar with each other. I think I will just buy some hair spray as Phil suggested.

I do love pears.

Another busy day today. I am on my way to my daughter's house to get Miss P to school and then I have my exercise class. I am hoping to spend some time with art after that, and then I am going to go to the Zumba class again - two left feet notwithstanding.

I hope you have a great day and that I will see you again tomorrow.

xoxo

Life Drawing and More Pears

I experienced my first life drawing class with an unclothed live model yesterday and I must admit I was a bit unsure how that was going to be. After all, I was raised a Catholic and even went to Catholic school in the late 50s and early 60s.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that I wasn't the least bit uncomfortable - after all I wasn't the one without the protection of clothing. The model was very professional and held his poses quite well. We began with a couple of short poses - I think they were 5 minutes. I did my first two sketches standing with a table easel in front of me and holding the pencil by its very end. I didn't have much control that way, but I thought that was the best way to get rough, gesture sketches. At any rate, here is what I was able to get.

Hopefully you will forgive me for those when you see the 20 minute sketches. They too were first drawn roughly with the pencil held back from the lead, but not all the way back to the end. This allowed me to be loose without totally giving up control. When I was satisfied with the overall shape, I sat down and put on my glasses to refine the sketch. I am rather pleased with how they turned out and am looking forward to the next time.

I realize the angle of the folded leg is not right and the space between the knee of that leg and the foot of the other is not right, but overall, I think it isn't bad for now.

This is my second try and the model had taken a break for a moment before resuming the pose. In doing so he shifted his posture a bit to a move leaning position and changed the position of his right hand.

I didn't stay for the entire session as I had errands to do, but I found it to be a great experience and I am hoping to take other media next time - maybe my Neocolor IIs and/or some oil pastels. I'd like to try sketching in color.

When I returned home, I cleaned up my work room a bit and then attempted to add some dark color to the tiger lily. It was a disaster. I thought that maybe spraying it with a mist of water might have given it a more painterly look and made it okay that it didn't look real, but it appears that I didn't get my little spray bottle back from the still life workshop where I was sharing it. I am going to try to lift some color today and hope to share with you how it is going in the near future. I removed the masking fluid this morning and need to soften the edges of the stamens as well.

I will share my pears with you as I am quite happy with them. The one on the left was done with colored pencil and the one on the right with soft pastels.

I've never used soft pastels before and could definitely use some pointers. It seemed that with each subsequent layer, I removed much of the previous and when I tried using my finger to blend the same thing happened. Do you know where I can find out more about using this medium?

I've got to go get my first mug of coffee and get started on this day. I have the exercise class this morning and since I missed it on Wednesday, I am looking forward to it even more than usual. I think that afterwards, the hubster and I will be making a trip into town to Lowe's for some wood crafting related items and some softener salt. I may have to see if I can find a spray bottle and a clip-on lamp.

I surely hope that you are having a wonderful day, that your muse is hovering, and that you are finding time for your art. I've been having the hardest time leaving comments on blogs and it is not just Blogger; I am having fits with Wordpress as well. Let me just tell you that I can't believe all the wonderful art out there.

xoxo