Posted in Flower art, Glass, Painting, Sketchbook Pages, Still Life, Watercolor, tagged Flower art, flowers, glass bottle painting, roses, Watercolor, watercolor painting on July 22, 2008 | No Comments »
(Larger) Watercolor on hot press paper, 5×7″
This was intended to be a study for an oil painting the next day, but during the night the kitties knocked over the bottle, and all the water spilled out, pooling on the studio’s hardwood floors overnight. After their rough night, the lovely roses were no longer such perfect [...]
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He didn’t really have 3 extra heads. Those heads are the first people who sat in his seat but each got off after one stop so I had no time to finish them. Maybe they are his guardian angels watching over him as he sleeps.
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WAITING
I’m getting good at waiting… My very lame loaner computer is [...]
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Posted in Art theory, Flower art, Glass, Painting, Plants, Sketchbook Pages, Still Life, Studio, Watercolor, tagged floral, flowers, sketchbook, Still Life, watercolor painting on July 15, 2008 | 8 Comments »
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Have you ever been so sleepy you’re just slap-happy silly? That’s how I was yesterday. I’ve been trying to change my schedule to get up early and go to bed early but after a few days of doing the former but not the latter, I was so sleep-deprived yesterday afternoon that I just stopped making [...]
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Posted in Sketchbook Pages on July 1, 2008 | 14 Comments »
Oil on panel, 10×12″ (larger)
With over 1,000 wildfires burning in Northern California, the air has been smoky, reducing the visibility and giving everything an eery pinky-grey tint. Instead of sunsets, a small, fire-red sun slowly sets behind curtains of gray. Even the moon appears small and red.
On Sunday morning there was a breeze blowing in [...]
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Posted in Sketchbook Pages on June 15, 2008 | 13 Comments »
I heard a story on NPR about a father who sent his daughter a postcard every day that she was in college — 1,000 all together. They contained random stories about his day, questions and advice. It occurred to me how much that was like blogging (a daily post) except that he was sending actual [...]
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Posted in Glass, Painting, Sketchbook Pages, Still Life, Watercolor, tagged cigarette advertising, sketchbook, Still Life, water bottle, Watercolor on June 11, 2008 | 8 Comments »
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While eating dinner, reading an art book and drinking water from this bottle I became fascinated by the bottle and had to immediately go paint it. The bottle came from from Trader Joes filled with sparkling water. It makes a great reusable water bottle. I washed off the label and just refill it with filtered [...]
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The kids next door brought over a plate of delicious Mexican-style barbeque tonight courtesy of their Papa who’d cooked it. I invited them to come back after dinner to join me in the studio. Now that they’re a little older (2nd grade and 6th grade) I decided to let them try acrylics instead of just [...]
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I gave myself the pre-birthday gift of a professional house cleaning today, by the most fabulous house cleaner in the universe. She cleans things that have never even occurred to me to clean, and when she’s done the house seems to sigh and say “Thanks, I needed that!”
When I walked in the door this [...]
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Posted in Sketchbook Pages on May 17, 2008 | 8 Comments »
Oil on panel, 10″x8″ (larger)
I’ve been playing hooky from my blog, while trying to assimilate what I learned at my painting workshop last week. (I checked Websters‘ online dictionary to make sure assimilate was the word I meant to use and it was perfect:
Assimilate:
a: to take in and utilize as nourishment: absorb into the system [...]
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Ink & watercolor 5.5″x3.25″ (larger)
I’m back from my week-long workshop with Camille Przewodek in Petaluma. It was a powerful learning experience and an incredible opportunity two learn from two masters, Camille and her husband Dale Axelrod. They studied for many years with Henry Hensche at the Cape Cod School of Art and are carrying on [...]
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Ink and watercolor, 9×6 (larger)
This was my view while I was getting my hair cut on Friday. The beautiful peonies were an apology gift to my hairdresser from one of her clients. I don’t know what the client had done wrong but I thought the combination of the scissors, hairbrush and flowers made an interesting [...]
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Posted in Drawing, Life in general, Pen and Ink, People, Sketchbook Pages, Subway drawings, tagged BART, subway drawing, Ink, sketches on April 30, 2008 | 10 Comments »
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Once everyone left the office I could finally concentrate on a complicated project. By the time I finished and headed out it was nearly 8:00 p.m. I arrived at the BART station just as my train was pulling away and the flashing sign said it would be 20 minutes until the next one. I was [...]
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Ink & watercolor (Larger)
Saturday I painted wtih the East Bay Plein Air Painters at the foot of 5th Avenue in Oakland. It’s an amazing little enclave of funky art studios, rusty old boats in a beat-up marina, and industrial buildings not far from Jack London Square.
I arrived very late, being unable to push myself this [...]
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Posted in Sketchbook Pages on April 25, 2008 | 9 Comments »
Oil on panel, 14×11″ (larger)
These roses were making me sneeze. I’d set up the still life last Monday and then ran out of time on the painting and left it set up all week. When I finally got back to painting today, the studio smelled like like a perfume factory. That might be a pleasant [...]
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Posted in Cats, Drawing, Life in general, Painting, Pen and Ink, Sketchbook Pages, Still Life, Watercolor, tagged Watercolor, Ink, Cats, socks, being single, living alone on April 22, 2008 | 13 Comments »
Ink & watercolor (larger)
I was folding my laundry and admiring my collection of wonderful SmartWool socks when it struck me: I haven’t lost a single sock since I began living alone. When I was married with kids, socks disappeared on a regular basis and I had a drawerful of one-of-a-kind socks.
My son still comes over [...]
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Posted in Cats, Drawing, Flower art, Gardening, Glass, Painting, Pen and Ink, Plants, Sketchbook Pages, Still Life, Watercolor, tagged Watercolor, roses, ink sketch, Zen on April 20, 2008 | 23 Comments »
Ink & watercolor, 9×6″ (larger)
When I picked these roses yesterday evening, they were heartbreakingly fresh, new and beautiful. I put them in a vase of water in the kitchen, planning to paint them today. This morning I found them laying on the counter where they’d obviously been without water too long and looked limp.
Either they [...]
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Posted in Drawing, Life in general, Pen and Ink, Sketchbook Pages, Watercolor, tagged Watercolor, Ink, Sketch, grateful, toilet, WC, bathroom, spelling, language, dictionary, word origins on April 17, 2008 | 14 Comments »
Ink & Kremer watercolors (larger)
I’m probably going to regret this post tomorrow so I apologize in advance if you find the image unsavory. It’s just that I was so tired tonight all I wanted to do was curl up with a good book and a big bowl of popcorn. To avoid the carb overload and [...]
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11 colors x 11 colors = Joy! (Larger)
Richard Schmid said it best, when writing about his experience with doing these charts when he was an art student:
“When I finished I knew more about my paint than I had ever thought possible. It was an astonishing experience—imagine being taken into the kitchen of a great [...]
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Ink & watercolor, 8×6″ (larger)
When we had all our paintings lined up to view after our plein air paint-out today, a very cheery homeless man passed by, examined everyone’s work, and announced that my oil painting (below) was the only one he would buy, repeating this several times. It wasn’t as high praise as one [...]
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Ink & watercolor in Strathmore Drawing 6×8″ sketchbook (larger)
A tall, overstuffed, nerdy guy sat down beside me on the commute home, opened his laptop and started watching a bloody horror movie. It was one of those movies with a creepy doll in it.
I turned away from him, tired from my first day back at work [...]
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Brown Micron Pigma ink and watercolor in homemade sketchbook, 5×7″ (larger)
Need I say more?
I had a quiet, restful weekend, got enough sleep, didn’t stand out in the wind painting, and what do I get for it? A cold! That will teach me to slow down. Maybe if I just keep moving as fast as I [...]
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ANDY by JANA
Ink & watercolor, Aquabee sketchbook, 12×9″ (larger)
Andy of “Drawn to Running” emailed me and invited me to do a portrait swap with him. I think he’s quite adorable and looks like someone with a very kind heart. I exaggerated in my sketch of him but had great fun doing the drawing, which [...]
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Ink and watercolor in Aquabee sketchbook (larger)
When my father was dying several years ago, I flew to Maine to help with his care and say goodbye. I arrived in late October, on a warm, fall day, and he was still eating and talking and trying to finish his last book, which I helped him edit [...]
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Watercolor, 11×7.5″ Nel #1 (larger)
Last week I posted my portraits of Nel and Rita for the Portrait Party blog’s birthday celebration. Today I worked on painting Nel from a different photo. Above is my first attempt.
Nel and Rita both did wonderful portraits of me for the Portrait Party. You can see Rita’s here and [...]
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Nel in Sharpie and watercolor in Aquabee 12×9″ sketchbook (larger)
Two art blogger friends and I are swapping portraits for the Portrait Party’s Happy Birthday Party. You can see there pictures of me here on Nel’s blog and here on Rita’s Flickr page.
Anyone can join in the drawing fun. Just grab a friend and sketch each [...]
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