Sketching with Friends

This week, I was fortunate to play with my watercolors and sketch twice with two different groups of friends. In the watercolor above, I played with stencils, textured items, a little tissue paper collage and drawing. I am attracted to art with the combination of solid colors and line drawings. Knowing when to stop and let some white paper, negative space show in the background is a challenge for me.
Earlier in the week, my regular sketching group visited Hughes Water Gardens. I wanted to work freer and capture the spirit of the fuschia without pen and ink. It reminds me of Chinese brush painting.

It was a cloudy day and the flowers' bright colors really popped.

Koi filled a large pond.


The waterlilies bloom.

Waterlily blossom on reflected grid, floating flower of spirit and rebirth. Speak to us.

Luscher Garden Sketch

We sketched at Luscher Farm today. Those who follow my blog know that this is a favorite summer place for us to sketch. I decided to play with landscape this time. The community gardens spread over several acres. Rows of cabbages and corn covered a large field.

I couldn't resist a photo of the cabbage patch doll scarecrows.

Nasturtiums and sunflowers grace almost every plot.
The lilies add a different color-
Artichokes in various stages of bloom stole the show
as did the kale.
It's starting to feel like autumn and these apples look ready to pick. Yum!

Summer Garden Warmth

We sketched today in Cynthia's garden- sun, flowers, friends. Summer is here. Like Leigh from Curly Girl Designs says, "There is no better way to spend the Day than in good company." I had to add her napkin quotes to my journal page. "To slow down and take a little leisure is the happiest method of living." Sweet peas and roses are two of my favorite summer flowers.






It feels good to be outdoors, hear the birds sing, sip a cup of tea and relax with friends. Hope that you're enjoying your summer, too.

Swan Island Writing Excursion

I've taken several visual arts classes at the Multnomah Arts Center and wanted to take a writing course. Last summer, the creative writing excursion series caught my attention. The excursion leaders reflect Portland's avantgarde writing community and offer unique prose and poetry writing exercises at each place. It's great intellectual stimulation. My favorites include Kaia Sand's exploration of “Lost Neighborhoods- Nihonmachi and Vanport”, David Abel's walk through downtown “Portland Alphabetical” and Lisa Radon's gallery tour “In Response: Poems on Art”. Each term new writing places are added to the catalog. If you want to get a different perspective of the metro area, I highly recommend signing up for one or more.

Saturday, I took the "A Day on Swan Island" with Nate Orton and James Yeary. They write an ongoing My Day zine series and demonstrated their techniques as we toured Swan Island. We started at Skidmore Bluffs with a great view of Portland's industrial section on the Willamette River.

The path a long the river offered other views of Portland-
With 80° temperatures, it felt like the first day of summer. Sharing our sketches and writings makes me realize how different we all see the same place. What struck me is how nature and industry collide on Swan Island. Warnings flank the banks of the river to not eat the fish due to toxins or to not drink the water due to raw sewage dumps. The river looks beautiful but analysis shows that it still needs to be cleaned up.


On another note, the peonies are blooming at The Peony Place. They offer cut flowers and a you-pick cutting garden. With the warmer weather, new varieties open up each day. It's one of my favorite places. Here's a post I wrote a few years ago about the garden.

Sketch Exercise

This week, we sketched at our favorite winter hang out- Monte's Cafe at Monticello Antiques. Robin Olsen found this drawing exercise on the Urban Sketcher's blog. We each selected an item to sketch, and drew it on both sides of our sketchbook spread. Then we passed our sketchbook to the next person and she painted it.

Robin used a dry brush technique to paint the doll on the left.

I used a wetter brush to paint the doll on the right. We decided to work with new exercises each week. It's fun to mix it up a little and try something different.

Red Journal Collaboration

Randi Feuerhelm-Watts cleaned out her studio and gave several of her journals that she started but never finished away. I was the lucky recipient of her red journal. It's a book cut in triangular shape with the pages folded. She attached a large grommet to one corner and added a chain to be able to carry it or hang it up.
The closure is glued onto the front cover and the back has a red elastic, looped thread to hold it closed.

It's my red journal collaboration with Randi. She started it and I'll finish it. I worked on some new pages at our Guemes Retreat. The first page uses a notice from the 1000 journals project.

The next page includes crop circle card that I received from Lydia Ruyle. The journal is a receptacle for all things red. The paper around the edges was made with a technique Randi shared on a recent trip to Portland.

Take baby wipes, scrunch and fold them with paper clips, rubber bands, other closures and paint with water soluble inks or children's washable markers. Let dry and you have a tie-dyed paper to use.

Another page focuses on an urban setting. Portland hosted an International Urban Sketchers Symposium this weekend. Check out their blog Here. Journal making and keeping takes many forms. That's what keeps it interesting and offering many opportunities to explore the creative process in word and image.

Sketching at Hughes Water Gardens

Summer is here in the NW with sunshine and 90°F temperatures. Yesterday, we sketched at one of our favorite spots- Hughes Water Gardens off Stafford Road. Be sure to check out their website for their Waterlily Festival and Invitational Art Show. Artist will be in the garden Sunday July 25th and July 31st giving demonstrations. The leaves of the lotus above remind me of nasturtium leaves but many times larger.
Colorful pots line the garden paths
Hydrangeas bloom in a variety of colors
Statues and other garden art offer a surprise around every corner

Let the Sun Shine

Today, we sketched at the Sara Hite Memorial Rose Garden in North Clackamas Park. The overcast sky cleared and the sun shone- a rarity here in the NW this month.

The Rainbow comes and goes,
And lovely is the Rose
William Shakespeare

The world is a rose,
Smell it and pass it to your friends
Persian Proverb

It's so relaxing to sit and sketch in a quiet place, forget about time and take in the beauty.
Next week, we'll be sketching at Washington Park's Rose Garden.

It is at the edge of the petal that love waits.
William Carlos Williams

Hope for the Future

Chicago Peace blooms in my garden- it's first bloom the most spectacular. I attended a graduation ceremony this weekend and came away hopeful for the future. The Millennium Generation is "confident, connected and open to change". I need this optimism in my often cynical world. The roses bloom every year and honor us with their beauty. I felt honored by the beauty and energy of the young graduates and want to see how their lives unfold and blossom.
Last week, we sketched at Cornell Farm. I enjoyed the roses there and this sleeping beauty.
The begonias spread their colorful blossoms, too. I feel a connection to nature more intensely after reading Margaret Atwood's book, The Year of the Flood. She included in her novel Hymns of the God's Gardeners which I downloaded to my iPod to enjoy the music. The hymns add another dimension to her novel. It's a very thought provoking read.

From Pansies to Peonies

With all the rain lately, our sketch group started a new routine. We meet at a coffee house and sketch for an hour. Cynthia brought some pansies for us to draw this week. After an hour, we do a weather check and if it's not pouring down rain, we head for an outdoor setting to sketch.
The Peony Place became our destination this week. About half the varieties were in bloom and the rest were full of buds ready to bloom any day.
Love these floppy, feathery blossoms and so do the bumble bees...

The single-petal beauties open up to show their gorgeous centers...
Time to sketch one flower with a fluffy red center the same color as its petals...

Then, it rained.