Clothes so clean they wanna dance on the bright summer air!


This is my quick sketch for illo Friday's "CLEAN".

Some days I feel like my paintings might come out just as well if I turned to paint brush with the brushes up and the handle to the paper! yesterday morning felt like that. I was really unhappy with my "cold" painting, but then I did the Morning Glories and this morning, the Fountain Grass, and they came out fine.... I love the movement this grass adds to the garden!

This is a little section of my back fence that caught my eye yesterday. I started out looking for the Morning Glories that had started to change colors ( in the morning they are intense blue, the color of the tops of the flowers, as the day progresses they turn a deep pink tinged with blue). I saw this cluster of flowers bobbing above my windy suns head. The suns "rays" came bent the opposite direction than our winds blow, so after I got her home, I re-bent her arms to "blow" the same direction as the wind. Below her, I have planted red Fountain Grass, that also moves with the wind. I call the area my "wind garden". Maybe I will have a go at painting the Fountain Grass later on.

Here is my contribution to "cold" along with some practice work with reflective highlights on a glass plate. I struggle so with shadow detail and highlights! I think, before I start another sketch book, I am going to try making my own with water color paper. I like the size of my sketch book but I am frustrated with how the paper buckles. I have a couple of books that show how to make your own journal/sketch books.

Blogger is seems to be working on the web site. Don't know if my image posted or not as they have changed the lay out.

This is a simple but delicious recipe! The onions and mushrooms actually get sliced, not chopped! If you have never cooked fresh spinach, it is a taste treat Divine! I am not kidding when I say add lots! I use a 10" skillet and put as much as I can cram in there. Be warned: if you use a bundle of spinach, rinse it at least three times to get all the dirt off. Nothing ruins a good tasting food like crunching down on grit!

The Aspen groves from the Rockies have been haunting my memory the past few days. I had always thought of their trunks as white but in reality they are actually a very pale green. When they are grouped together it is very obvious. In my sketch book painting the trunks are the perfect pale green, however, in the scan... well, much is lost.

I also included the pen and ink just because I like that as well.

I haven't drawn with any consistency for the last two weeks and I am finding that I am avoiding it. It isn't that I don't like to draw, I just find myself feeling like it is unfamiliar and the old belief that "I can't draw" starts to set back in. Tonight I decided to just draw what was in front of me, so this is the house next door. This is actually, last nights sunset which I was to lazy to paint last night. I think part of my hesitation is due to seeing so many things that I would like to paint and just not knowing yet how to capture them. Practice, Practice, Practice!!!

Back home, with all the driving (3200 miles) and all the time spent in the car, I didn't get much drawn. I am a little disappointed with that but I took a lot of photographs (you can see some of them on my photo blog). It almost seems that I saw too much to even begin to know where to start to draw. I did do a few quick sketches while on hikes that I will post tomorrow. I love all the traveling that I did but staying in one spot for more than a day certainly helps in giving enough time to put pen to paper.

This is my art bag, originally was a promotional bag for signing up for a card from Barnes and Noble. It sat unused for several years, until I needed a bag to carry all my art supplies in. Currently, it is waiting to go on vacation. Tomorrow is the big departure day!

I think "overworked" would be the correct word. I was having trouble settling into what I wanted to draw. I find that although my sketch pad is great for most things, it isn't for clouds. On W.C. paper, I can use a Q-tip and lift off color from the highlights of the clouds, not so with my sketch book. I think Farmer John may have had too much to drink the day he put in these fields!

This is the first of, what will probably be, several, cloud paintings. This one is better than the one I did last night, but still not quite what I am after. I didn't have any masking fluid, so used rubber cement, it is hard to do small areas and cover thickly enough to keep the paint off. All things considered, I like it! I have been afraid to even try a night scene so at least I jumped off the log and into the water! If any of you have any suggestions, feel free to give them. That is how I learn.