Direct Watercolor Day 2 - Sheep

This direct watercolor painting took me a long time. It was hard to do the faces, placement of eyes, length of head and shading without lines. There were subtle changes in the color and shading in my photo reference. The sketchbook page is about 4 x 4 inches. 

Mini Lap Journal

Working in my mini lap journal today using watercolor, white gelly roll pen, china marker.

Spanish Village with the San Diego Sketch Crawlers

Once a month the San Diego Sketch Crawlers meet in Spanish Village to draw whatever strikes our interest. Today I noticed a little black chair so I decided to paint it and include everything around it. This is part of my effort to participate in #100daysofsketchbookentries and #the100dayproject. I use Holbein Watercolor and a Rapidosketch pen.

Flowers in Gouache

In the past, I have not been too fond of painting flowers but I have this lovely still life on my kitchen table and have taken on the challenge. This time I focused in on a section that had high contrast. Using its' negative shapes to create the little flowers. Painted in Gouache.

Drawing at the Library a San Diego Urban Sketcher Event

I attended an art reception at the library yesterday and sketched the scenery outside of the library entrance. I didn't go inside because I am the official "greeter" for the San Diego Urban Sketchers and this was one of our events.

 I worked with a Stabilo China Marker and watercolor. The sketchbook is a Daler Rowney 11 x 14, 65 lb paper. When I am drawing or painting on location I don't use a full page for each drawing because I don't carry my large brushes for location painting and I work with the sketchbook on my lap. I would probably get paint on my blouse.
It was a bit chilly and many of the sketchers drew parts of the library, the people and even drew from books.

SD Urban Sketchers and SD Plein Air Painters Art Reception

The San Diego Plein Air Painters Meetup Group invited the San Diego Urban Sketchers to participate in an art show at the Rancho Penasquitos Library during the month of March. The San Diego Urban Sketchers sketched in and outside of the library and Tricia De Luna gave a painting demo. This video was compiled from clips taken at the reception on March 17, 2018. There were 2 walls of framed artwork as well as a display case with unframed artwork and sketchbooks.

Gargoyle in a Stamp

I started practicing my gouache with a gargoyle this morning. I then turned to doodling and then stamp carving. Even though I use a small v-gouge I have trouble getting fine carving lines. It was still a fun process for me.

Stamping and painting

One of the things I like when I "clean" my studio is I find things that I didn't know I had or that I haven't used in a long time. Sometimes I walk into my studio and I am inspired right away and I don't clean it at all. Today I spent a lot of time sorting through papers and combining them into 2 flat boxes. When I was done I came across a large bird I had photographed at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. I wasn't sure why I saved a large 8.5 x 11 print of the bird but it looked perfect for a stamp project. I sat down and carved out a small stamp using a scrap of Speedy-carve I found.

If I were to do it again I would have picked a better piece of carving material. I don't plan things out too well, I just jump in and DO IT. This bird barely fit on the stamp material. At first I used a stamp pad to ink the stamp and later used printing ink and a brayer. The paper is quite absorbent so the image came out better using more ink with the brayer.