Day 76 at Home: Last Week, This Week

Last week was one full month of running multiple weekly sessions of Sketching Play/Lab series and to celebrate we held a virtual Block Party where everyone on our mailing list was invited to come join in for an hour of sketching. We were too many faces to get into a single screenshot, but here we are (and despite my looking angry), a happy bunch of sketchers, meeting virtually…

Next week, we start a new play session, where we play with water and color. Join our mailing list to find open slots in play sessions by emailing SPlayLab@gmail.com.

Coming up…

June is the start of the #30x30DirectWatercolor challenge run by Uma Kelkar and Marc Taro Holmes. If bold watercolor work is what you are after this inspiring challenge is for you.

Watching

I will be on a Miyazaki movie watching binge for the next few week. Studio Ghibli makes the most beautiful movies in the world, each painted background is worth pausing at and staring at forever.I’ll never tire of Miyazaki’s movies.

Day 75 at Home: This Beautiful Face

I loved this face as soon as I saw it. And I will be painting it again. Here is attempt #1.

Here are the first two washes. There’s an argument to be made for stopping at wash 2.

But I’m a maximalist. I love this last bit, the decoration, the detail. So I’m trying not to cover up the big brush marks and shapes underneath that I also love when I add the last bits. White gouache and a few of the darkest darks, all added with the smaller brush you see in the photo below. The rest of the piece is painted with the bigger brush, a half inch dagger from Rosemary and Co.

Day 74 at Home: Chaos and Structure

I sketched online a couple of days ago with @ArtofAlvin on his Instalive stream. I love and miss drawing on location, drawing crowds and urban sketching in India. Alvin agreed to draw this street scene full of chaos, which made me happy.

I love drawing chaotic scenes, but even chaos needs some structure underneath. This thumbnail sketch done before I started was a reminder to myself of the strong sense of being inside a shoebox that the light and shade creates in a narrow alley, with the left side of the street in shadow and the long cast shadows on the ground.

Day 73 at Home: Friends, Complaints and Solutions

Sometimes it helps to be a complainer, and a pretty vocal one. Because there are solutions to almost any problem. Solutions you may not hit upon by yourself, but a good friend might.

I sketch online for a half hour every week with Nina Khashchina. A couple of week ago we opened up the same street view in a random city of the world and sketched it. And I complained about how I feel no connection to this place. Nina suggested we “tour” a place she knows the next week. So yesterday, she took me through the streets of her hometown and we stopped and drew her University.

Svobody Square (now Freedom Square) in Kharkiv, Ukraine.

And through it all, I peppered Nina with questions about her years at University, and she shared her memories of it. And just like that, our half hour was up and I had the loveliest virtual sketching experience.

Is it drawing on location? Not by any stretch! I hope one day I will go sketch on these streets with Nina and she and I will go sketch together in India. But it made a huge difference to the virtual sketching experience to see it thorough the eyes of and the stories of a friend who knows the place well.

Day 72 at Home: First Heatwave of the Year

What does the temperature have to be for you to call it a heatwave? I think 90 F/33 C is when I start to find it hot enough to be a heatwave. And today hit a respectable 97. Not quite 100, which makes it seem like a totally authentic heatwave, but still…

I tried to capture how hot it was in the stupor of the poses, in how useless and still the fan looks and in the blinding light outside.

The app my husband check daily temperature on says tomorrow is a couple of degrees hotter. My app says a couple cooler. I say it’s always better when I am right 😉

Day 71 at Home: A Picnic Close to Home

Yesterday we packed a little picnic, sat in the gras, napped, played a game of Exploding Kittens, and sketched before coming back home. The picnic spot? Barely a mile from home, our local park. But it felt SO GOOD to get out, and stay out, even for a short bit.

I lay on my back just looking up through the trees for a long time. And then I decided to sketch the scene, still lying on my back, holding my book up. Makes for an interesting experience and line quality.

In this time of less new places to go to, it’s been so good to refocus on seeing in new ways and on keeping it experimental. I am loving that just by turning up to make art everyday and being willing to try out the “what ifs” that cross my mind, I’m learning so much.

Day 70 at Home: Tiny Neutrals Palette

I use a super-tiny palette called a Demi Palette from Expeditionary Art that I fill with neutrals only. And every once in a while, I put away my full color palette and use just this one. It teaches me to think better in just value, without the support of color.

I used it last week on for these . But this little spread in my sketchbook shows better what I like to do with it. It contains only two colors, Ultramarine Blue and Transparent Red Oxide, both from Daniel Smith, plus white gouache.

The largest pan contains a pre-mix neutral from the two colors, one that feels neither warm nor cool. When I use it I like to start there and then push it warm or cool with the two colors.

The two whites are both M. Graham Titanium White gouache. I just loaded them in two pans hoping I would keep one clean. You can see that’s more theory than what really happens.

It’s a fun little palette to use and with it’s interchangeable pan setup ( magnetic pans that can be pulled in and out easily, and I have extras), I can see using it for different triads too, and changing them up every once in a while…