Easter Flowers and other

Last Sunday I had Easter dinner with a friend and her family. Food and wine were excellent, company was good and I believe a good time was had by all. My friend had been gifted with a couple of potted flowers, the above an Easter Lily arrived while I was there brought by another friend.  I spent a little time sketching it first in pencil and then adding ink while her family conversed around me. I like to keep my hands occupied.

When I arrived these tulips were sitting on a table in the living room. At another point during the afternoon I sat on the couch in front of them and did this graphite sketch. The tulips were yellow so I tried to not add too much shading.

I love drawing Easter flowers, their shapes are relatively simple with not a lot of complex petals, and in the case of tulips also have large leaves which make relatively simple shapes. Lily leaves are a bit trickier, but both drawings were fun and fairly quick to do.

Hope that everyone reading had good holidays this past weekend, Easter, Passover or even just a good weekend with family and friends.

Otherwise I haven't been drawing a lot. I have been doing more reading, and when not reading I am trying to get out and about to various parks and nature reserves to check on their status, and oh yes lots of visits to library. Still I have been a bit hampered with my park visits since snow is still covering paths and so far there hasn't been much in the way of signs of spring. Oh, well I just have to have patience it will come, I know it will.

The above is my pen "exercise" for this week, I have been trying to think of a title for this, how about "Watching educational videos". Well the shape of the watchers did turn out to be a bit suggestive. It wasn't my intent when I started this, it just sort of happened, honest. At least that is my story and I am sticking with it. I did have fun drawing this though.

The above photo was photographed in my local park, standing water in the foreground and one of the parks lakes in the distance. Ice is almost totally gone from the lake, the mallards and geese are again able to feed. I spotted a couple pair of Merganser ducks diving for their dinners the other day, too far into the lake for me to photograph, and almost too far for me to ID them even with my field glasses. But with their distinctive heads and the males white fronts they are unmistakable. I was happy to see something other than the usual mallards in my local park. I have been over to Daniel Webster, but the water level in the pan is very high and not much was taking advantage of it. I did also see some song sparrows so at least the birds know that Spring is coming. Should see more in a couple of weeks.

Short post today, per usual comments are welcome.

New Bookmark and some Pen and Inks

I think I have Easter on the brain, which is silly because I am not a church goer and won't be celebrating Easter even when it comes around. Anyway I was doodling the other day and this funny looking rabbit came out. I looked at it and though, hmm, that might make a fun bookmark. I made some slight changes and then transferred the drawing to a bookmark sized piece of hot press watercolor paper. After inking the rabbit I used various colored pencils to color him (I think it is a he, a she would be wearing a hat) and the background in. 

I wanted to call it/him Oswald but after doing a quick Internet search discovered that Disney had created an Oswald the Lucky Rabbit years and years ago, actually prior to his creating Mickey Mouse, and funnily enough his rabbit looks a lot like Mickey except the ears are longer. For the record my rabbit doesn't look anything like Disney's. Anyway, now I am not sure if I should bother naming him at all. The bookmark isn't quite finished, it still needs a bit of work, but drawing this was fun and totally out of my usual working subject/style. 

I totally missed drawing anything for the last WetCanvas Scavenger Hunt list (#392), so told myself when I printed out the next list yesterday that I really need to draw something for this one (#393). This morning I sat down and did a quick sketch of the door to the hall in my Apt. It is an old door with lots of architectural details so was a bit of a challenge which I haven't done justice to. Got the scale a bit wrong so had to play with it a bit at the bottom, could be worse, could be a lot better.  Done with one of my technical pens in the dedicated sketchbook.

The flowers above started out as a doodle, then I added the colored inks and finally the lines for the background. Not the best lining work, but not too bad. Just a fun exercise with no real purpose. I like to sometimes draw totally from my imagination. I never know where these sessions will lead sometimes to nothing and other times to the start of more finished works, as with the rabbit above.

I have found that since for the past few years I have spent a lot of time drawing various items/animals/flowers from life or reference that my imaginary images have expanded to include some of the shapes used with those more realistic images and my doodles no longer remind me of the teenager/young adult I once was.

I am working on another design pattern. Drawn in pencil, inked outlines with black acrylic ink. I just finished inking in the background lines using brown acrylic ink. I have a design error, can you see it? But decided it doesn't matter too much. I think this one needs some color, but may star at it a bit more before I decide just what colors to use.

This is 4 inches square on 400 Strathmore Bristol Board Smooth, inking is done with dip pen and acrylic inks as mentioned. Again I am working from my imagination, but if it reminds you of something I wouldn't be surprised.

The above is a series of photos that I am actually still working on, as the slumped snow in the last photo is slumping even more, but hasn't fallen just yet. The first photograph was made early yesterday afternoon during our latest snow storm. The middle image was made a bit later in the day after snow that was overhanging from the roof dropped to the porch, leaving just one section standing. The bottom photograph was made this morning, after we had had additional snow fall overnight as you can tell by the height of the snow pile against the railings. I think if the sun comes out as they told us it would it won't be long before the pile falls.

One additional comment about snow, the commentators on the news tell us that we have had approximately 60 inches of snow (that is 5 feet) in the past 3 weeks. This is some kind of record, and is overwhelming those whose responsibility it is to keep the roads clear and transportation moving. I know they are doing their best, and am hoping our weather pattern changes soon so that we don't get more of these storms. There just isn't room for more of this white stuff.

That is it for today, per usual comments are welcome.

Anemones, Dancers and Easter Greetings

Another WetCanvas challenge image, this is for the April Floral and Botanical forum challenge which is due the 25th. It is a watercolor of a pair of anemones the theme flower for the month based on a reference photograph provided by another forum member.

Pink is actually a tricky color to paint since there is no such thing as pink paint in the watercolor world, you dilute red to the point where it looks pink on paper. Mostly used my new Magenta paint on these with a dash of another Red. Background color is Payne's Gray and Ultramarine blue. They are OK, but I am not thrilled with the results, as I said pink is tricky.

When I started this the image in my mind was of two dolls dancing away the night. Toy Story the movie was simply extending to the movies from literature what most Children are totally ready to believe, that their toys come alive and live their own adventures when their owners aren't around. After all isn't that the underlying theme of the Nutcracker, and the poem of the of the battle between the Calico Cat and the Gingham Dog? Both stories were written in the 1800's.

Anyway once drawn I had fun first coloring in their clothes then adding details to the background of the table and chair. There should be another chair but I wasn't in the mood to draw it, what can I say. Note her dress has polka-dots on it so I am coming round again to the Sketchbook challenge theme for April. This was done first with pencil, then inked with a technical pen and then colored pencil was added.

To my Christian readers I want to wish you a Happy Easter on this 20th of April 2014. I drew this Easter card this morning, including the traditional Easter Lily, a rising sun and a couple of Chicks. The lily is long standing symbol in the Christian faith originally associated with Mary in the Medieval Church and now since around the 2nd world war by the plants on Easter.

The rising sun is when Jesus was discovered to have risen from his tomb and the chicks are a symbol for the renewal of life. Not really a very Christian symbol but I wanted to put them in. Pen and ink with Colored Pencil in my sketchbook.

My closing image is of a blooming star magnolia. The brownish areas on the petals are from the cold nights we had this past week, even though the flowers hadn't opened some of the petals were damaged by the cold. On a more positive note I saw some forsythia starting to bloom yesterday, didn't manage a photo but will try to get one next week. Oh the bloom was sideways so the image is in the correct position.

That is for today, per usual comments are welcome.

Pen and Ink Mushrooms and a bird

If I were more organized about my projects today's posting would include a landscape. Well I suppose in a way the mushrooms are a landscape but on a miniature scale. I just finished reading about large scale "Important" landscape paintings as in those created by John Constable (1776-1837).

Constable is a well know English landscape painter who did most of his work in the early 19th century (1800-1835). The son of a Miller who was successful in business he studied Art and spent his life drawing and painting, mainly landscapes but also portraits. He was part of the "new" breed of painter who felt that Landscape was just as worthy of being painted as Religious or Historical subjects. Another notable English painter of the same period is Turner.

From my vantage point here in the 21st century it seems odd to think that once large landscape paintings were not considered serious "Art" I have a feeling Constable would be bewildered by some of what is now called art.

I think my major take away from reading the book and looking at his paintings, is how much work he put into planning the composition of each major work. Course we are talking 6 foot wide canvases here, so probably each painting was something he worked on for months let alone weeks. Work of that size does need to be planned. Painters of the time had to make large paintings and show them at Royal Academy shows in order to get noticed and acclaimed.

Without a camera he was dependent on his sketchbooks or other paintings, some smaller plein air, as reference materials and his later works are often revisits to subjects/objects/locations he painted/sketched when he was young.  I don't want to paint like Constable but it was interesting to learn more about the times he painted in.

Constable isn't the only artist who revisits subjects. I seem to keep coming back to mushrooms. Finally managing to to finish this stipple work of a clump of mushrooms. I used as reference a photograph I made at Broadmoor (a MA Audubon sanctuary) in October of 2012.

I started this sometime last year, but put it away when I got tired of working on it. I had it with me over Christmas vacation and worked a bit more on it then, putting it aside when I got home for other projects only picking it up again about a week ago. This time I managed to finish it.

Since the the only white on the paper is the mushrooms themselves I had to make a lot of dots. Size is 6.5 inches square on Stonehenge paper, and done mostly with my 3x0 technical pen. Lighting could be better, but I had to use the flash on the camera to photograph these guys. But then I don't pretend that my art has any "noble" purpose.

Above bird, a parakeet here in the US, is another of the March WetCanvas Pen and Ink forum challenge images. I drew this guy out with pencil first then inked it in. I didn't feel like including the background which was chicken wire fencing so the image wasn't that complex to draw.

The above started out with me playing around with 3 colors of colored pencils and developed from there. Think Easter morning after the kids have been on their Easter Egg hunt, 3 colored eggs some jelly beans (miniature), a chocolate bunny and a "grass" nest. No clue where that came from except we are in Lent and I guess I must be thinking ahead to Easter. Anyway it was fun to do, hope you enjoy looking.

As my final photograph today, my neighbors cat, she enjoys sitting in the sun on the railing outside one of my windows. I will probably draw this at some point. Not sure what she was looking at, probably a bird on the roof, or flying overhead.

That is it for today, per usual comments are welcome.