Arty Stuff

I've been obsessing this week on arty stuff. I figured blogging endlessly about arty stuff would run off the few intrepid readers, so I saved it all up for one big summary post.

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I was looking at some other people's arty stuff on-line and I saw a painting this lady had done of aspen leaves. It had lots of bright colors and she used bright blue and bright orange for the bark of the tree. I've been trying to draw things too realistically lately and wouldn't have given myself permission to use bright blue for a tree. I decided I would draw and paint me some blue trees dammit.

When I sit on my front porch, the view of my neighbor's house is framed beautifully by the two little live oaks in our front yard. It's a scene I've been meaning to sketch, so I thought I would draw it and make the trees blue. When I got the rough sketch down I decided the little house was too boring if the trees were blue. It needed some whimsy. So I made it into a little hobbit house with curved walls, round windows, and a thatched roof...and a Hobbit Accord in the driveway.

I got it all inked and was very proud of the result.



But I'm not a painter. I didn't want to mess up this perfectly charming drawing with a lot of messy paint. And it would be messy if I painted it, trust. So I scanned the drawing then printed it on watercolor paper using my laser printer. I painted on the copy instead of the original then re-inked the whole thing. It came out a little coloring book looking, but I think it's OK for my second watercolor ever.

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The challenge this week for the sketch group was "Extreme Close-up." Folks were supposed to guess what the drawing was. Here's my entry, can you guess what it is?

I was originally planning on doing this drawing with colored pencils. My heart wasn't in it so I abandoned it and started a fresh sketch using a ballpoint pen. I *love* doing pen and ink drawings. I guess technically ballpoint isn't pen and ink, but I don't know what else to call it.

Anyway, I retrieved the first sketch (I was going to throw it away) and decided to use it for watercolor pencil practice. I scribbled on the colors and swooshed them with water and it was kind of meh. Added more pencil, swished some more water, and it was still meh.

Finally broke out the liquid watercolors and went after it with a brush. I finally got enough color on it and it came to life. Not half bad for my third attempt at watercolor.


Me no likey watercolors. They do things I don't understand. The color doesn't stay put and the paper crinkles up and wah, wah, wah. I didn't like watercolors as a kid, and I still don't like them much now. But, I'm trying to expand my horizons. So I keep practicing.

One of the guys in the sketch group kept insisting the extreme close-up was a hook for airships. LOL! I thought that was an imaginative guess if nothing else. So I drew him a hook for airships. Painted it with watercolors for the practice. This would be watercolor #4.

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I purchased a cheap little journal for $3.00 two weeks ago and have been writing all my deepest, darkest secrets in it. For such a cheap journal it has amazingly nice paper in it. It seemed a shame to just write words and only words in there. I thought I would give a go to the "illustrated journal" concept that a lot of the folks in the sketch group do. My entry for today:


I *hate* doing laundry. I got the whites washed, but they're still in there wet. Sigh. It's now 2:20 a.m. and I won't have clean, dry drawers for tomorrow. Sigh.

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This evening at dusk I was standing out on my front porch and the neighborhood church chimes began to ring. It was a magical moment. You could almost hear the world stop for just a moment to listen. How cool.

I pondered if there was a way to adequately capture the sound and magic of the chimes in some arty way. If there is, I'm too dull to figure it out. I decided to try to capture the chilly lavender sunset framed by the blackness of the neighbor's house and trees. Maybe with that painting I could remember the magic of the chimes. Watercolor #5.

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All of these drawings have been uploaded to my Flickr account that I had to open when I joined the "Everyday Matters" sketch group. On Flickr you can click to embiggen each drawing in a really, really big way to see details. You can also see the comments made by the sketch group members on each of my doodles. If you wanna go look at all that, here is a link to my photostream (aka home page) on Flickr:

Specklin on Flickr

I had to use the nickname Specklin 'cuz Speck was already taken. Phooey.

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And that was my week - chock full o' arty goodness.

Yours?