Fleece Navidad

It's DECEMBER! Yikes, how did that happen so fast? In speaking with several friends, we are all saying the same thing...this season silently creeps up on us and then WHAM - the holidays are here!

I am now playing Christmas music and writing Christmas cards. There is nothing like singing along to traditional holiday music. In prior years, even though I do most of my shopping on line, I sometimes just sneak away to a mall and walk around to listen to the canned music and get 'in the spirit.'  So, that secret is out...

Last summer I started thinking about this year's card. Yes, I was in a quirky mood and sketching silly puns. I came up with a number of different ideas for the card. Several of them made my smile - some more reverent than than others.

In the end, I decided that at this time of year - especially this year - it would be good to really smile. So I am offering a preview of what goes in the mail this week.

I had such fun drawing all the little sheep - each is its own character. I hope you enjoy.

Merry Christmas and Holiday Blessings to all.

Making the invisible, visible...

A few weeks ago, I began sort of a series  - trying to make 'art' out of common things we don't usually see. Here is another under this heading. I am thinking of it as making the invisible, visible.

I had walked around Barbara's neighborhood during a watercolor class when I came upon the fire hydrant. (see Post on 10-13-16) Another day, I walked around her house with my camera. Again, I was trying to see what we don't normally look at. It was fun to look purposefully for the invisible.

In her furnace/laundry room I discovered furnace pipes - perfect! I took several photos and went to work. My goal was to simplify - I left out the clothes hanging behind the pipes and just focused on the pipe shapes themselves.

I sketched it out with pencil and then got out my matchstick and ink. I was ready to take it to class for critique.

I really liked the sketch and I was anxious to paint it. We talked about what kind of background would not interfere with the overall image. I decided just to use all the colors I was using in the pipes and do some wet-on-wet painting.  I also cropped it closer to the pipes, creating a more vertical impact. Voila...

 Artwork titles are always a challenge - one of my friends suggested "Turn me on." I am not sold on that - open to other suggestions.

"Painted Ladies"

For the past few months, my watercolor class has been working on a project - "Painted Ladies." We were each supposed to find and paint local Victorian houses. Traditionally, these houses are colorful - painted with at least three colors - and stand proudly in various neighborhoods...strutting their stuff!

Most of us groaned with this assignment. However, over the weeks of painting and critique, we all began to appreciate the what we were learning with this task. We were each to have three paintings ready to go for the show at the St Michaels Library during the month of November!

I began with the Parsonage Inn - a B&B in St Michaels. I have always been intrigued by its many angles and its fun turret. I painted the entire house several times before I figured out that what I really liked was the chimney and roof line. Here's what I finally came up with.

 After driving around town and looking at lots of photographs, I decided to paint the "Eagle House" - located on the grounds of the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum. The house has an interesting history - you can go to cbmm.org and read about it. Bottom line - it has an eagle on the top of its turret. Yeah, I am into turrets...   The thing that caught my eye with this house, in addition to the eagle, was the strong shadow across the front. I love these strong colors and light.

I still had one more to do. Several years ago I had done an ink drawing of a house for the local holiday house tour. I found my old drawing and decided to redo it in color. I picked just a section of the front of the house for this painting. After all, there is only so much fancy porch railing that I can do! What were these Victorian craftsmen thinking?  

We hung the show yesterday - what an amazing display. Stop by the library and take a look. And, of course, many of the paintings are for sale...

Common things we don't see...

A few weeks ago I was again in that 'in-between' place. I had finished a painting for a show and was stuck as to what to paint next. I went to class that morning and just felt flat. I still needed to paint a house for an upcoming exhibit titled "Painted Ladies," but was not inspired.

It was a beautiful day so I decided to take my camera and walk around the neighborhood - looking to be inspired. What I discovered was that the things that caught my eye most were not the lovely Victorian houses, but the 'invisible' things: a trash can overturned, old duck decoys hanging from a tree branch, a rusty old gate and a fire hydrant! Not exactly what I had planned, but why not give it a go?

I really like the shapes on the fire hydrant...I began drawing. I sketched first with pencil and then got out my matchstick and ink and completed the ink sketch.

A bit of watercolor wash on the hydrant and a dark background and this really pops!

I love it that common (invisible) things can be art!

"Just Desserts"

The St Michaels Art League will be presenting a new exhibit at the library in St Michaels during the month of October. The theme of this new show is "Just Desserts."

Many of my artist friends just groaned when they heard the theme...not me...I have been painting ice cream cones! I had the cone thing going and was so ready for my 'demo' for the Labor Day Show (which was postponed). I had thought that I would use the 8 dip cone (see post from 8/18/16) for Labor Day and then put it in the library show.

Well, that won't work now. The library exhibit begins next Monday and the postponed show has been rescheduled for the following weekend. So, I just painted a giant new cone. This one is matted and framed 16x20. That's a really big lick!

We are allowed to enter two paintings in this exhibit so I am also putting in another one. This is one that I had been thinking of painting for some time. It's a pastel of granddaughter Winnie discovering cake on her first birthday. What a happy child! 

If you are in St Michaels, drop by the library during October...and look for the

Columbus Day Art Show and Sale under the tent at St Luke's Church on

 Saturday, Oct. 8 from 10-5 and Sunday Oct 9 from 12:30-5.

Painting with a wooden match

A few weeks ago I received an email from an artist friend who was setting up a one day workshop with watercolorist Paul Allen Taylor. My friend included a description of a technique I had never heard of...painting with a matchstick and ink. There were examples of the artist's work. I was hooked.

It looked similar to my watercolor and ink sketches - and it looked like fun. Several of the artists I regularly paint with also signed up. It would be great to spend the day with them.

We began the workshop with introductions and a little of Paul's personal history with art. Then the technique... He 'whittles' the wooden match head (after breaking off the tip that you would normally light) into a point. The match is inserted into a special holder or a wooden dowel(a hole has been drilled to accommodate the match). You dip the whittled tip into a bottle of permanent ink and basically draw with it. Unlike an ink pen or marker, the ink line is less defined and more irregular. It's an interesting effect.

After demonstrating the matchstick technique, he showed us some of his earliest work. Yeah, like his high school paintings - really early work. The message here...we are all learning all the time. We were encouraged to be free and loose. There was no pressure to paint the 'perfect' painting, just learn a new skill.

Instead of trying to figure out what to paint, he offered us a barn scene. We were, after all, not trying to paint the perfect picture, we were just trying out the technique.

I did feel free...

It was fun to try something new. As I painted the barn scene, I really was just experimenting. The ink and the watercolor washes flowed.

It was one of the first times I have been to a workshop and ended up really liking what I painted! The style seemed to fit me and my mood that day. My painting could probably use a tweak here or there, but for now, it's enough!

Melting Crayons - another way...

Since I posted about the melting crayon experience with a couple of my grandchildren (a few weeks ago - see "A grand(children) time" 8/9/16), I have had a lot of comments from friends who want to do it, too. So I thought I would also post this - it's another way of looking at this technique.

We just returned from a visit to Vermont (ahhh, it's wonderfully cool there...), and a granddaughter there had her own ideas about trying this method.

Maizie is really interested in fish and wanted to to do an underwater scene. She picked out all the blues and purples and decided to take the paper off all the crayons. She also had the idea of making fish shapes out of painters' tape (it's the kind that is easily removed) - she taped the shapes onto her board. (She just used foam core for her project)

Then she used the hot glue gun and stuck all the crayons to the board. She put the board in the dirt driveway and leaned it against an old milk crate.

She started up the hairdryer...

...and the crayons began to melt. It wasn't long before the fish were completely covered with crayon, but if you look closely, you can still see a vague outline.

Once the crayons hardened, she carefully peeled off the taped fish. She needed a knife in a couple of places.

Voila! Fish revealed! We were both struck by the wonderful texture of the 'ocean' and the very interesting bottom edge that had been in the dirt. It wrapped itself forward and hardened that way.

As we used to say, "Try it, you'll like it!"