Spring is here at last

Last weekend, I went to a lovely vacation spot near Guerneville, in northern California. We ate, and drew, and discovered wildflowers growing under the redwoods. I spent a ton of time on this pencil drawing of wildflowers, even though it doesn't look like it.

Today, I went out with the plein air painters to a local nursery (same one we visited last month). Lots more flowers were blooming today. I painted two quick cards and one watercolor painting of an old shed in the back area of the nursery.

Knit Happens items are now available for purchase

I finally set up a Cafe Press store where you can buy Knit Happens items like a tote bag, coffee travel mug, set of coffee cups, and a water bottle. Here is the link:

http://www.cafepress.com/coastsideknits

Another view of Mavericks

What gorgeous weather we are having! Warm, sunny, not too windy. This morning I spent two hours painting this scene of Maverick's, the famous surf spot. This is the path that leads to the big waves, they are on the other side of the big cliff in the distance.

Maverick's parking lot painting

Today, I went out to the harbor near Maverick's (famous surf spot) with the plein air painters. You can see a snapshot of me, sitting in the parking lot painting, and the watercolor I did there. Also, the last Botanical Art class in SF was yesterday, so here are the drawings I did. The two that look similar are both the same dried fern leaf, done in pencil on different colored papers. The pine cone, dried leaf and dried seed pod were my "warm up" ink sketches.

Thistles and cactus

In botanical art class, we drew dried thistles. I did an ink sketch first, then we tried colored pencils. Due to rain, the local plein air group met at a member's home today. I brought along the cactus watercolor that I started about two months ago. It's finally finished!

Drawing miner's thrift

In botanical art class today, the teacher brought in real plants (recently dug up) of "miner's thrift", a wild lettuce-type plant. I did a preliminary drawing of a single leaf (right side of photo) and a larger study of the whole plant (left). The top picture is my ink sketches, a rock with interesting holes that I brought to class, and some small shells that the teacher provided.

Five more drawings

Two more new drawings I did today (another piece of ginger and some dried leaves with mini cones), plus the three "upside down" drawings I did last week at the nursery.

Flora Farm sketches

I have three more images to show you, but blogger insists on posting them upside down, even though they are right-side up on my computer. Oh well. I just drew the dried flower head, and the flower sketches were done in the Half Moon Bay nursery earlier this week.

Ginger and feathers

This week, we brought some ginger root to class to draw. Our teacher supplied the feathers, and taught us her "embossing" technique to make the very fine white lines. First, draw the lines with a very hard pencil (6H, as I recall), pressing down to make grooves in the soft paper. Then shade over the lines with a much softer pencil. Even though the lines were drawn with pencil, they appear white when the paper around them is shaded. Fun and easy!

botanical pencil drawings

This week in botanical art class, we drew "toyon", which is a common shrub with smooth green leaves and red berries. My first ink sketch was not very good, but I did a better job on the pencil drawing. We also got to spend some time in the Helen Crocker Russell Library of Horticulture in the San Francisco Botanical Garden. I did the other sketch, of some seed pods, in the fall botanical art class.

Pierre Noire pencils

I discovered a new art tool that I really love. Pierre Noire pencils are compressed charcoal/clay (I think). They are big fat pencils that are soft enough so you can smudge them easily. I drew the outline of this dried weed with a brown fineline marker, then added shading with the Pierre Noire pencils in two shades of brown. Very easy and fast!

knit happens logo design

This is the new logo for our Thursday night knitting group. We plan to order nylon bags with this logo printed on them. The bags will be black and the logo will be turquoise (not red, as it is shown here).

We need to order a minimum of 25 bags and would like to get your order prepaid as soon as possible. The site where you can see the bags is Advance Custom Promotions.

Foetid iris and other lovely things

Sunday, I finished the pencil and ink drawing of a dried flower pod with red berries that I found in a San Mateo garden last month. I brought it to my botanical art class and the teacher knew what it was: foetid iris. Online, I found an image of an old botanical print of the same plant. In class, we drew clothespins as a warmup exercise, went into the garden to examine leaves, and then did several sketches of the same leaf.

Palo Alto Sketching

Today, my daughter and I went to the Palo Alto Art Center, where we drew from a live model. They have these sessions twice a week and the drop-in fee is only $7. The sketches you see here are pencil, we stayed for about an hour. The model took breaks but always went back to the same pose, and there was no room to move around the room for different angles, so it got a bit boring. But I'm glad we checked it out.

More plein air shots

Here I am, sitting on a bench in an indoor shopping mall near the Half Moon Bay harbor, painting in my sketchbook. You can see my very complex set-up, with a small travel paintbox balanced on my leg and a bottle of water in my left hand. The other photo shows the shop window with the orchid that you can see on the left-hand page of in the same sketchbook. On the same day, I also painted the watercolor of green plants that is shown in my last blog post.

Quick update

I have been busy, really! But someone borrowed my camera so I have not taken many pictures recently. Here are a couple of watercolor and ink sketches I did with the plein air group. Hope to do a lot more next year!

I'm a sketching fool

I did all of these sketches, except the unfinished eucalyptus leaves at the top, at last week's plein air group. From top to bottom: a colored pencil drawing of eucalyptus leaves that I started today during my local "saturday painters" group, using some leaves that I found in the community garden. Next is a pencil sketch of a scarecrow. Below that: me, working hard in the community garden (drawing, not gardening). Next, corn stalks drawn in fine-tipped sepia marker. Last, a partially shaded-in pencil drawing of an artichoke plant.

Another plein air outing

Last week, the plein air painters met at a small community garden in El Granada. After a couple of hours, we set up our work in a wooden table there. My color pencil sketches are on the right (back row). I'm trying to learn how to do layering as my botanical art teacher has explained it, this is not easy.

Tree tunnel

You can see why I call this the "tree tunnel." It's the same place I sketched last week, only this time I concentrated on a wonderful avenue of bent-over trees. The photo shows the view that I drew in my ink pen sketch.

Weekend fun

Here I am last week, sketching in the shade of big gnarled trees near the beach. I broke off a small branch of one of the trees that had a lot of interesting round pinecones on it, and brought it home to sketch later. You can see my efforts in the second photo.