Calligraphy and Drawing- an exploration

While attending the 2012 NW Calligraphy Conference, I heard Inga Dubay present her experience teaching a course in calligraphy and drawing at the Oregon College of Art and Craft. Ever since then, I've wanted to work through her syllabus.  I found a few friends who wanted to do this, too.  The first section features contour drawings. 

My 2014 guiding word for my artwork is synthesis.  I want to integrate what I know, practice and create.  These letters came from my blind contour drawings of the Imperial Latin alphabet.  I copied the word on tracing paper and transferred it to watercolor paper.

I'd like to repaint the piece with darker values so that the letters show more.  That's my comfort zone.  The abstract aspect of the pastel colors adds mystery.  One of my goals is to move from literal interpretation to abstraction.

Above the bold colors stand out.

Above is my attempt to play with my initials.  It needs more contrast in color.  The bright yellow and red dominate the piece.

For this 'W', the blind contour drawing is of the negative space that surrounds the Fraktur capital letter. Do you see the 'W'?  This exploration furthers my interest to combine calligraphy in my artwork.

More Watercolor Studies

I'm still playing with color. Changing the Payne's Gray for Ultramarine Blue really brightened the warm palette. To make an even warmer palette, I changed the red and yellow to Quinacridone Rose and Hansa Yellow.
Above are the secondary colors from the first set of primaries. When I mixed the second set of primaries on the paper, I really liked how the secondary colors showed up with this brighter palette. Mixing this way makes it easier to compare and see differences in the two palettes.

Mixing browns came next. Equal amounts of complementary colors form brown. Below are the green-red browns-

Here's the purple-yellow browns-

and the orange-blue browns-
It really makes one see all the different shades of brown. I prefer the warm brown mixes but see how the cool browns would be great for shadows.

Watercolor and Colored Pencil Sketches

This week sketching, we used magazine photo images for inspiration. Laying down the watercolor paints first...
...then adding more detail with watercolor and colored pencils. It's a different look for me to get away from pen and ink drawings filled with watercolor- a softer, looser look. I liked working with the layers of paint and pencil and kept adding layer after layer.
Here are the magazine photos used for inspiration. This exercise makes me want to play more and experiment- be freer.

Imaginary Animals with Carla Sonheim at Art & Soul

The beginning of the month, I took Carla Sonheim's 'Imaginary Creatures' workshop.

We used watercolors to make abstract designs and looked for imaginary creatures in the painting- like looking for images in clouds.

Once we found our creatures, we gave them substance and depth with more watercolor washes, gesso and charcoal.

What amazed me is the variety of individual interpretations and artistic styles workshop members created. It's inspiring to see how the creative mind works in so many different ways.

Carla's writing a book to be released July 2010 entitled "Drawing Lab for mixed Media Artists: 52 creative exercises to make drawing fun".

Chinese Garden Springtime

Spring arrives at the Chinese Garden with sunshine and blooming flowers. It's one of my favorite places that our Tuesday sketch group visits. This week, we enjoyed the camellias
peonies

flowering trees

and the bonsai

Sketch at Townshend's Tea

Today, our Tuesday sketch group spent a quiet morning at Townshend's Tea on Alberta Street. It's still cold here and it felt good to be inside a warm place drinking tea, talking with friends and sketching.

Art and Soul 2008 Fond Memories

Art and Soul proved to be a great retreat this year. I enjoyed seeing friends and making new ones plus teaching and taking classes. In Judy Wise's class we learned how to stencil our family photographs. Here is a stencil I cut from a 1940's photo of my mother catching a large fish off the Florida coast. I sprayed the stencil on collaged paper, collaged cut-out swimsuit and fish on top and covered everything with bees wax for a rich, textured look.

Melissa Hackmann taught us how to make accordion books and use them for sketching.

Albie Smith helped us create fabulous decorated papers and this book with multi-colored pages.

Jacqueline Newbold demonstrated how she uses watercolor in her travel sketchbooks. I learned
new watercolor techniques and ideas for keeping a travel journal.

More Travel Journal Sketches from Brittany

Mari Le Glatin Keis led us on daily sketch walks. She encouraged us to pack light & simple, relax, play with color, stay small, collage and sketch with words. I tend to fill the whole page with an image so working small was a challenge for me. Here's the view from my farm house bedroom window.

We spent a whole day at the Château La Roche Jagu. Bus loads of school children filled the botanical gardens and castle. They sat on the lawn and drew the castle. I drew mine and filled the whole page in their style. I used pastels to prepare these pages for sketching. The colors are rich and vibrant.
The castle construction workers left their marks after each job completed. At the end of the day, their marks were counted to determine their compensation. Artichoke fields cover the landscape in this area of Brittany.
Inside the château, we viewed an exhibit- Passions Botaniques. I loved the medieval drawings that combined human forms as part of the plant.
The botanical gardens that covered the castle grounds inspired many sketches.
Our last day, we took a sketch walk at high tide along the Jaudy River Estuary. The contour drawing is of the village Plougrescant in the distance.
The above sketch inspired this watercolor- the light shone on the roof tops against a dark sky.

Visit to M Graham and a Watercolor Palette

A visit to M Graham factory reconfirmed our commitment to their watercolor paints. Eight employees work in a converted chicken coop, cinder block building. They mix one or two batches of paint a day and fill about 600 tubes. They make acrylics, oils, gouaches and watercolors as close to 18th and 19th Century paints as possible with natural materials. The use of honey, which they purchase locally, in the watercolors keeps them from drying out and caking. The "Biggies" use corn syrup. Tests show that M Graham colors contain more pigment. They don't have a large marketing budget and have very little overhead. All employees receive health insurance, other benefits and have purchased their own homes. Their philosophy is to make the highest quality paints. They showed us research techniques and color comparisons to other manufactures' paints. It would be incredible to see more small businesses like this one in the US. They sure impressed us.

You can purchase a mini-travel palette from I've Been Framed that is Altoid-size, already has six pans for paints on each side for $9.95. Cynthia Mooney told me in her Art Journal Sketchbook classes about this palette and the M Graham watercolors which work very well in a travel art kit.

Last week, our sketch group met downtown at Powell's Books. I wanted to practice gesture drawing of people. I can see that more practice is in order here.

Colorful Leaves, Value Study & Craft Fair

Playing with leaves and paint creates many different images. Here many layers of leaves were printed, stenciled and traced. To make the lines on the sides, I used a cork wrapped with a rubberband, added paint and rolled it onto the paper. Imagine what you could create with different sized rubberbands. This color palette is one of my favorites- French ultramarine blue, burnt sienna and quinacridone gold. I'm going to press & preserve these leaves in a phone book to use during the year.

Using the French ultramarine blue and burnt sienna, this value study was fun to make drawing trees one behind the other and painting the negative spaces with progressively darker mixes of watercolor.

The Clackamas County Arts & Craft Fair offered me the opportunity to share and sell some of my art. My Grandma Pearson made the beautiful quilt when she was in her 90's. I felt her presence with me all day. She taught me how to knit and crochet along with many other life lessons. I enjoyed the expereince, seeing former coworkers and meeting other artists. Plus, I met my goal in sales.

New Work and Autumn Blessings

This fall I'll be in two shows. The first is the Clackamas County Craft Fair at the Public Service Building, 2051 Kaen Road, Oregon City on Friday, November 2nd 9am to 6pm. The second is the Portland Art Collective Show at the Multnomah Arts Center on Friday and Saturday, December 7th and 8th. My monotype prints will be on display and for sale. This summer, I took classes and an open studio with Marcy Baker. Adding my drawings into the prints with chine collé really makes them sing. It's very exciting to share this body of work with all of you.

I took my summer floral sketches and monotypes and made charms out of them.

An afternoon walk at the Leach Botanical Garden made me appreciate the change of seasons. We're fortunate in the Northwest to have long autumns.

Here's another nature journaling exercise with fall leaves. On my walk one morning last week, I picked up leaves, put them in a plastic bag, came home and marveled at all their variety in shape, size and color with pen and paint.

Art & Soul 2007

Art & Soul just completed a week of classes and fun at the Embassy Suites near PDX. I enjoyed seeing friends and teachers from all over the U.S. plus take a few workshops. The creativity of this group always amazes and inspires me.

My goal this year is to improve my drawing skills. Barbara Roth taught the class 'U Can Draw'.

For fun Sunday night, I took Barbara Matthiessen's class. We drew blind self-portraits. We laughed at our picasso-esque renderings.

One day, I cashiered in the Art & Soul Store. The afternoon was very quiet so I had time to sketch Lorna's vintage ephemera and other goods.

Yesterday, I took another workshop from Barbara Roth. We drew and painted postcards with watercolor. These will be great momentos to send home from future travel adventures. Life would not be the same without all of my wonderful art friends. Each one gives to me so much. Thank you to all!