Getting ready for Mexico

I’m getting ready for my painting trip to Mexico with lists of things to take care of before I leave on Saturday morning. I’m trying something new–starting to relax a little before vacation instead of pushing up until the last minute, which has always meant starting a holiday with a migraine.
Tonight my painting time is [...]

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Potato Vine for Anne Dowden

Drawn in ink and watercolor from “live specimen” (picked from my tree)
Solanum wendlandii AKA Potato vine or Divorce Vine

I LOVE THIS QUOTE: “Hers was a life of friendship by correspondence.” (Said about botanical artist and author, Anne Ophilia Todd Dowden, who died recently at 99. “She never worked from photos, only live specimens. When [...]

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Figure Drawing

Pentel Brush Pen and water in 6×8″ sketchbook – 20 minute pose

As you can see we had quite a large model tonight. She was excellent at posing but when you faced her back it was like drawing a landscape with a big mountain in the middle. So I grabbed a small notebook that I [...]

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Glide

Uniball Signo white gel pen on black Canford Card paper
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This is a pack of Glide dental floss. It’s part of a series I’m drawing of things that support my life — items I could live without but would rather not have to. I’ve been considering items I own, [...]

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Pilates Reformer – EDM 103 (again)

Ink & watercolor in Aquabee 6×9 Sketchbook
This week’s Everyday Matters challenge is to draw your exercise equipment so yesterday and today that’s what I’ve done. I drew it directly with a pen which is why it’s not proportioned properly but I told myself to just be playful and draw for fun which I did.
This is [...]

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LeMond RevMaster (EDM #103)

Lamy Safari pen and ink with crayon in Aquabee sketchbook
This week’s EDM challenge is to draw your exercise equipment so here’s my LeMond RevMaster spinning bike which I like very much. I probably would have been better off riding it than drawing it tonight…or just going to bed. I started the drawing four times, but [...]

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Scruffy Roses – Scruffy Day

Acrylic on mat board, 7 x 12″
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Graphite in Aquabee sketchbook, 6×9″
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I had a hard time getting started in the studio today. I’ve been studying and reading many books on technique: oil, acrylic, monoprint, drawing…and I’m at the point of too much information and [...]

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Maidenform

Watercolor in large Moleskine watercolor notebook
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Well, I don’t know what could be more ordinary and every day than an undergarment or more odd than publishing my underwear on the internet… but I was so tired today after a really busy day yesterday that I couldn’t muster the energy [...]

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Always doing

In trying to catch up with email and blog visiting, I discovered Suresh Gundappa’s site with some of the most amazing photos I’ve seen, especially the one linked here that so brilliantly illustrates his powerful essay on how Westerners are so busy and in a hurry all the time that they are “driving themselves mad [...]

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Meeting and Subway Sketches

Two craggy old guys sitting in front of me at the California Watercolor Association meeting tonight. The guy didn’t really have writing on his neck but it was a good spot to take down notes on upcoming watercolor shows to enter. It was an interesting meeting: Golden Acrylics had a representative demonstrating and teaching about [...]

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More Soap (EDM #101)

Watercolor & Ink in Moleskine watercolor notebook 6×9″
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I keep my dish soap in this squirt bottle originally meant to mix and apply hair dye. The glass plate is on loan from my sister. When I saw it at her house I begged to borrow it to paint it. I [...]

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Soap: EDM #101

Acrylic in HandBook Journal 5.5 x 5.5″
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The week’s Everyday Matters challenge is to draw a bar of soap. My original idea was to line up all the different soaps in my house, from dish soap to laundry soap to bath soap and make a grid and paint them all. [...]

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(G)OLD Teeth

Watercolor on Arches 140 lb cold-pressed watercolor paper, 18×14″
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This shop near my office in downtown Oakland makes sets of snap-on gold teeth (also known as “grills”) for people who like the idea of walking around with their teeth covered with jewelry. I loved the juxtaposition of the old guy [...]

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Enough already!

Oil on canvas board, 16×12″
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I’ve been working on these two oil paintings for way too long and I officially call them done. Now it’s time to move on. I learned a lot, including that it’s really hard to photograph them, especially at night. The one above is based on [...]

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Magnolia Monoprint 1

Monoprint; Gamblin oil-based etching ink on Arches 88 paper, 6×8″
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I made two different monoprints of this image, applying ink to the glass plate and then wiping it away and drawing in it to make the design, working from the same drawing for each. I’m just posting one for now [...]

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