Tommy starring in "The Birds". Our cat Tommy is constatnly dive bombed by barn swallows, all day everyday. He does not seem to care or notice how aggressive these little birdies are and it is kind of amusing to watch. The starlings must be done nesting because they have quit shrieking when they see him. This was done in gouache in my big sketchbook.

So my friend Julie posted pictures of noodles on fb and they looked delicious but I saw the post at 3am when I was up and couldn't sleep. I finally got back to sleep and had an anxiety dream that I was making Mandy a bowl of noodles and there were so many that they wouldn't fit in the bowl and there was no room to add the sauce. When I woke up I decided to draw a bowl of noodles to try to get it out of my system. Noodles noodles everywhere in gouache in my big sketchbook with a little stamp from a catalogue glued on to look like a picture hung on the wall.

I ordered a set of 12 tubes Holbein Artists' Gouache and after doing a test in my sketchbook which we will skip for now, I decided to try them out. This 3.5 X 5 Strathmore Sketch book was at hand so I painted (freehand) a cat from Tommy's medication that was sitting on the counter. I thought it was funny that the cat pictured did not have much of a neck. Then I thought it needed something more so I put the little frame around it then I decided it would look happy with some Frida style flowers on its head so here is my first little painting with my new Holbein gouache.

I painted this when we got back from Indian Lake in my large sketchbook. One of the campsites was right along a canal where a Great Blue Heron like to fish. I saw him catch 2 fish and gulp them down while we were there. This is painted in gouache with my Handmade Modern brushes (great inexpensive brushes from Target) and references from pintrest since I couldn't get a good photo myself.

Over the 4th of July holiday we went camping at Indian Lake and it was HOT! I want to call this a watercolor sketch that was done en plein air (outdoors), but truth be told I was sitting in the air conditioned camper looking out of the window. I cannot get the colors quite right, the blue in my actual painting is not so bright. Oh if I only knew how to use my computer a little better, it is an old mac and I have always had Windows in the past so there is a learning curve. There is a group of artist here in Findlay that meet every Wednesday morning for an hour to paint en plein air at a different park in the area. I went twice and it was nice to meet everyone and talk about painting. So long story short that is the reason I was interested in trying to paint en plein air. This is done with my Yarka watercolor set with a water brush in an 8X5 Moleskine watercolor sketchbook. This sketchbook has not had enough use, the first pages are from the Arizona state fair in 2006 and I am only 5 pages in.

Mandy and I were outside at dusk when she saw the first star in the sky and she said "I wish I would have a dog that would turn into a lightning bug and I could ride it up to that rainbow". The rainbow she was talking about was the sun set. So I thought I would attempt to make this into a drawing. I am never happy with the way my people come out but I am overall happy with the drawing. It is in gouache with the writing in black pen in my big sketchbook. I was having a bit of trouble figuring out how to use my scanner, the quality will improve after a few images and I get past the learning curve. I have such a hard time filling a sketchbook because I can never just work on one at a time.

I  have decided to try to keep a sketchbook blog again since I have been focusing on drawing and painting a lot more recently. Here is a page that changed everything. I decided to test my cheap MBGI-WAP gouache in the sketchbook I have been working in and it worked out very well. It wrinkled the paper a bit but that is ok, it goes on smooth and is easy to use. Then I started obsessing over gouache and watching youtube videos and digging through pintrest for examples and then I ordered some Holbein gouache. Well you will see, this is just the first step.