There is no fatigue so wearisome as that which comes from lack of work. -Charles H Spurgeon
I painted these roses back in July, when I had more energy and when my life felt completely different. These days I am exhausted, mostly because I am in my last few weeks of pregnancy. Apparently, I have a free pass to take it easy according to my family, but I can’t help but feel a little guilty. I did finish up my large handbook sketchbook and have started on another one. So far, all I’ve done are small black ink sketches, although I’m hoping to drag out the watercolors and have a go at them soon.
The other day I sat outside to draw these beautiful lilies. Unfortunately, it was much too hot for me and I was harassed by bees. I did finish my drawing, but I felt rushed. I added the watercolor later, indoors.
As promised in my last post, here are my thoughts on the Noodler’s Inks that I recently purchased. I bought the Lexington Gray and the Bulletproof Black, both of which claim to be waterproof. Here are my conclusions:
I really love the Lexington Gray and think that this will be the main ink that I’m going to be using. It looks almost black, especially when I use a lot of flex, and it is really waterproof.
The Bulletproof Black is advertised to be waterproof on cellulose. Apparently my watercolor moleskine is not the correct paper because the ink did not want to “soak in” or even dry quickly. I actually even smeared some parts when I accidentally dragged my hand through the wet ink (I tried to cover it up).
When I went over it with a watercolor wash after several minutes of drying time, the ink proved to be water-soluble, especially on the parts that had more ink. You can see this on parts of the tree bark in my drawing above. The watercolor moleskine is the only paper that I have tested it on so far, but I have a feeling that any watercolor paper is not going to work with this ink because of the sizing.
I have read similar complaints about this ink elsewhere, so I had my suspicions from the start. People really love Platinum Carbon Black ink, but I was wary because of warnings that it might clog the pen without frequent use and a lot of maintenance. For now, I will only use the Bulletproof Black for drawings not involving watercolor and I will use the Lexington Gray for my pen and wash drawings.
This past weekend I went outside and attempted nature sketching again. I am trying not to expose myself to a lot of chemicals, which makes repelling mosquitoes kind of difficult. I read somewhere that mosquitoes do not like the smell of vanilla, so I tried using some vanilla perfume that I have from the Body Shop. It seemed to work well because I did not get any bites while I was out (about 45 minutes). It also was not a windy day, so I know it wasn’t the wind that was keeping them away. I also read that mosquitoes are repelled by Listerine sprayed on the ground in a little spray bottle, so I will try this if the vanilla thing starts to fail me.
About halfway through May I quit my drawing project, because I got bored with it and wanted to do my own thing. I realize now that I don’t like being “told” what to draw. Instead, I started a new watercolor floral painting. I’m still working on it, but I might not post it because I’m not sure if I like the progress thus far. The plus side is that I spent quite a bit of time making a preliminary line drawing and working out the composition, SO if it comes out horrible I will still be able to start over again on a fresh piece of watercolor paper.
Here are some other random pages from my sketchbooks (with my remarks) to show you in the meantime. Yesterday, I also posted this sketch of a rhododendron blossom on Sketching in Nature.
I sketched this dried up tulip (below) and chatted with my husband as he changed the oil and the brake pads on my car.
This morning I tried to go outside to do some sketching, but the mosquitoes were too much so I had to come inside early. I don’t think I can go out again until I pick up some bug spray.
On my way inside I picked up this flower sprig and sketched it indoors. It came from a large tree covered in these purple blossoms. I have no idea what it is called though.
Today is the first time in over a week that I have sat down to do any sketching. I am taking full responsibility for my lapse, as I’ve done a terrible job with self discipline these days. Starting today, I hope I’ll be able to make the sketching habit stick again.
I made this sketch last night while thinking about how nice it would be for the snow to start melting soon! Over the past few days, I have been doing some watercolor and colored pencil paintings, but I want to look them over some more before posting.
Yesterday, I did some cleaning up of my work online by deleting two of my old blogs dating back to 2005. I know that nothing is gone forever once posted online, but it felt good to purge some things from the past that I don’t necessarily want to revisit. Plus, most of the traffic was from bots and Google image searches. I also had a number of images ripped off or used for hot-linking. I am not planning on deleting anything on this blog, but I am also more thoughtful about what I post these days.
I still have my work archived on flickr, but I am considering making some of those images private. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how I am representing myself and I don’t see the value of having a lot of older and lower quality work available for public viewing.
Do you edit your portfolio from time to time to remove work that doesn’t represent you any longer? I would love to hear what you think.
Today is the last day of my month long projects of Art Every Day Month and NaNoDrawMo. I am happy to report that I have completed fifty drawings/paintings and have made artwork on the vast majority of days this month. I almost didn’t finish because I have caught my mother’s cold and was sick in bed yesterday and most of today. But I managed to make ten small ink drawings today to finish it off.
I am so thankful for all the kind and encouraging comments I’ve gotten throughout the month. It has been so incredibly successful for me that I am a little sad to see it end. I hope that my momentum will allow me to have a successful December and start of 2011.
My plans for December are to slow down with my posting (probably twice a week) but to maintain my same productivity. This will allow me to work on a few projects that I want to keep secret until after Christmas and also to build up a reserve of work for future posting. Michael Nobbs wrote an interesting post on this recently where he outlined his “catch-up” goals and how he plans to accomplish them. I’m not sure if I have the discipline to make this work, because I find that I make more when I put pressure on myself to post often. So this is a bit of an experiment for me as well.
There is nothing more difficult for a truly creative painter than to paint a rose, because before he can do so, he has first to forget all the roses that were ever painted. -Henri Matisse
While I’m thinking about Matisse, I thought I’d post some links:
I’ve been doing a lot of little watercolors lately, mainly because I am trying to use up this certain sketchbook that I bought as an experiment. I have a long way to go, but I am really unhappy with the paper in it, so I just want to burn through the pages. It is made by Art Alternatives and it is made to look like a moleskine knockoff (it has the similar black cover and elastic band with the little pocket in the back). It is labeled as being for pen and ink and watercolor, but the paper only holds up to very light washes. Besides extreme buckling, the surface of the paper also starts to break apart when you use a lot of water. In my older watercolor sketchbooks, I used to tape off sections of the page because I like crisp edges, but this paper tears when the tape is removed. I’m thinking of trying out just pen or marker on it to see if the paper holds up better. I have a Moleskine watercolor book to start when this one is finished, so we will see how it compares.
Edited to add: If you read the below comments, you can see that the book I have is apparently not intended for watercolor (only very light washes) and the wording on their packaging has since changed. Once I finish up the books I already have I might try out their regular watercolor book, because Moleskines are really too expensive for me to justify buying regularly.
