Notebooks

 

Here is a link to all of the Notebooks I have designed on Amazon. These are so fun to make, they are all 6x9 and 120 pages. I use one for a daily planner/reminder and another for notes from Duolingo. I love this size because they are small enough to take along anywhere with plenty of space to write in.

Leaf prints

We have an old concrete block silo in our back yard with no roof on it. Inside of the silo there are a bunch of ferns growing. It is like looking into a different world when you put your head through the small opening. I have wanted to make prints of these fern leaves for a long time. Our house is on the market so I have kept all of my art supplies tucked away for months. We don’t have any showings scheduled right now so I dug out my printmaking supplies and made some mono prints. (I believe that is the right term) 

The process: I have a large piece of glass that I mixed the ink on and spread it out with a brayer. Next I put a leaf on the ink covered glass to ink the other side with the brayer. Then I would take the leaf and lay it on a large sheet of paper and put another piece of paper on top like a leaf sandwich. After that I took a clean brayer and rolled it over the top piece of paper. With this method each leaf made 2 prints. 

I also found some fairly large maple leaves. I wanted these to be more colorful so I added some acrylic paint to the mix but then it really didn’t spread as good because the brayer did not want to roll very well. I am very happy with the result. I have them all laying on the floor to dry and it makes me happy to look at the little collection. 

 

 notebooks that can be purchased  on Amazon. 

The first one I designed was called Nature Notes

You see, I was on the roof cleaning the gutters and I had just found out about selling notebooks on Amazon. The gutters were full of maple seeds, they were flying everywhere, so I came up with the name Maple Seed Press. When I came back inside I designed this notebook. On the inside of the notebook there are graph paper pages on the left and lined pages on the right. If you flip the pages like a flip book a small maple seed goes down the side of the page. This was only the beginning.

Painting En Plein Air

Here are my recent 9"x12" paintings En Plein Air. I feel like I am making good progress. I love the challenge of setting up somewhere different each time and not knowing what nature will throw at you. I had the wind spill my water at Oakwoods all over my supplies and there were little flowers falling off of a tree onto my paint pallet at the Simpson Garden. I like it when people are curious about what I am doing and ask me questions. I have had my picture taken quite a few times and I have been interviewed all while trying to complete a painting in a small time frame. I have met a lot of great people since I started painting En Plein Air and I hope to meet many more.

Legacy Farmers Cooperative 8/2018 

watercolor and gouache

The View From We Serve Coffee 8/2018

watercolor and gouache

Oakwoods 5/1/19

gouache

Riverbend 5/8/19

gouache

Litzenberg 5/15/19

gouache

Blanchard River Nature Preserve 

gouache

Aeraland Recreation Area 6/5/19

Gouache

Simpson Garden Park Lily Pond 6/7/19

"Art In The Park"

Gouache

Old Building

This one is from awhile ago. I had a little time so I went downtown and parked then decided to draw the top of this building. The tops of these old buildings are very decorative and interesting. This is painted in gouache with no sketching or anything beforehand. Below it a close up. 

Rusty Buckets

Today I decided to draw this piece of equipment sitting out in the parking lot near the new Panda Express in Findlay. I have been eyeing it for a few weeks but never had the time to give it a try. I used one of my new Tombow pens for the drawing then colored it in with watercolor paint. I used my 6X12 Pentalic Sketchbook. The Tombow pens are fun to draw with, they flow very nicely and to not skip or drag. I had an hour and a half so I tried to take my time and get the drawing as detailed and correct as I could. There are things that are not right but when you just go for it in pen they cannot be fixed. I am pretty happy with the way it turned out. 

Here is a close up of the bucket which had another bucket inside of it. I tried to capture the rust and dirt with my watercolors. It is 6X12 inches on watercolor paper.

Scribbles

The other day I took my sketchbook outside with my Pentel Pocket Brush and found a couple of things to draw. This is the north side of our barn. I like the old doors with their peeling paint and green moss. I am very happy with the way the windows came out. The Pentel Pocket Brush is fun to scribble with, it is almost like using a real paintbrush that you do not have to keep dipping in paint. It is also refillable which is nice.

Here is a little scribble of my dog Copper. His hair is really fun to draw with this brush pen. He even sat still until I was done.

Progress

A few weeks ago I gave myself a short project. What happens if I paint the same scene everyday for a week. I decided I would squint my eyes and just paint the colors that I see in wet watercolor. This is the scene from the desk where I paint. There is a field of very tall corn with golden tassels, beyond that there is a soybean field and then a couple of barns and way in the distance there are trees. I have noticed that the colors change from hour to hour and day to day depending on the time and the weather. I masked off two squares in my watercolor sketchbook  and painted the first one. The next day I tried again. I made sure to note the time of day and the weather on the bottom of each painting.

On the third day I feel like I was making progress and there were some nice puffy clouds in the sky to paint. You can really see how the colors change day to day by now. I tried to paint them as true as possible. My masking tape was taking a layer of paper with it when I peeled it off so on the fifth day I used blue painter's tape from Dollar Tree and that worked much better.

I am very happy with the painting I did on the fifth day. I feel like I really made a lot of progress in a short amount of time. Imagine what could happen if I had kept on going. After the fifth day my sciatic nerve really started bothering me and I couldn't walk up and down the stairs as easily so the project stopped. I am going to physical therapy now and slowly getting better. I did a couple of "plein air" paintings from car last week so I am still painting just not walking as far to do it. 

Here is a photo of the actual scene. I used my artistic license to cut out the trees to make things a little easier on myself. I tried to paint the scene a couple of times when we first moved here with the trees and I never liked the way it looked. 

Gouache Color Chart

I made this gouache color chart a couple of days after I made the watercolor chart. I have been battling sciatica pain the past few weeks and have not even made a doodle in my sketchbook and I even have new unopened brush pens sitting here, that is when you know I am not feeling well. Anyway, I have some medicine and appointments for chiropractors and physical therapy so I should be back on track soon.

From left to right Holbein Gouache, MBGI-WAP Gouache, M. Graham Gouache. After painting all of these swatches side by side I can really see a difference in quality of the cheap MBGI-WAP compared to the higher end brands. I have not been able to use the M. Graham enough to truly judge but I think I like their consistency and coverage the best and oooh that Payne's Gray!

This is a swatch of the M. Graham Payne's Gray, so beautiful when you add a touch of water to it. I can't wait to get back to painting and really get into these new colors!

Pink Cockatoo

The other day I was browsing through Amazon's Daily Deals when I came across a 15ml tube of Daniel Smith Lavender! I had been excited to try Daniel Smith watercolors for awhile because I always see other artists mentioning how beautiful they are. The price was the lowest I have seen for a tube of any color so I bought it. When it arrived I didn't really have an idea of what I was going to use it for so I just took out my little 5 inch book and painted part of the paper with it to see how it looked. It is beautiful in person, the scanner will never pick up the sparkle that this paint has. Later when I was browsing Pintrest I found a cute pink cockatoo that I wanted to paint in gouache. I thought it would look interesting on the lavender watercolor background and I am pretty happy with the way it turned out. My favorite part is making all of the detail lines with my thin brush to really bring the bird to life.

Full disclosure: I signed up to be an amazon affiliate so if you click on my link and buy something I get a small portion of the sale.

Color chart

Yesterday I decided to make a color chart that has all of my watercolors on one page so I can compare how they look dried. It is nice to have them all in one place on the same type of paper. The paper is Cold Press Strathmore Watercolor Paper 140#. The watercolor sets I have from left to right top to bottom are:

Yarka - Jack Richeson - St. Petersburg - Set of 24

Derwent - Inktense  Blocks - Set of 12

Kuretake - Gansai Tambi - Set of 12

Sakura - Koi Pocket Field Sketch Box - Set of 12

Then I have a few tubes, 4 Winsor & Newton Cotman, 3 Grumbacher, and 1 Daniel Smith.

I can't believe how pale the Koi paints are in comparison, for 10 or more years they were the only watercolors I had and I thought they were amazing. I love the Yarka set, the quality of the paints are great and the palette is very easy to take everywhere but I do not like the thin plastic insert that holds the paints, it is starting to deteriorate. I just bought my first tube of Daniel Smith a couple of weeks ago, for some reason Daniel Smith Lavender was a daily deal on amazon, so I bought it and it is beautiful! It almost has a sparkle to it.

I put my brushes in the photo so you could see what I use. They are a set of Handmade Modern from Target, the whole set was only $19 but they are great quality for that price. It was a great way for me to try out a lot of brushes without spending a ton of money. Right now I am in love with the brush they call a "rigger". It is perfect for fine details on feathers, fur, or bearded dragon spikes. I tend to get caught up in the details since that brush is so fun to use.

I wish I had thought of making a color chart sooner, it is nice to see all of the different paints I have to choose from in one place. I am going to do the same thing with all of my gouache when I get a chance.

When I don't know what to draw I can always pick something that is just laying around the house, we have a lot of antiques and odd things that I forget other people are not accustomed to seeing like my vintage microscope in the dinning room or the big bass drum that sits in the living room.

This is my favorite cup to drink hot tea out of. It is from, well lets call it my orange period, where my bedroom was bright orange and most objects I bought were orange. I bought it at Starbucks long ago. This is gouache in my big sketchbook, quick and sloppy. I haven't been painting in my 5 inch square book each day like I was supposed to, need to get back on that!

Cerberus

We watched the Beatles Yellow Submarine movie which was really interesting and weird. There was a Cerberus character (3 headed dog) on there that got me thinking, what if Cerberus was a chihuahua. Could that little body even hold up three big apple heads, there would be so much quivering and so many teeth. If you had a bag of pupparoni he would let you pass no problem. (It is the key to every chi's heart) This is painted in gouache with magazine clippings taped around it, so a mixed media piece in my little 5 inch book.

Parakeet

A parakeet in gouache in my 5 inch square hand book. I really enjoy painting birds, and I love all of the colors that parakeets come in. I got a lot done that day!

I found this picture of a basset hound dressed for the 4th of July in a magazine and thought it was pretty silly so I gave him a top had instead. Can't say he really looks any happier about that. Painted in gouache in my 5 inch book.

Exotic Chicken

Just a quick little gouache painting in my 5 inch square book with the reference taped to the left page. I added the word Friday from a magazine and wrote a note that Copper (Dog) killed a groundhog. If you want some major inspiration go check out Roz Wound Up I have been reading her blog for years and she is the reason I bought a set of gouache.

Our old barn

I went outside with the little travel gouache pallet I made out of a tin and some half pans and some water brushes and Mandy my 4 year old. I wanted to paint our old barn that sits on the back of our property. I had never used the water brushes with gouache before. They are plastic brushes that hold their own water in the handle. I went out, sat in the grass, opened my pallet and discovered that the colors had all run into each other and there was red everywhere, I must have tipped it as I was walking out back. Before I knew it there was red gouache all over my hand and my shoe and later it was even on Tommy Cat. Despite all of this I was determined to paint. It is in my larger sketchbook. This got way too wet for the paper I was using. One of these days I need to start using better paper. While I was painting Mandy took all of my water brushes and used them to "water the flowers". I eventually got them all back. Tommy Cat thought that since I was sitting down in the grass that he should climb on me and rub on my sketchbook the whole time I was painting. I am very happy with the outcome considering all of the difficulties I had along the way.

A lot of people say we should tear down the old leaning barn out back but I like it the way it is. We have been taking pieces off when we need wood for our projects. We used some to fix our other barn, and we have made a small shelf from some of the wood. Every time we get a windstorm I go check to make sure the barn is standing and so far so good. I think there is beauty in these old weathered structures that are slowly vanishing from our landscape.

Bearded Dragon Plays Guitar

This is probably the most accurate picture I have ever painted out of my head. Mandy and I got to meet a bearded dragon named Tiger while we were camping at Indian Lake. My imagination can run wild with little adventures for critters I meet. This guy has been traveling for a long time and has decided to sit under a shade tree and play his guitar. I found a photo of a bearded dragon sitting in a tiny chair on pintrest, I had a tiny guitar picture from a guitar center ad, and I also looked up a tree to try to make it look right. This "quick morning painting" took me most of the day but I am very happy with it. I tend to get carried away with my small rigger brush making all of the spines and dots, and details. This is in my 5 inch square book in gouache but I didn't do a to do list that day, good thing because nothing else got done anyway.

Dog Planter

Imagine if you will a living dog who is also a planter. Watch him run, the large green leaves on his back flying in the wind, now he is jumping up and down with excitement and the big leaves flop happily up and down as well. All of this because I get gardening magazines in the mail. I wish I new how to do animation but I also do not want to put in the work to learn how to do animation. If you know how, feel free to use my idea, I would love to see this little guy running around! I have a lot of animation ideas because I have a very vivid imagination to the point where sometimes I think of real people as cartoons or well everything is kind of a cartoon to me unless I am being super serious about bills and paperwork or something like that.

A New Book

I discovered the artwork of Stephanie K. Birdsong on Pintrest, and after reading through her entire blog and loving it, I decided I liked the idea of keeping a small book with a to do list and inspiration on one side and a painting on the other side. In one of her posts she said she uses books from the Hand book journal co., so a few days later I went to Hobby Lobby armed with my 40% off coupon to look at them. I liked the look of the square 5.5 book, it seems small enough to carry around and the pages are thick enough to take some paint, it is made for light washes. Though I think my idea and everyone else's idea of a light wash is completely different since my pages always buckle unless I am using real watercolor paper.

On the inside cover of the book I wrote my name, address, and phone number as I always do. I also added a quote I saw on  pinterest "No artist tolerates reality" attributed to Nietzsche. I also clipped a quote out of a magazine that says "If you want to get better, you have to play with people who are better than you". I believe the person was referring to sports but I think it applies in all areas of life.

On the first official page I thought I should state what my goal was with the book. It is supposed to be a quick sketch each day while drinking my coffee instead of mindless scrolling on facebook with a to do list for the day. There have been a few days where the word quick has completely left me and the "sketch" took me half of the day. I am happy with what I have done in this book so far but I really need to loosen up and not be afraid of "ruining" the book. I also bought some double sided tape that comes in a little rolling dispenser from amazon after asking an artist in one of my facebook groups what they are using. I had always used glue sticks but there are certain papers they do not adhere to. So I am very happy with my new tape. I also ordered some worldwide stamps from ebay for $1.99 including shipping that I plan to mix in.

So anyway, here is my first page in my new 5.5 book of a goat in gouache with the picture that inspired it and a to do list.