November Sketchbook Challenge

the November theme over at The Sketchbook Challenge is the Spice of Life - and this time of year (well really all times of the year) my life gets spiced up with food - pumpkins, squashes of all varieties, and then add a few olives for their piquant flavors.

we have a brand new French bakery in town, Patisserie - check it out - yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm - and I hope you noticed my little "I voted" sticker on the cup of coffee. DID YOU VOTE?

we had a wonderful Halloween but very few trick or treaters - not sure why.  We were so very fortunate to be spared any real effects of Sandy but I am so moved by the suffering in the New Jersey/New York area. Having been through this before, I totally sympathize and empathize with them - and they have the added problems of the cold.  Sending thoughts and prayers and donations.............................

Hope you have a great day!
Chris

A little fall sketching

Now that it's a bit cooler (just 87/75) my husband decided to take on some outdoor projects that really can't be done in the hot summer. We have three live oak trees in our yard - a papa, a mama, and a baby (if you can call 20-25 ft tall a baby), and they need trimming every so often. Dan worked all day yesterday cutting down limbs off the mama size tree and today he was cutting the smaller stuff and tying them up in bundles so the yard waste men would pick them up. I helped him some and them brought some small twigs and acorns into the house to sketch.  The squirrels were quite upset and were really screeching!

and then just for fun, a bit of fall sunshine - I love gingkos - their shape, their colors - so unique!

Now I need to post these over at the flickr sketchbook challenge page - did you see that the theme for October is Cabinet of Curiosities?  I have some ideas!

Hope your day is filled with fall sunshine!
Chris

Sketchbook peaks

 a little painting of tulips on our table

for the September Sketchbook challenge - pattern

my passion for beautiful pots

Hope you are having a wonderful Labor Day!

Chris

Give me shelter (Sketchbook Challenge)

The Sketchbook Challenge prompt for August is Shelter in any and all of its forms - be it home, umbrellas, a leafy oak tree, a cocoon, a favorite sweater, a book, whatever constitutes shelter from the elements that threaten us.  Above is a quick sketch that I painted of one of the roofs in the Chinese pavilion at Epcot - so filled with color and elegance.  Be sure to check out all of the wonderful sketches on flickr.

I have been painting, knitting, reading, and quilting in the past week - no time for blogging but I promise to try to do a bit better in the future.

Thanks for stopping by and hope your summer is going well.
Chris

July sketchbook challenge

The July sketchbook challenge is CIRCLES. I was playing with paint and trying to capture the color of these beautiful flowers - I quickly sketched my little porcelain palette, added the photo, and then used every color on the palette to make the background.

Still playing a bit with color - don't you just love red peppers - well actually, I haven't met a pepper that I didn't like!  These two pages were done in my small sketchbook with handmade paper. The next one was done in a Bienfang "Take Me Along" Sketchbook - the paper is lightweight and doesn't take paint very well (I found it last fall at the Used Book Depot also marked a dollar).  I carry this sketchbook everywhere and use it for sketching, list making, journaling, and just everything. I used watercolor pencil here but it looks very faded out due to the light weight of the paper.

Again I was playing with circles and I quickly sketched some little items that were sitting on my desk, leftover from last week's scrapping.

Hope you have a wonderful July 4th!  We are going to a baseball game!

Chris

Playing and learning in the studio

I have a great photo of my husband standing in front of a waterfall in North Carolina that I really want to paint BUT since I have never painted a waterfall or forest foliage, I decided that I needed to practice a bit - this is my very first attempt  - I learned so much of what NOT to do - back to the drawing board or should I say, back to the easel!

I keep a copy of Robert Henri's book The Art Spirit on the bookshelf in my studio and frequently leaf through it randomly - I always find something that seems to fit my mood or situation that day - here's what I found this afternoon:
"Keep as far as possible all your studies, all your failures, if somewhere in them appear any desirable quantities.
Such canvases are good for reference.
Later study of the work recalls the good of it.
...
You can learn much from others but more from yourself. In looking at an incomplete canvas some time after its doing, the whole thing becomes clear, the tangle dissolves, and you see the way to complete it and how certain faults may be avoided."

Since following The Sketchbook Challenge, I am trying to do a bit of sketching every day - this morning we had bands of rain (from TS Debby) so I just sat at our dining table drinking tea and sketching the flowers on the table.  This afternoon it is partly sunny but the wind is howling! 

Hope you are having a good week and thanks for stopping by,
Chris

Sketchbooking.........

Every time that I dip my brush into the water and the paint, it's like dipping my toes into the water of a stream. Will it be cold or hot, will it excite me, delight me, or scare me? Every time is like the first time - what joy and what terror!

The sketchbook challenge today was to do graffiti on a boxcar - I started thinking of leaves and then it went to kudzu overwhelming the boxcar - don't you just love these prompts?!

My DH and I went up to Viera, FL today to do a little shopping at World Market (hurricane supplies like pates and cheeses in cans, and wines), Kohl"s (I got 4 incredible scarves for $4 each!!!!), and Hobby Lobby (a wonderful sketchbook of handmade paper); lunch at Mimi's (and free muffins); and some brews at World of Beer (I had a delicious Lost Coast Apricot Wheat - yum!).  It was a yucky rainy, cloudy, and windy day so this little trip worked out beautifully.  Tonight I will watch another episode of Midsomer Murders - I was introduced to this British TV series by a friend who likes mysteries as much as I do, and I discovered that our library has almost all of the series (like 60 episodes) so I am working my way through them - what a great summer treat! 

Hope your day was as good as mine and thanks for stopping by,
Chris

ICADS for June 1-3

I just discovered the Index card a day challenge on daisy yellow's blog, and it fits in perfectly with my sketchbook challenge creations.  I decided to make my cards 4 x 6 rather than 3 x 5 as I had a few cards of that size on hand (free samples from paper manufacturers) so I dove right in - for the first card I used 2 of the prompts: yellow and dictionary - I adhered a dictionary page with the word "yellow" on it and then used watercolor paints to paint flowers. This was a great exercise as the watercolor paint did not soak into the paper - it just sat on top of the paper until it dried (very much like hot press paper). I can tell already that I will learn a lot from this challenge - I have been meaning to paint on other surfaces - test them out - and doing it in small ways will be great.

Another prompt that I used was MAP - I used part of an old unsuccessful watercolor painting for the background on this card and then used ink to draw a map of the Bahamas, a compass rose, and the title.

And for the third card, I used a sample of Fabriano paper - I painted the rose and glass, then outlined them in ink, and then used a wetted brush to spread the ink - the prompt was to experiment with ink.

I also sketched one of the lamps in our living room for the Sketchbook Challenge this month - Urban sketching and this one is an interior. I love the idea of urban sketching so you will be seeing some places around my town and my house.
Remember over the weekend, I sewed a camera strap cover and then I decided to do checkbook covers - check back tomorrow to see what I made.
Thanks for reading,
Chris

January Sketchbook Challenge

I have been working in my sketchbook this month quite a bit - sketching and painting - these are just three of the pages - the first sketch was inspired by a painting by Ivan Djeneeff - I got a book about him from the Museum library - A Russian Odyssey.  The painting made me think of the Floodmage in Terri Windling's book The Wood Wife -  Windling's blog http://windling.typepad.com/blog/ is one of my favorites - she talks a lot about art, creation, and writing; and she posts wonderful photos and links to other fascinating blogs.

Have you been watching Downton Abbey on Masterpiece Theater? It is so enchanting - I love the house, the clothes - all so perfectly of the Edwardian period! Tomorrow is the final episode but you can watch all the episodes online.

Have a super weekend!
Chris