Category Archives: drawing

Challenge: One Book, One Pen, One Month, #3

Okay, we are  into the waning moon cycle and it is time to STOP the lies! I cannot work with one pen. . . Must.Use.All.Colors.AND.Medium.At.Whim. Wow, I feel better having come clean with all of you! Sketchbook Skool had us … Continue reading

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Selfies, a Challenge

Argh, a week of selfies. What don’t I like about this challenge?  Realism. I found it harder to screw around with my own image, especially when I was supposed to draw myself like you are. Okay, I’ve bitched, now getting … Continue reading

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Challenge: One Book, One Pen, One Month, #2

Week two, still many obstacles in my life.  AND, started Sketchbook Skool.  Tuesday was a day off (YAY!!!!) and spent the day painting, including a recipe. Saturday, Cathy Johnson posted some outtakes from her Sketchbook Skool class, a video on … Continue reading

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Taking a Class

I am taking Sketchbook Skool for two reasons: I want to be able to go “lead-free” — to drop my dependency on pencil lines first — and because friends are teaching.  Some of the teachers are excellent pen-and-ink folks. And … Continue reading

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Challenge: One Book, One Pen, One Month, #1

I’m up for a simple challenge like this, or so I thought. Laughingly, the first night I broke the rules. I used multiple colors of the same pen and then used a waterbrush!  EEEK! The book: OE NOTES (my favorite … Continue reading

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Anyone Doing the 44th Worldwide Sketchcrawl?

I will be out in Portland doing my first sketchcrawl! If you want to participate you can register and  look here for groups, but you can also do it yourself on that date, and post images on Flickr.  12 July … Continue reading

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Students Teaching Students, 1st Month

I love to continually learn, going where the uncomfortable edge is; this led me to say yes when asked to join a small group of artist from around the world who were willing to try teaching each other and seeing … Continue reading

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Sitting Buddhas

Sitting Buddha can be Shakyamuni, a host of Tibetan deities, but I am including the female Buddha above. I love her peaceful face and head; she looks like she is dressed in bright silks. These and others were created as … Continue reading

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Quan Yin Sits

Blue ink with Cocoiro pen and waterbrush (lightly) on Okima OE NOTES sketchbook. Learning to be faster and less structured, less pencil, more ink. Then I played with her in watercolors: Daniel Smith and Golden’s QoR. I enjoyed hitting a new … Continue reading

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Urban Pastel

I still am not fond of pastels, but managed to create a piece I like enough to sell or frame from a photo I took of the old building wall across the street from Shoji, our favorite sushi bar, in … Continue reading

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Saturdays, A New-Found Freedom

(How funny.  I wrote this during the A-to-A Challenge and forgot to post it!) This year, we are finally getting Saturdays off — yaaaaaah! Mitchell made us bump eggs from Ralph — chicken, duck and turkey, yummy runny heavenly over … Continue reading

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Full Moon Puja, Anniversay Prayers

Mitchel and I met, had our first date, and married within a week in May, with a few years between meeting and wedding.  We celebrate it as a weekly event. On the full moon this year Mitchell and I went … Continue reading

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Mug of Hope: Mix-it Monthly Challenge

Pia Rom’s prompt this month for her challenge grabbed me immediately, though the colors for this month are not me at all!  We collect coffee mugs!  Mitchell and I have names for them — Our Happy Mug (white roosters stamped … Continue reading

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Process: Tea, Milk, Honey — Our Garden Buddha

If you are following me, you know I am struggling to learn watercolors after years of entrenched acrylic painting.  I am following a few folks, and definitely studying the Urban Sketchers.  Yesterday I discovered Marc Taro Holmes blogs and he … Continue reading

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N is for Nicolaides: A-to-Z Challenge

Continuing on with the technique I learned from Gwenn Seemel, I am still very uncomfortable and yet excited by it.  I get lost in it.  It allows me to SEE better –through my fingers attached to a pen — or to … Continue reading

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L is for Lines: A-to-Z-Challenge

Not the lines a guy gives you at a bar.  Not the ones in the script you read for when you thought you wanted to be a movie star. Doodles are lines.  Cartoons are linear.  Architects communicate with line drawings.  … Continue reading

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In the Garden: Memory

(I can see the difference in my second nasturtium, much looser. . .  and I like this background.) I was feeling blue.  I was also so disappointed because Daniel Smith did not get my paints to me for our time … Continue reading

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J is for Art Journal: A-to-Z Challenge

I had to make a change.  Running and working in our business means I don’t have the time to set up for painting at an easel and painting with acrylics, which in my case means canvases and 4 oz tubs … Continue reading

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