Monday, November 28, 2005

Fireplace - Agua Caliente Park



I went to my favorite park in Tucson, Agua Caliente. There is a natural spring feed that feeds three active wetlands. You can see turtles, ducks and and a wonderful assortment of birds, lots of drawing subjects! It is truly an oasis in the desert. I was planning to draw outdoors, or so I thought.....

until I noticed that the gallery was open in a restored ranch house on the property that also houses an Audobon Society nature shop. I also got a tour of the ranch house. After the tour, I couldn't resist going back into the living room and sitting on the Mission-style leather couch and drawing the fireplace they had just decorated for the season. It shows up better in my Moleskin of course. The drawing above the mantle is actually of a photograph, not a painting. I am happy with the way it came out, just wish my scanner picked it up better. Unforuntately, the scanner also didn't pick up the brick work I labored over. This is my first pencil sketch in a while, I usually just use black bic pen. I was please that the dimensions of the glass around the candles came out equal. which also doesn't show up as well. I spent over a couple of hours there, drawing, in a trance-like state. It was a relaxing way to unwind after my Thanksgiving holiday travels. It was good to be back home.

Sunday, November 20, 2005

Poetry Slam





Thinking my day couldn't get better after a morning of drawing with friends in Saguaro East (see previous post Sketch Walk in Saguaro East), my husband, Rob, took me out to dinner that evening. While waiting for our food, I did a quick pastel sketch in my Moleskin of a bamboo plant on the table.


We then headed down to a poetry slam at the Espresso Art Coffee Shop. Before going inside for the slam, we couldn't resist riding the trolley. It was Rob's 1st time!







We finally got to the slam and I started off with a warmup watercolor sketch of an audience member. I really couldn't see any details in the hat, so I had to fake it. I also forgot to add soap to my water, so the Moleskin resisted the paints.

I tried to sketch the poets as they were performing, I had three minutes at the most, and sometimes less than that. We were impressed how talented all of the poets were. Here is a sketch of Lindsay and Teresa, they tied for first place.

I hope to get a scanner hooked up soon so I can show the images/drawings a bit better!

Sketch Walk in Saguaro East


Teri, Jeanne and I, head out to Saguaro National Park East for a "sketch walk" , led by ranger Judy. It was in the 80's here in Tucson. Check out the views!!
Pictured from left to right, Jeanne in the white hat, Ranger Judy, that's me in the chair and far right, Teri -another Every Day Matters Yahoo group member. You can read her post about our morning on her continue on your way.

Pictured on the left-hand photograph, are some other particpants, Jeanne is pictured in the right-hand corner.

The photograph on the right shows Rhonda and Andrew, more participants!






Ranger Judy led us in some simple drawing lessons such as blind contours to warm up and then had us draw a saguaro with the subtractive method, making a background, then drawing with an eraser. Afterwards, she had us draw a rock, ocotillo and some prickly pear, allowing a couple of minutes for each.





At the end, Ranger Judy let us draw whatever we wanted and I started a sketch of one of the other rangers, Meg and her backpack, then our time was up. I asked Meg to sit down again so I could take a photo to show the general idea of what I had was attempting to draw. It is not the exact pose of course, but close enough. Maybe if I painted the backpack it would show up better in my drawing.



We then headed off for lunch. Arriving first, I did this quick sketch while wating for everyone else to find a parking place. It was a GREAT day.

Thursday, November 17, 2005

Blind Contour Friday # 16 & 17 - Nov. 18 AND 25th

This is for Inkfinger's Blind Contour Friday - for today - the ceramic lizard, and for next Friday - the St. Joseph aspirin bottle, since I will be out of town for Thanksgiving. Actually, you will see there are three blind contours, one was for last Friday's b.c. self-portrait challenge.
I actually do have hair, if you scroll down to my previous post of International Sketch Crawl Day, you can compare to my photograph, I am on the end, far right. I did these blind contours with a squiggly line rather than a straight line. It was sort of like rubbing your stomach and patting your head, try to draw blind with a squiggly line. However, it made my drawing go faster, because I wasn't thinking about it as much. I have yet to figure out whether to try to draw totally not looking or glance when you reach the total end of an area to resposition. On the lizard for instance, it was blind until you get to the foot sticking out by the aspirin bottle and I glanced to resposition. Oh well, Happy Thanksgiving.

Sunday, November 13, 2005

International Sketch Crawl November 13th, 2005

Well, I met Teri and Jeannie for a day of sketch crawling in Tucson. We missed you Marnee, sorry you could not make it! Maybe next time. Here they are, the world famous sketch crawlers. It looks like Teri is drawing Jeannie while Jeannie photographs Teri, and of course, I am photographing them both.


We finally settle down and pick this gate as our subject.

Here is my version of the gate, done in watercolors in my Moleskin. I forgot to add soap to my brush, so struggled a bit with the watercolor sticking to the surface. I started out drawing and by the time I decided to watercolor instead, the wonderful shadows in the photograph were gone. The weather was gorgeous by the way, I think in the 80's. I might try another painting of this in my studio later.

On our walk around the neighborhood, Jeannie pointed out the Cochineal on some prickly pear cactus. Jeannie volunteers in Sabino Canyon giving nature talks, so she has a lot of great information! It looks like the prickly pear is diseased with this white gooey substance but it is actually a scale insect that survive by sucking on the pad of the prickly pear. They store a maroon pigment in their body tissues/fluids. So if you scrap it off the cactus and squeeze between your fingers, you can see the wonderful color it produces. Indians would use this to produce a red dye in their clothing, which is a traditional red dye of pre-Hispanic Mexico. Just some sketch crawl fun facts! You can go to this link to read more. I think it would have been perfect to use to color the flowers on the Bougainvillea!

We took a break for lunch at Bison Witches and there was a wait to get a table. So, we all headed outside and started drawing again. I did a painting of a tree across the street while Teri drew me. Come to think of it, she never did show me that drawing! I am curious. I will have to check her blog and see if she will post it there. Anyway, here we all are, outside of Bison Witches. Left is Teri with Jeannie in the middle, and I am on the right.

It was a wonderful day and I can't wait until we do it again!!!

Sunday, November 06, 2005

All Soul's Procession

November 6, 2005
Went down to 4th Avenue tonight for the All Souls Procession, click on link to read more about the history.
It was a perfect evening, about 71 degrees!
This is my favorite photo with the cop talking to the skeleton!

Intensive Weekend Encaustic Painting Workshop


Well, I went to an intensive weekend encaustic Painting workshop yesterday and all I got was this board. Yep. That's it. That is all I have to show for my first day in the "intensive" workshop. Apparently we ran out of time to do any hands on work. So, looks like I will have homework tonight, just like on Trading Spaces!

The workshop was a birthday present to myself, to inspire me and try new medias. It looks like it will be fun, and I don't normally work with wood as a support. I think I will start off by wood burning the board. I hope my childhood woodburning set still works! No, I am NOT going to tell you how old my woodburning set is.

Well, I have to get ready for today's class. I don't want to be late. It should take me five minutes to get dressed and 20 to find my shoes!