Back to the easel.

 I spent most of December making and selling earrings and cards, and now I'm ready to go back to drawing and painting.

This drawing is just one of a series of line drawings I did for a coloring book I put together.  Most of the pages are scenes from trail races, but this was a special page for a special recipient, my Patrone.

This drawing is from a photograph of a man fly fishing in the Utah wilderness I chose to leave out the fisherman. This was done on cold press watercolor paper, with sepia ink pen.

This started out as watercolor of a view off the La Luz trail, and sepia pen was added to make the mountainside more rugged. This is a departure for me in that I've started playing with negative space, and letting the paper be the highlights.

Finally, as a first in my new resolution to do a daily as well as a journal entry: this is just watercolor on cold press.

I'm really feeling that a combination of pen and ink and watercolor will be me, at least for now.


For the spring I'll be taking my first watercolor class at the art league, and a portrait drawing class as well. I can't wait! I'm stoked!

NYNY

 It's been a while since I posted anything. 

I recently visited New York, where I ran the NYC marathon. 

 

It provided inspiration for this post election journal entry. 

 

I did this one sitting in Liberty State Park in New Jersey. 

Even though I haven't posted I have uploaded journal pages to my Instagram account (mistypilgrim)

While I was away...

I completed a four week class on pastels, and designed and sold some earrings. I saved the first $10 bill I got from that!

Most excitedly, I'm taking a weekend workshop in steampunk  sculpture soon, and a watercolor class soon after that. 

Tree of Life

 Way, way up at the top of a ridge line between two nearby canyons is a tree, pretty much by itself.  It's only about 2 miles from my house, and there are three ways to make the 1200 foot climb up over boulders and through scraping bushes. 

Ever so often I make the trek up to this tree and put my hands on it.  It often nasty and windy and cold up there, or there's a hot, drying wind blowing, and this tree is growing.  It's twisted, and gnarled, and weathered.  Touching it reminds me of how much tougher I am than I think I am.

There's quite a view from up there. 

(I feel pretty badass by the time I've made the trek.)

First day of Fall

  

Wednesday may have been the first official day of fall on the calendar, but today was the actual first day that it felt like fall. I was supposed to get up and do a long hike to get some time on my feet.  Instead, I padded around my house in clothing that was fuzzy and soft. After the sun came up, I went outside and did some pruning.

a small practice painting

"Lily"

8x10 acrylic on canvasboard 

a larger acrylic painting

 

 

 

 

And....finished!

(this sold on Etsy)

another small practice painting

painting practice

 

"Watermelon Lemonade"

8x10, acrylic on canvasboard

POD

"Painting of the day" are  quick, little one-hour paintings that I do as the mood strikes me. The theory is, if I paint every day, I'll get better. 

 

"Muse"

8x10, acrylic on canvas board. 

small painting practice

"Sacred"

8x10, acrylic on canvasboard

Tough day at work

 I debated on whether not to put this on my blog. It's not a terribly flattering picture of my day, or my coworker. She is normally a pretty pleasant person, but for the past several days she has been furious about some changes that were made where we work.

Friday was a particularly difficult day.   I came to work pretty happy about the fact that it was Friday, but by the end of the day I was exhausted listening to her ranting about the new changes. I was also surprised, because usually she Rants about something and then it's over. This just went on, and on, and on…

Later on, after I was done journaling about this, I remembered that earlier in the week she had had to put her dog to sleep, and then I felt bad. She's probably grieving, and that's why she was so much angrier than usual. 

City lights

"4 a.m."

8x10, acrylic on canvas board. 

twin falls

 after blocking in most of the areas, I start trying to define elements.

 After defining elements, I star trying to put in shading to indicate a light source. In this case, it was early morning.

 After defining light and form, I decide that the image is too complicated, and I paint out the water gates.  I love that I can do that with anything that seems cluttered or unnecessary. If only life were like that.  I also start working on using value and color to make the lava look like lava, and make the far background more hazy.  Also, I worked on making the waterfall more vigorous.  

 Finally, I better define the waterfall.  I'm still not happy with the rocks to the right, in the midground, that the water is flowing over, but I'm not sure what to do about it.  

"Twin Falls"

20x24, acrylic on canvas

snake river canyon

  My acrylic painting class instructor told me that "only amateurs" have a huge signature in a complementary color. So, even though I am inarguably still an amateur, my signature is quite an unobtrusive down there in the corner.

 In creating this painting, I learned a little bit more about how to make water looks like water. The sky was easier this time, too. Originally, there was a bush in the foreground, a big Chamisa bush.   I hated it. I painted it out.  If only life were that simple.

I  painted this using Liquitex basics acrylics on an 18x24 canvas board. I painted it from a photograph that I took on a trip I made to Twin Falls Idaho. I found this very nice little spot in the state park at Shoshone Falls at dawn, where it was quiet and lovely.  I think my next painting will be Shoshone Falls. 

TRT50k

A while back I did a 50k trail run near Lake Tahoe, on the Tahoe Rim Trail, called the TRT.  I'm still trying to figure out how to pain with acrylics, so I tried my hand at painting a picture from one of my photos. 

I'm reasonably happy with how the rocks came out. They look like rocks. The rest looks....I'm not sure what I don't like about it.  Too much color? Too neat? 

(Update: This painting sold in 2020.)

Later, I tried to paint picture of Katherin Lake, which is near Mt. Baldy in Santa Fe.  This one, I feel, was less of a success.

...

san pedro aspens

This is my first "real" painting. And by real, I mean I chose the subject, from a photograph I took, and it wasn't a tutorial. I did get guidance from my art teacher.

I painted this using liquitex and Golden Acrylics on 18x24 canvas board.  It's from a photograph I took when I went trail running on the Bacas trail.   I'm always struck by the aspens when I'm running among them. They're extremely straight and tall. I wanted to capture that in this painting. 

playing with watercolors

 these first two I did watching an instructional video.  The first one is kind of smeary, and I like the composition but it's pretty muddled. Remember: brown happens.  

 Another "simply painting" instructional video painting. I'm a bit more pleased with this, but I really wanted to see how I'd do on my own.

This one is from a photo I took at Lake Tahoe.  I'm pretty pleased with it.  I have a long way to go, and it's not exactly in the watercolor "tradition" I think, but I think it's the best watercolor I've done.  

...

some pen&Ink practice

I've discovered I should NEVER use the blogger app.  It's awful. It wiped out my entire post, just because I clicked away to look at something on another page.

I love landscapes.  As a trail runner in New Mexico, there's a never-ending availability of subjects.  This week, I was trying to draw landscapes with water using pen & ink.

Scene #1 (above): Lake Catherine, an alpine lake about 9500 feet above sea level in the Santa Fe mountains.

What I like about this drawing: I like the overall composition, even though there's not real foreground.  I think it's pretty clear as to the depth. I think the trees look like trees, and the rocks look like rocks.

What I'm not certain about: if I've done a good job representing the water.

Scene #2: Sandy Harbor on the shore of Lake Tahoe.

What I like about this: I like the rocks and the scraggly pine.  I fell in love with these scraggly pines up there.
What I don't like: the last thing I did was try to shade in the water to separate it from the beach, and I ruined it.  It now looks more like sand than the beach does!

It occured to me I was unnecessarily suffering.  Why reinvent the wheel? So I googled

and found a tutorial by Alfonso Dunn.   Extremely helpful.  I like his style, and I'll be checking out his tutorials.

travel journal

Last  night we saw "comedy of errors" on the shores of Lake Tahoe. I love seeing the artistic vision of directors for Shakespearean plays. This one took place during Carnival.

 On a related note, Derwent watercolor pencils rock. This also has micron pen. 

I saw the play after having Crab and Shrimp Louie at the outdoor restaurant. Later the moon came up, and glimmered on the lake throughout the play.  

taho photos

I just completed the Tahoe Rim Trail Endurance run 55k, yesterday and it was brutal, but also beautiful. Here are a couple of my favorite scenes, cropped and filtered.

I also had a chance to have a nice talk with a local watercolorist at a small art show. His landscapes are beautiful, and he talked at length about what he considered his best work, his process and thought.    He gave what he felt his most importance advice: "brown happens."

some pen&ink and watercolor travel sketches

today is the first time I've taken my art supplies on a trip, which actually isn't all that surprising since I've only been on one trip since I started all of this in April.

I brought my new Derwent watercolor pencils, and they are awesome. Light years ahead of the cheapies I've been using. They completely dissolved when exposed to water and become nice transparent little watercolors.

I was able to do a quick pen and ink sketch first, and then fill in a little bit with the watercolor pencil, and then later on when I had a moment use of water brush to activate the watercolor pencil. All of this is still part of a steep learning curve.

Sketch 1: I like the overall composition, although I would've liked it better if I could've seen the entire plane. I think it's a little too dark underneath the bridge. And I think I should have left off the buildings behind or made them a little more indistinct.

 Sketch two;  my husband, who was running the hundred miler at Tahoe, is being weighed before his race they do this for all the runners of hundred milers. That way, they can track their progress throughout the race and make sure they're not getting dehydrated.

I think I need to work on drawing tables at an angle.

I used: Durwent watercolor pencils, not the ink tense kind, the regular watercolor pencils. I also used micron pens. All of this is on on the Strathmore 140 pound watercolor journal paper.  I'm not sure if I'll get this paper journal again. I think the paper has a little bit too much tooth for my liking.