Every Day in May, 22, Mugs


Mitchell and I collected them before I knew how much fun they are to sketch.
We like big cups, and they have to feel good in the hand.
They have to be colorful or hand-painted.
There has to be one for each of us.
We’ve been doing this almost since we met, and we are picky about our cups!
Sometimes they are named.  “Happy Cups” or Rooster, as in,
“Let’s have Rooster today.”  or, “I think we NEED Happy Cups.”
We know what we mean.
We haven’t named these yet.  Too new.


Let’s talk about why I don’t buy Noodler’s inks anymore.  Period.
They are not reliably waterproof even when Noodler’s-man says they are.
You have to test them on EVERY paper.

Above, the cup lines were drawn with Diamine Grey, not waterproof, because
I wanted little touches of grey to move into the bright  orange paint.

But I did not want the words to run, so I switched to Noodler’s Lexington Grey ink.
I had not tested it in this book.  You can see how it ran, and I had intended to do something fun with the base but as it was running at the very touch of the brush,
I decided NOT.  This is why I only use De Atramentis Document (not Archival)
or Super5 inks (and I love their Frankfurt, but was too lazy to refill my pen, ouch).
They are both reliably waterproof, in that I’ve only had them move a bit if I just kept saturated with many layers of wash — and not as much as this!

Loving this Hahnemühle Watercolour Book paper,
and will start my new proper-sized journal soon!

To hear about journalling and architectural
sketching classes, follow me on Facebook!

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Every Day in May: 20-21, Bike in the Park

Business is interfering with my posting life!


It is not walk in the park this week, deadlines and stress abound!
Drawing this from the top of my head was freeing, a trip outside at 1am!


This was going along nicely when the pen decided to BLOB in my nicely whimsical and lighthearted sketch.  Ah well, good save.  Embrace the wonky.


Have a good week every one…
It is about to turn into scorcher days, not my idea of a god time.

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sketching classes, follow me on Facebook!

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Every Day in May, 19, Buddha’s Feet

I went for something a bit more meaningful to me than my feet.
WAIT… oops, my feet are meaningful to me!  Where would I be without them?
“Feet, what do I need you for when I have wings to fly?”  Frida Kahlo

But I don’t want to draw my feet, so Buddha’s feet are my choice.
As I am the Buddha and the Buddha is me, they are my feet.
As close to a zen tangle as I will get.
I love putting some of my favorite quotes next to drawings;
I will do it more often!
I used Diamine Grey for the undersketch; KWZ Foggy green for the details.
Super5 Frankfurt in a waterbrush (diluted a bit) touched into the
KWZ ink and created the beautiful colors.  I adore both inks!

The list, above.

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Every Day in May, 15-17

i cannot believe i am so swamped at work that i posted two of these before.
*sigh*  losing it… edited

It is not fancy, not pretty, and not expensive.
It has many annoying design qualities.
But in the end, the only thing that matters is it always works, 24/7.
Not drawn with the Platinum Carbon pen,
but with my Lamy LX in De Atramentis Tobacco Brown ink, heavenly smelling.

My favorite blanket is not one of my colorful blankets,
but a lovely  brown mohair-wool yarn I fell in love with,
into which I wove a single mohair strand in many colors.
This blanket was a bone of contention with Kamala, as she loved it —
too much, with claws, and so we fought about it.
I wish she were here to fight with now.


Dongel?  Dongle?  Did they spell it newly or the old way?
A year ago I didn’t know they existed.
Now I am annoyed because I am always looking for them.

The list, above.

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Every Day in May, 18, My Sweet Sumthin’, My Husband


How lovely that the prompt for our anniversary is “Something Sweet”!  I sketched both my husband Mitchell’s sweet face and the truffles we shared for our anniversary!


You never know when the best thing in the world is going to walk into your door.
That is how we met — my mom called Mitchell to give an estimate to repair my former husband’s (rip) Eames lounge chair — vintage, wobbly, and I wanted to sell it.
He came to give an estimate and left hours later, and we knew.


A couple days later our first date, and then we moved in together.
We still have the chair.

We give thanks for Charles and Ray Eames, for the wobbly parts,
for my mom calling him, and for the gift we are to each other.

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sketching classes, follow me on Facebook!

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Every Day in May, 15-16


There are a lot of things about the Platinum Carbon pen that are just plain stupid
— like it doesn’t post (have a place for the cap) but dang this baby just writes and writes, and after all, that is what I want… an ever-ready bunny pen!
My Favorite Tool… And not used in this post!


Something I Made is bittersweet, because my wonderful brown wool blanket
with the multicolored mohair threads running through it will always be the blanket that Kamala fought me for.  And I had to supervise her on it because her idea of loving it was to tear it up… something about the smell of wool made her crazy.

The list, above.

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Every Day in May: Days 11-14

FINALLY, I am caught up with postings and painting!


Christmas cactus remind me of my grandmother, Mimi.  I have NO green thumb for indoor plants but I have always had one of them in my home.  Ours is a bit grown from a piece of the one Mimi had, though my Mom horrifyingly finally
got rid of the big one.  I don’t know why, even though it is not an Easter cactus, it often blooms in Spring.  For a gift years ago I gave Mitchell a few cactus.  I find them such interesting creatures and so does he.  This one, which yes, we do call the penis cactus, grows in such a crazy manner and responds to water exponentially.  We let it completely dry between waterings, which makes it happy.  Blue Buddha used to light up but that ended, and now he keeps cactus company.

We just moved our bookshelves.
I love our bookshelves in the studio,
full of statues and memories and photographs.
The joy of having your own business.


Now more than ever.


Maybe more the impression of trees.
I’ve been enjoying the play of inks, and
seeing how various inks mix in puddles of color.
These became grainy but stayed vibrant.


This box of Mother’s Day gifts might seem odd,
but this was a huge hit with my mom,
who cannot stand and cook since getting hit by a driver
— run over, actually — and I sent her a box of goodies
she can easily make of things I find good “fast” food,
and treats.  VitaCost made my mother happy!

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sketching classes, follow me on Facebook!

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VSW: Doolin


When I was a child my mom kissed the palms of my hand each night at bedtime
and told me this prayer.  It has a special place in my heart.

Images are from Doolin, courtesy Joyce, who did a grand trip!


Quick sketch of a thatched roof house in Ireland.
I petered out on this sketch before setting it on the ground and giving context…
Looks a bit odd like it floats in space!

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☾

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Every Day in May, 9-10, HUGE Problem, and a Great Lunch

I find this EDIM is causing me to write more than I do about my drawings…
The prompts this year feel more personal to me.

The prompt for the 9th was something huge, and as it followed the smallest-thing-on-my-desk, I had it in my head it had to be HUGE-ON-MY-DESK.

I coulda done an elephant!  Whale!  The Milky Way!
But I drew my huge problem that sits on my desk…


I have a lemon.  I big iMac, monster puter + price tag for the business.
It has serious problems.
So serious, that when , Ronald Gehrmann from Metro MacSupport
saw how slow it was, he was stunned.
He is very very good, and will be able to back me when
I return the dang thing to the downtown Mac store.

I am going to save you all from offering me any suggestions
toward remedying this with Apple… I know my way around the dang
Apple business and Genius departments and am getting no where.
This is a big problem, and they want it to go away.
They want ME to go away.
Instead I’ve hired the BEST puter guy.
(He is a photographer too so he is also teaching me cool stuff about LightRoom.)

I am sad that Apple cares little about their business customers.
Photographers, video, graphics folks made them.
Understand, I’ll not like the MS computer I will be buying next —
I am not a MS fan.
But I can buy THREE of their computers for the price I paid for this one.
Or take a leisurely weekend at a spa to combat the stress.


And then there was lunch, the 10th day, the grace of the day,
a yummy lunch of leftover home-made organic beef and veggie stir fry.
I ate it at my desk too.


Lesson for the day, never-ever start shadows and
then finish them later when half asleep…
Omi, light and shadows just didn’t work the way I ended up painting them.
I rectified it by doing a very grey background!

So, two days of EDIM drawing…

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Every Day in May, 8, Trishna Jewelry

A little bittersweet for me, the earrings are some of the first I made for myself,
and then for my new fledgling jewelry company, Trishna Jewelry.
They were laying on my desk the day I had to do this prompt!

Trishna was built on the premise that you can wear meaningful iconography
day in and day out and be fashionable.  I had a good run!

I closed Trishna officially May 1, a bit early due to Etsy’s new crazy requirements
to do business… I was unwilling to send my photo id and ss# over the internet
to be stored by Etsy when in fact I do not intend to ever use Etsy as a transaction institution… quite happy with PayPal, and Etsy has enough glitches in
daily transactions that I don’t trust them to be secure with my information.
We all have to take chances, and I prefer not to trust those for no real reason.

I also closed my Etsy art page.
I will have a new website that sells up in the next month or so.
You’ll hear all about it!

For the Camino.

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Every Day in May, 7, Architecture


This I see when I go to the bank.  I take my sketchbook often.
Such a beautiful church sitting under the I-5 on-ramp!

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Ram Dass


Ram Dass has the cutest face.
When I saw Julie’s picture of him I knew eventually I had to give it a go!
Sketch was fast and loose, which is how Ram Dass likes it.
If she leaves him alone he opens the front door and lets in party visitors!
He is a rescue happily given a new lease on life with an adoring mamma.


Color applied in a soft wash of Noodler’s Polar Brown and Lexington Grey inks,
surrounded by quinacridone red and pinks, and splashes of imperial purple.
Eyes are Paynes blue + sepia.

Being a person who knows Ram Dass as a teacher, I am always startled when I see on
FB that Julie and her mom and Ram Dass had lunch at such and such a place!

BTW, I take commissions!

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©D. Katie Powell.
My images/blog posts may be reposted; please link back  to dkatiepowellart.

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Every Day in May, 6, Truck

Mitch Ridder‘s truck photos were the inspiration.
Amazing photographer!

The list, above.

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Every Day in May, 5, Onion

The onion that wants a life outside the chopping block.
We are going to see where it goes!

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Every Day in May, 1-4

I mistakenly bought a couple of A6 Hahnemühle Watercolour Book, not my size!
Teeny-tiny!
I decided to use it and put myself through fast paces of the Every Day In May challenge, with a twist — I am doing NO PENCIL again.  Its been
two years, and it is a valuable challenge for me to loosen up and not have to be precise, which is working well
as I have NO time to paint right now — deadlines in our business.

To start, the first few days playing catchup:

My least favorite: draw Star Wars…

A bit of a spill of ink from the waterbrush!

The list, above.

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Posies

 
I can’t get enough of these crazy Hahnemühle Post Cards.
I am so swamped with deadlines right now I barely have time to make marks,
but I have a stack of these next to my bed in a tin and I can grab one middle-of-the-night, and draw a flower, a Buddha, a silliness for Mitchell.


I draw in pencil, ink, then erase.
They are clipped to a cardboard mailer for painting.
I helps the edges from curling ever-so-slightly.

Then while I am doing my gotta-make-a-living thang,
I can have these sitting at my little watercolor desk at work and
splash color on during breaks… A portable watercolor kit with waterbrush would do!


My 95-year-old mom received this for Mother’s Day
with a gift of things to eat she can’t get near her…

You can bet it’ll make her cry — the beauty of handmade!

Happy Mother’s Day to all the Mothers everywhere…

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Sammy Irritated

Sammy is not a happy cat, because I am in bed alone
with him and he lives for his daddy.  Lives. For. Daddy.

Having to catch that expression so very fast!
Scowling face, and he wears it so well!

I think I may like the pen sketch best on this one. 

What do you think?

WAIT!  Unsatisfied, I went in with a stub nib
and added fat black lines!

I like him now….  Yay!

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©D. Katie Powell.
My images/blog posts may be reposted; please link back  to dkatiepowellart.

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USk: Oregon Greens

Oregon green rivals Ireland, no two ways about it.
Below is a favorite crook in the road on our way from Portland to
Southern Oregon near the South Fork of the Umpqua River.
Pulled over to sketch it — and paint it later.

I started this with a bright yellow undertone, thank you Tracey _/\_

More to come… I just don’t have time to finish painting!

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   Fabriano A4 watercolor (I want to finish it up!!!!), Watercolor pencil,
Lamy Al-Star with Platinum Classic Citron ink;
Platinum Carbon Pen with Platinum Carbon ink waterproof cartridges,
White Uniball Signo, Pitt White pen,  Platinum Japanese Art Pocket Brush Pen,
Sennelier, Holbein, and DS Primatek watercolors, and Daniel Smith Watercolors.

w16-15-handbk-santa-paula-01-sq 

©D. Katie Powell.
My images/blog posts may be reposted; please link back  to dkatiepowellart.

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