Practice with Acrylics: Blending and soft edges

Acrylic on gessoed canvas and watercolor paper (R)
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(I know this isn’t much to look at, but it’s what I did with my art time today — practiced making soft edges using dry brush, blending with wet-in-wet and other techniques, and [...]

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Acrylic glazing practice: Pear

Acrylic on gessoed mat board, 8″ x 10″
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Today I practiced acrylic painting techniques in my new book, “Acrylic Revolution.” This exercise started with a painting done in black, white and grey (known as a grisaille) to establish the form and shadows. I meant to photograph that stage but got [...]

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Devil’s Tongue (aka Snake Palm) again

Acrylic on mat board, 27 x 13″
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I hadn’t posted anything for a couple of days because I’ve been working on this painting instead of daily sketches. I was determined to finish and post it today, and did, even though the photo isn’t great. I worked from a watercolor I [...]

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Iris wet-in-wet

Watercolor on arches paper 10×10 inches
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I drew this in pencil from an iris I cut from my garden tonight. I painted each petal or group of petals with water and then dropped in paint, working one section at a time. As each section got less wet I added a [...]

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Drawing Faces

Graphite and watercolor in Aquabee 6×9 sketchbook
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These are two more faces from my project of drawing faces from a book of character actors acting that I  explained in a previous post here. This actor was supposed to be a soccer dad whose daughter just scored a winning goal in [...]

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Illustration Friday: Polar (Bipolar)

Digital illustration in Corel Painter started from scanned sketchy ideas drawn on the back of a receipt sitting on the kitchen table.
This week’s Illustration Friday challenge is “Polar.” I first thought of polar bears of course, but I did a polar bear illustration before for Illo Friday when the word was DANCE. Next stop [...]

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Dream drawings

4/14/07 In bed in a hotel where the roof was leaking through the chandelier and in the closet so the hotel staff came in and hung a blue tarp over the chandelier.
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Today’s post are the little drawings I do each morning upon awakening of my dreams the night before. These are all from the past [...]

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Shopping Cart (EDM 115) for Plein Air Art Supplies

Ink and watercolor in Aquabee 6×9 sketchbook
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This week’s Everyday Matters drawing challenge is to draw a shopping cart. I spent about an hour drawing my funny grandma shopping cart that I use to haul my plein air supplies around and then added a bit [...]

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Irises Plein Air

Watercolor on Arches paper 12 x 9″ (scanner cut off inch on bottom)
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I work from home Monday mornings and when we finished a conference call at 12:30 my boss said, “Bye Jana, now go have a nice afternoon painting.” So I did! But first I had lunch in my [...]

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Cactus Flower Again

Acrylic on canvas, 12 x 16″
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I started this painting a couple weeks ago and posted it in progress here and also did a watercolor from the photo here. Originally I was going to block in the shapes and colors in acrylic and then paint the final layer in [...]

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Jana’s Emergency Clinic and Hotline

Ink and watercolor in 6×9 Aquabee sketchbook and ink in my AM/PM journal
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Since my studio time got thwarted by emergencies this afternoon (read about it below), I just took a few minutes to do this watercolor using the little sketch on the right [...]

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Drawing Famous Faces & Copyright Info for Artists

Ink (Pentel brush pens) in Aquabee Deluxe 6×9 sketchbook
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My painting group buddies Lea and Susie are taking a monthly portraiture class from local artist Myrna Wacknov. One of the homework assignments they’ve worked on during our painting group sessions is to take two sheets of watercolor paper and divide [...]

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Iris in my Garden (EDM: Fresh)

Watercolor in Canson 7 x 10″ Sketchbook
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I’d planned to spend my painting time in the studio today but it was too gorgeous outside to stay indoors. So I pulled up a lawn chair and painted this iris in my front yard. I drew it in pencil and then added [...]

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Sister Spa Day

Watercolor & Ink in small Moleskine watercolor notebook
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Yesterday I treated my sister Marcy to a sisters’ spa day at the wonderful Osmosis Day Spa in Freestone, CA and then dinner at the Union Hotel in Occidental.
We started with a tea ceremony in their Japanese garden and then had enzyme baths which was [...]

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Goofy sketches and dream tidbits from AM/PM journal

AM: Dreamt Tim was holding up an eggplant and painting it.

PM: Memory drawing of old Chinese lady I saw today who’d converted her umbrella into a carrying device (known as a shoulder pole I learned by googling “Chinese over shoulder carrying”)

AM: Dreamt I was sitting in front seat of truck with Blake from American [...]

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