Mark Making Page and the Girls

 These are not from any classes, but use some of the techniques I've learned in the classes, of course, and are in my bigger better sketchbook, Winsor Newton 7"x10" mised media

Just a mark making page inspired by Helen Wells black and white sketchbooks, which I love. I wish I hadn't started it off by scribbling a stabilo pencil over the background and using a water brush over it. When I made the marks over it with various tools with black inks it made the whole thing too dark, but I learned NOT to do that again. I prefer black and white. It was a fun relaxing page to do anyway!

I'm not sure this one with a pony tail is done, but I kind of like her at this stage. I used a stabilo pencil and a water brush to sketch her, then added a water color tint of yellow ochre and some blue mixture leftover on my palette for light and shade. Not liking the white spots in her hair, but leaving her for the time being. 

I sketched this face from imagination and added some watercolor a couple of weeks ago, then added the napkin collage and butterflies the last couple of days. The quote is from Helen Wells, Artist.

Just for fun things aside from classwork! I have a couple more faces sketched and started, but I'm about to start another class. Not sure which yet!

Thanks for visiting! I appreciate your support and encouragement. See you in the next post!

Sketchbook Revival 2025-Portrait Sketches and Blob Characters

 I am learning so much in these classes! Every time I think I'll take a break, another student posts something that inspires me to take another class, but I am beginning to want to do my own art instead of following along with the teachers, as wonderful as they are. I am so grateful for their generosity in sharing their techniques with the rest of us!

This one came out of the class "Expressive Portrait Play" with Melanie Rivers, involved two colors plus white applied with my fingers. Quite challenging, but fun!

This page was inspired by Carla Sonheim's class Box Journaling and Blob Painting. I do want to do a box journal, and I should have used watercolor for the blobs instead of left over acrylics. I found characters in them, but my pen didn't want to go over the slick finish. I'll do some more in watercolor! A fun little exercise!

These two were inspired by Ida Anderson Lang's class "Graphite and Gold". I had paint drying in my class sketchbook, so I sketched the one above in my bigger better sketchbook. I wasn't quite satisfied with her, so I sketched her again in my class sketchbook and made her bigger. Still not satisfied with her, but I like her better, although I wish the darks and gold paint showed up better in the bottom one.

I'm thinking I might not ought to be sharing my notes at the bottom of the pages now. I really didn't think most people would take the time to read them, or they wouldn't be able to make sense out of them, and even if they do they'd still need to see the video demo to put it together. My notes are wonky, and are usually nowhere near this neat. I know what they mean, but most other people wouldn't. I didn't want to crop them off the picture for my own purposes, but maybe I should from now on?

Anyway, that's my classwork for this week, all of them challenging in their own way, which I love!

Stay safe and well and keep creating pretty things! The world needs pretty things!

Photos From a Lost Roll of Film

This is a post that I started a couple of weeks ago and got side tracked, but several weeks ago I was looking for my sunglasses that fit over my prescription glasses and I was going through some old purses that I left stuff in when I moved into a new one.

In one of them, I found two rolls of 35mm film. One had been shot, the other hadn't. I couldn't believe that I didn't get them developed, because I could never wait to see how the photos turned out. Plus, I haven't used that camera in many years, not since I went digital.

I had no idea how old they were, or even if they could still be developed, but I took them to Walgreens to see. They couldn't develop them at the store, but sent them off to some place that could. No idea what it would cost, but I anxiously waited about three weeks to get them back. They cost almost twenty dollars, but they were worth it.

I figured they were nature shots, and most of them were, and I figured out that I took them in the early nineties at the latest. Judging from the picture of the cat and kitten, and when they adopted us, they are at least 35 years old. And the whole roll of 24 developed perfectly!

I've only scanned six of them into the computer for now, but I'm sharing them here.

Bird on a weed on the little hill behind our house with my dad's tractor shed in the background (my dad died in 2004). I think it's a wren, my favorite little bird.

A pretty shot of my dad's wagon/buggy shed back on the same little hill behind our house.

A  shot of one of the three flower beds, this one with a fountain and bird feeders, that my little Pekingese and I tended for a few years. We loved sitting out there with coffee listening to the fountain and the birds!

The bird feeder that my dad made for me. The paint job was my idea, as we live in the Rabbit Hop community. The squirrels also enjoyed it, and occasionally a cat took a nap in it. We still have it, but it has gone way down hill over the years. The birds still love it. See the woodpecker chowing down?

This very verbal Siamese cat adopted us, and had been here for several days when we discovered that she had one tiny calico kitten hidden under our central unit. I called her Simmi Cat and the kitten Loopy Bocephus. Simmi Cat would let us pet her, but it took about all summer to coax Loopy into letting me touch her. She eventually came around to letting us pet her, although begrudgingly. 

A "snake doctor" caught sunning on a rock on the little hill behind our house when we went walking.

I love going on walks around our little farm taking photos of nature, although I'm no longer able to do that. I'm thankful for all the pictures and memories I've made over the years, and the rest of the film roll has some more great shots, which I'll try to share at some point.

This roll of film was like finding a long lost treasure that I didn't know I had, and there were also a couple of shots of me that long ago! Who knew?

Sketch Revival 2025-A Hoot Owl, Some Vases, and a Pair of Pears

"You're a Hoot", a whimsical painting with Tamara Laporte, mix media-different colors from hers-All are in my small sketchbook with hot pressed thick paper.

This was a fun challenge for me! I went with my favorite color scheme of blue and orange, and I didn't add as many whimsical things as Tamara did, but I love her! My husband says she looks like a gypsy fortune teller. That's ok with me!

 Concertina Fun: Make and Fill a Mini Concertina-Karen Stamper

Another fun class! This is a concertina mini book using a sheet of printer paper folded in half lengthways, then folded twice, like an accordion, to make a folded book, which stands up on its edge to see the art, then folds up to make a book. I learned some useful tips for making the vases using paper cutting. This book is just for an example, but I want to make a bigger better one soon. It can be painted on both sides with a cover added. I scanned it into the computer, which makes it look flat here, but it does fold back up. Fun stuff!

"A Pair of Pears: Loose Watercolor Sketching" with Susan Chiang

My first attempt was following along with Susan in the video painting wet in wet watercolors, which is hard for me, and I wound up with some hard edges. I wasn't happy with it, so I gave them another try!

My second attempt from my notes and memory. I like these much better, although I might have gotten carried away a bit with the spatter...

I finished these a couple of days ago and have moved on to Blob Painting and Expressive Portraits, which I'm still working on, along with four faces in a bigger sketch book, all in various states of completion, so I've been busy, despite the heat. Thankful for air conditioning!

Now on to finishing the last class and watching another!  I'm thinking I'm going to collage the street, but that could change when I start going through the classes again! I'm learning so much!

Sketchbook Revival 2025-Face and a Blue Door

 I enjoyed the lesson with Toni Burt on Faces Made Simple (previous post) that I decided to do another one in a bigger sketchbook with much better paper! In fact, I have sketched off a third face for the same technique...

I didn't re-watch Toni's video for this one. I just sketched the face, added a bit of watercolor, and added some collaged pieces from a magazine, a napkin, a piece from one of my gelli plate prints, part of a teabag, and vintage sheet music over her scrapbook paper dress. A lot of fun and I love her! Can't wait to see how the next one evolves!

This little watercolor vignette is from Shari Blaukopf's lesson in "The Urban Vignette" in watercolor and ink, which I followed along with her from one of her photos, except I painted in our front door instead of the one in the photo. It was a challenge for me, but it was fun, I learned some things, and it made me want to go out and sketch things with my watercolors and ink. 

I still live in the little, very old, town on the river that I was born in, and there are so many old and interesting things that would be fun to record in this way. Only problem would be that everyone knows everyone (you're either related or you went to school, church, or work with them, or got acquainted with them in the grocery, drug store, or bank) and they would want to visit with me while I sketched. I can't talk and do anything at the same time. Maybe I'll just go through my old photos. I have a ton that I've taken myself over the years, plus I inherited all of my parents old photos, so I have a treasure trove to sketch from! 

But, for now, I'm on to the next lesson, which I already have started, and it happens to be a hoot owl with Tamara Laporte!

I've been doing one or two classes a day since the beginning May 27, and I started one day before yesterday, but had to skip yesterday to go out of town back to the Retina Specialist for a three month check-up. He said my eye still looked good. No bleeding, so I didn't have to have a shot in my eye, but I still had to go through my eyes being dilated, tested, etc. I still had blurry vision when I went to bed last night, and my pupils were still a bit dilated. My eyes are a bit scratchy feeling still this morning, but my vision is back, thank goodness. I have to go back for a check in three months, unless my vision starts going in that eye again, in which case I have to go back right away. Prayers that it stays okay!

That's it for this post. I want to work on my current lesson, the hoot owl, and I need to do my physical therapy exercises for my back/hip. I've skipped three days of PT, due to busyness, company, and the retina specialist, so I sure don't need to skip today. Don't know when I'll find time to vacuum and dust! Yikes!

Hope to see you in the next post! Take care and keep learning and trying new creative things. You never know what's possible, or what you will find out that you love, when you try something new!

Sketchbook Revival- 2025-Mark Making

 These two classes deal with mark making, and I had a blast!

Expressive Sketchbooks: Nature with Helen Wells

The lesson is about using tools that you find in nature, and ink, to make unique experimental marks inspired by nature. Things like twigs, moss, leaves, rocks, feathers, etc. that many of us like to pick up on our walks anyway.

I did five practice sheets with ink, both ends of a stick, a feather with both ends, and a thin pottery shard, then I  used the same tools directly on a sketchbook sheet for the first photo, and I cut up the practice sheets and collaged some of the pieces onto the other two skbk pages. This is what I came up with. I loved doing them and want to do maybe a whole sketchbook full of them at some point!

"Overgrown"-It reminds me of an overgrown flower bed or something!

Fearless Drawing: Make Your Mark and Silence Your Inner Critic-Deb Putnoi

I almost didn't try this class, but I'm glad I did. I learned some things about mark making that made me more confident about making marks!

For the first page, I just used my Zig Writer pen and made separate rows for each thing she suggested I do, but after seeing a couple of examples, on the second page I used different markers, pens, pencils, paint pens, etc. to make the marks in different colors lapping over one another however I felt like making the marks. It was fun and informing, plus I liked the page I made!

I know. It looks like a child did it, but that's the point, to learn to relax and play with our art, and I'm gaining in confidence and looseness, and that's what I want. I've always been too up-tight and hard on myself. I'm learning to let go of perfection one step at a time, to not be afraid of messing up, and to just go for it and have fun!

I'm so glad I went ahead and paid for access after the free binge fest. There are so many more classes I want to sample and add to my own art!

Take care and keep practicing!

Squiggle Girls on Toned Paper

 I initiated the first page of each of my three new toned sketchbooks with a squiggle girl using my Zig Writer pen and a white pastel pencil, just playing. I've never tried toned paper that much, except with pastels, so I am very timid about it, but I figure if I don't like it for sketching I can always use it for collage or something. 

The books are 5 1/2" x 8 1/2" and are blue, gray, and tan. I would have preferred different tones in one book, but didn't easily find one. I may make my own book with some of each color in it. It's just something I worked in among the online classes I've been taking. 

At least, if my hands and mind are busy sketching or arting I'm not eating! And that's a good thing! Ha!