Yesterday my mom, sister and I went to Old Sturbridge Village because they were giving free admission to all mothers. It was a nice afternoon and we saved $75.
The gazebo in the herb garden.
Some unfired pottery.
I always wanted a canopy bed as a kid.
Looking out the window in the "rich people's house."
The pond and covered bridge.
I haven’t been there in twenty years and it was just as I remembered it. I left with lots of potential reference photos and the general impression that I was born in the wrong century.
“right now” staying focused on the present, mindful and in the moment, an image from the week, with no words or a few words, that acknowledges the “right now.” Inspired by Ann.
I haven’t done anything in straight pen and ink for a long time so I decided to give it a try again. Pen and ink is a real challenge for me because I struggle with adding too much detail. I really love detail, but I can carry it too far at times. I don’t ever remember doing a landscape like this in ink before–I wanted to show the different “layers” of trees and ground. I’d like to try a similar landscape, only draw it more simply next time. It was a lot of fun to draw for sure.
The scene depicts the view from Fox Hill in Bernardston, Massachusetts. Bernardston is a small town in a very out of the way part of the state. I love it there! It was the same place that I spotted the pheasant.
Here is my finished colored pencil piece. I used Derwent Coloursofts and some Prismacolors. I did this for the Virtual Paintout (St Petersburg) so I’m glad I finished it before the end of the month! I ended up cropping some of the bottom off, which makes it an odd size, but I think it improves the overall impression.
I have always thought of Russia as a very beautiful country. When I had tendinitis, I listened to Anna Karenina on cd (unabridged, all 20 discs). There was a lot of wordy language describing the countryside, and I guess it had an impression on me.
I spent another few hours on my landscape, this time concentrating on the sky. The sky is the most dramatic part of this picture, and I want to finish it up before moving onto the rest of it.
“right now” staying focused on the present, mindful and in the moment, an image from the week, with no words or a few words, that acknowledges the “right now.” Inspired by Ann.
This morning I took out some colored paper and did a little sketching with my Derwent Coloursofts. It’s kind of fun to work on the colored paper and I think I will try out more of this in the future. (This photo was taken in dim lighting, so the colors aren’t very accurate.)
Colored pencils have been more appealing to me lately because they are non-toxic and very portable. The negative is that I can only do a small amount at a time because it tends to irritate my wrist and arm. These days I have to work slowly anyway though, because I get interrupted with baby duties often. In the next few years, I can see myself doing more colored pencil than watercolor.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my personality and how I am nothing like the stereotypical “artist personality.” I took a Myers-Briggs test and I came back as ISTJ (introvert, sensing, thinking, judging). I am very serious and organized. I am ultra-dependable. I see things in black and white and I have a need to follow the rules (sometimes too rigidly!). I love my personality, but sometimes I can get too intense and that’s why I love art so much, because it lets me “depressurize” myself.
The drawing is based on an old photo of a stream taken while crossing over a bridge. I believe it was in Northern Italy. I drew it the other night after Cate had gone to sleep. She has been going to bed around seven o’clock every night so I have some extra time in the evenings these days.
I had a Pinterest account, and pinned things to it here and there, but I was never a heavy user. I recently decided to delete my account altogether though, as well as add the no pin meta tag to my site and disable pinning on flickr. I have been seeing countless articles online about how bad their TOS is regarding copyright issues and I was disheartened when I read it for myself. I am a great respecter of copyright and don’t want to associate myself with any service that facilitates theft. Although it is an interesting concept for a social media site, I’m not willing to spend time requesting permission from other people to pin their content. While some people are okay with linking to the original source and giving credit, logically this is not enough for me. For now, if I have interesting things to show you, I will just link to them the old fashioned way.
The above image was a practice sketch I made for the October 2010 Virtual Paintout. I never posted it anywhere though, until now.
