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I teach architectural sketching,
art journaling (art+writing), creativity, watercolors.
That annoying loud-mouth editor/critic in your head? GONE! How great would that be?
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I was just getting sick the weekend of the USk worldwide walk.
I managed a couple of sketches that were not painted until later —
I’ve wanted to paint the marigold City Market in Autumn against fiery trees…
now that the bright orange rental bikes are out front
it is the most colorful corner in Portland!
When I first was coming to Portland alone to dink around, shop on 23d (then loaded with lively small businesses not mall stores) and go to galleries, I fell in love with NW PDX.
At that time the Alphabet was so colorful — not loaded with cookie cutter four-story condos in beige brick and touches of yellow striping or some such nod to the past.
I wanted to live here. It was here that we put our studio!
They demolished the bright purple building that was a club down the street,
but the Blue Moon Cafe is still there, and I love the moon sign.
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Last images of Hartford Connecticut this month.
I love Flash Mobs, the surprise and delight!
When I found one in Hartford I decided to try sketching from it.
Still keeping with the very fast sketches!
LAST images in the Fabriano….
The man far left began… then the rest of the instruments.
Then the lead and the singers began!
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She is called
the “Genius of Connecticut”
located in the
Connecticut State Capitol Building.
Keeping with quick studies,
I used DeAtramentis
Document Brown for line.
I began a slow buildup of
DEA Doc Brown ink (brunaille)
in a waterbrush to create her body.
About 30 minutes
(stepped away for drying time…)
Lighter wash of the same, next..
Grisaille with Noodler’s Lexington Grey — not dark enough.
(Did I say I hate this paper?)
Quin Gold… I am not fond of iridescent gold…
I don’t know that I did this lovely statue justice.
She is graceful and beautiful and she looks a bit like a ghoul here!
I’ve tried to find out more about this goddess-like statue but so far,
only her history, not her inspiration.
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Two days off — this is a big deal this year as we’ve been working round the clock.
As I’ve not been up to snuff (bad cold!) we didn’t do some things we might have —
Like putting up twinkle lights. We put them up in our bedroom and at the studio.
We leave them up until Spring — to offer cheer in the darkened days!
I am a good cook, but everything I cooked for T-day burned.
We need a new oven! Argh!
But we stayed in our pj’s and had some goodies
that were not bound for the oven and didn’t eat anything that made us feel badly
(wow nice change) and binge-watched murder mysteries.
And napped. Wow naps are soooo good!
Our cow goddess aka cow lamp got a new red tassel.
(I used sparkly gold paint and never do
but the top of our credenza is sparkly gold and teal green.)
On Friday Mitchell made organic certified humane bacon
(pan fired) and certified humane organic peanut butter on Dave’s toast.
Finally, yum!
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I teach architectural sketching,
art journaling (art+writing), creativity, watercolors.
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Sketchwalk is in Hartford Connecticut this month.
For one thing, let me tell you that this dyslexic has a hard time
remembering the order of the letters in Conn-ect-i-cut. I have the
dang word hand-written to the side all over my desk because
I don’t have the same issues when I am not typing!
Okay I am so low on time that I am trying to do all images this month in under 15 minutes… So I will be truthful about how long for the Hartford images!
The one above (State Capitol Bushnell Park) was under
five minutes with a watercolor pencil, ink five minutes or less,
and then about ten minutes with watercolor (drying time NIC.)
This one of the Church (and XL auditorium) at the corner of Ann Uccello
(and I think Pearl but could be wrong) took 7 minutes for the watercolor pencil
(and since I didn’t use watercolor you can see it) then under ten for the ink.
A nice thing about using a watercolor pencil to do under-sketching — blocking in — is that it goes away with watercolor, and even here, I can always do a wash across the image to “erase” the lines and put a very slight tint of brown on the paper.
Before the end of the month I hope to do one with watercolor only and time it… .
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I teach architectural sketching,
art journaling (art+writing), creativity, watercolors.
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These are mostly my new Da Vinci watercolors sparkling,
running, mimicking the lovely California tile glazes… I love working with California painted furniture.
California tiles take me home, to open houses and arched doorways
and colorful places for bare feet to walk upon.
This time of year the beaches are quiet, the tourists gone,
the sunsets spectacular, and Catalina Island can usually be
seen as if it is close enough to touch!
Working on them is inspiring me to paint tiles…
and tile-like mandalas!
*BTW, thanks to the un-requested up date from Mozilla Firefox my browser froze yet again and this time I lost the rest of my writing. Those of you who trust Mozilla, as I have, for years, think twice before you update. They bombed my Mac.*
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I teach architectural sketching,
art journaling (art+writing), creativity, watercolors.
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Jilanne Hoffmann has a great blog on writing, and is a blogging buddy.
She shared her dogwood poem with me;
I had to put it into my art journal.
I am grateful for the friends I’ve made through blogging.
Thank you Jilanne.
As my Patreon supporter, you will have
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I teach architectural sketching,
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I’ve journaled for ever. It is only since picking up watercolors that my journal entries have gone beyond sketching and perhaps colored pencils into what I do now, but the discipline and connection to reflection and sustenance was embedded long ago.
A mainstay of my journal are my gratitude entries.
I feel delight when I see Mitchell at the desk every day…
Some entries are evident, but when they find my journals
after I am long gone some will not be understood….
Like the image of a rolled up sleeve!
And another…. after a bad day… to shift the inner state of mind… sometimes I just write.
This is a good day to post about gratitude because I have a crud-cold
and I am grateful they end… wishing mine were done NOW!.
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Yesterday was a worldwide USk sketchout, and I am swamped.
But the trees outside the studio had not lost their leaves YET (starting)
so into freezing car and parked down the block and looked up at the studio.
My finish room is in the corner of the building!
I added watercolor back in my warm studio!
Da Vinci Rose Dore is my go-to….
Now I’ve added their Benzimida Orange and Benzimida Orange Deep
and Indian Yellow to my palette. Yummy paints.
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We were going to a client meeting
before the leaves dropped, and the
Lake Oswego trees were exceptional!
I had a chance to sketch before coming back to the studio.I tried this technique unsuccessfully (not what I was going for, right) during a sketchwalk but the thing is, I learned from that mistake what I
needed to do to make the one above.
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I’ve been so busy I forgot to post my flip side-show on my last journal.
Thankfully, no music accompanied this one.
(Mac tends to continue to override my commands.)
This journal is from July to October 2017…
Yes I omitted some entries too personal.
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I teach architectural sketching,
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I’ve thanked blogging friends before for offering their amazing images for the Virtual Sketchwalk group to draw… but now I have little postcards with which to thank them.
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I wanted to tell my readers that I am sorry I missed so many comments
for many weeks, and am now going back through them.
I wasn’t being lazy or busy (I was busy) — WP notifications changed!
I opened my new Nostalgie journal
on the eve of Diwali,
Hindu Festival of Lights…
Just worked out that way, but
because of what is rolling in
my head it was auspicious.
“Signs signs everywhere are signs”…
Of course they had a different
message but I heard the one
I was meant to hear!
EVERYWHERE are signs…
what is on my mind this morning.
Autumn is my favorite season,
not just because I associate it with my birthday (and now Mitchell’s),
but because good things happen
as we head into the darkness.
I am comfortable with darkness,
twinkle lights and candles cheer
more than sunset at 10pm!
Cinnamon, butter, winter squash,
garlic, mushrooms, red wine stews.
Curling before a fire or maybe
cozying in with wool socks and sweats, a pile of pillows, sketchbook in hand!
*Hygge (/ˈhjuːɡə/HEW-gə or /ˈhuːɡə/HOO-gə): a Danish/Norwegian word describing the quality of coziness, conviviality, contentment or well-being (Wiki see below)*
Autumn is also a time of looking back before moving forward,
something more of us need to do. Perhaps if more of us did this
we would not keep making the same mistakes!
The death of Tom Petty and all-those-people also was on my mind.
For some reason his death hit me harder than most, creativity-poof-gone!
M and I had many discussions on where the energy went after his death — and yes, M and I do talk about all this stuff (see zenkatwrites) but now, even more so.
So I looked back at my names/nicknames for some reason
— and I trust there is some reason for that string of names —
and finally gave one of the mementos of my childhood mentors a safe place to be:
Aunt Elsa’s card from China.
. Aunt Elsa Mae Smith was a guide in my life.
My uncle died when I was five, and she and my other Aunt,
the adventurous widow Aunt Martha (who was an official patrol for the Puget Sound
in her boat during the war when the men were all gone to fight),
decided they never wanted to be home for holidays, it was too painful.
So they traveled together for six weeks every year,
places that people in my family didn’t go,
places that women didn’t go alone.
But there is more to her story.
She was a teacher, and when her daughter was born she told
my favorite Uncle she was going back to work after several months.
She had a great nanny lined up (one that stayed with them for many years)
and she missed work, the challenges, using her brain!
He told her he would not speak to her if she went to work — forbade it!
She did, and the war of silence began. He did not speak to her for several months (understand they had a wonderful marriage except for this hiccup.)
When it was over she won. There was my model for feminism.
She taught, became VP of Girls in Watts
(yes, she took on a place that no one would go and did well
with knife fights and the sadness of that ghetto)
and taught me about bravery and being smart (the two went hand-in-hand).
When she “retired” she went on and had two more chapters.
She became a diplomat for the federal government in education.
She traveled and studied the way other countries educated their children.
She lobbied to get the USA to see the wisdom in the methods she found important.
In many countries children are tested and make choices about their futures
between the ages of 14 and 16. Not all wanted to be college bound nor were they
good candidates for college — so they were given other options to be successful.
Hands-on work, crafts, trades, still with the basics of education
(social studies/language/writing skills)
but not with the huge and demeaning divisions many experience in the USA.
It is just a choice.
They get to be successful, confident, and a higher life success rate ensues!
Then when traveling full-time became tedious,
she started the School of Gerontology at USC, our alma mater.
Yup, my Auntie Elsa started the first curriculum to study aging.
I wanted to be a teacher when I grew up.
I wanted to be like her without the losses: adventurous, feminist, making a difference.
She told me not to study teaching.
“Boring and useless,” she said, “with all you really need to know taught in about a year.” *no offense to those that studied teaching*
She advised me to find something that interested me and teach THAT.
I’ve been taking her advice ever since.
“The word hygge comes from a Norwegian word meaning “wellbeing”. But it is also speculated that hygge might originate from the word hug. Hug comes from the 1560s word hugge, which means “to embrace”. The word hugge is of unknown origin but is highly associated with an Old Norse term, hygga, which means “to comfort”, which comes from the word hugr, meaning “mood”. In turn, the word comes from the Germanic word hugyan, which relates to the Old English hycgan, meaning “to think, consider”.[1]
It first appeared in Danish writing in the 19th Century and has since evolved into the cultural idea known in Denmark and Norway today.[2]Hygge has exactly the same meaning in Norwegian as in Danish and is a widely used word in both countries (including in its derived forms, such as hyggelig). The idea behind hygge, and similar words like koselig, is an important part of the cultural identity for most Norwegian and Danish people. It is not just a word, like the English word cozy.” Wikipedia
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“To fully inhabit grief is to hold the contradictions of the
☾
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