Nature Journal Sketches from Vacation

Leaving the arctic cold at home and flying to Florida's warmth brought opportunities to see fresh foliage and wildlife.  

I snapped lots of photos while there.  Back at home, I have enjoyed recording the experience in my nature journal.

It's been uplifting to see the bright colors and vibrancy in these Florida scenes. 

Sketching from our vacation photos gives us opportunities to relive a favorite experience and to practice making art. I hope you'll dig out some favorite photos of warmer times and make some art with them.

Happy Creating!

The Love of Tiny Things in Nature

I find myself drawn to the tiny things in nature like small flowers, acorns, insects, & fungi. 

I spotted these beautiful shelf fungi on a recent walk through the Widlflower Reserve at Raccoon Creek State Park and snapped photos with my phone.

Back in the studio, I made a light pencil sketch on a piece of watercolor paper, using the photo above for a reference.  I added layers of washes.  After the first washes were dry, I added some pen and ink marks with my fountain pen

I added more watercolor details using a small round brush.  And, I used a bit of white gouache for highlights here and there.

I finished the 5"x 7" painting with a few colored pencil details.

Realizing that tiny things inspire me helps me to focus my art on the things I love.  

I enjoy hiking in the park, snapping reference photos.  The paintings I make back at home feel like a celebration of my time in nature.  They capture a memory of a place I love.

What do you love?  What inspires you? 

I hope you paint or sketch it to deepen your enjoyment of it.

Happy Creating!

Spring Nature Journal: Song Sparrows, Slugs & Foxgloves

A quiet, rainy day may not seem like a day you could make lots of observations in your nature journal, but you never know what show the earth has in store for you!

 A Song Sparrow just outside your window ...

Flowers blooming off your front porch ...

Even a slug streaming across your front stoop!

Nature puts on a show all day, every day, and your ticket to the show is simply taking the time to sit and watch.  Having a nature journal deepens your connection, and lets you take in more details than simply snapping a photo with your phone and moving on.

I hope you take the time this week to "buy a ticket" to nature's show this week and make some observations in your journal!

Happy Creating!

Copyright Betsy Bangley 2024. All rights reserved.

Nature Journaling Surprises

I have a window right next to my studio worktable, where I sit and drink tea in the mornings.  

Sometimes, a wild visitor shows up unexpectedly, and I reach for my nature journal to take in the creature's beauty.  

Nature journals allow us to deepen our experience in those magical moments when an animal gets close to us.  A quick sketch -- finished later -- records the experience, and we can return years later to remember that brief moment of connection with nature.

I started with blind contour drawings -- just watching the bird and letting my pen follow on the paper.  I didn't look at the journal page while I drew, so things didn't line up quite right.  Later, looking at images online of mockingbirds helped me to finish these sketches with colored pencils.

Wishing you many happy connections with nature!

Copyright Betsy Bangley 2024.  All rights reserved.

Care December: Gratitude

Today's Care December prompt involved thinking of the people that make us feel loved and the places that make us feel at home, and feeling gratitude for them. 

I began with this page spread, and picked out some paper bits that made me think of my best friend.  Just the thought of her makes me feel loved and grateful.

I collaged on a stamp -- my BFF and I write lots of letters -- and some tea-stained papers because we love drinking tea and chatting for hours.

A variety of acrylic paint colors added their brilliance.

After the acrylic dried, I painted on a layer of clear gesso so I could easily draw with colored pencils.

A heart with two teacups finished the pages for me.

I hope you'll join Kasia Avery's Care December, too,

and take some self care art time this week to create something just for your own joy.

Happy Creating!

Copyright 2023 Betsy Bangley. All rights reserved.

Care December: What Makes You Feel Joyful & Fluid?

I've been taking Kasia Avery's online art journaling course, Care December, at my own pace.  I love that I can have days that I jump right in and follow the prompt, 

and days that I take time off and save the session until I can savor it. 

Today's prompt invited us to think about what makes us feel relaxed, fluid and joyful.  

We used string and blue ink, and I luckily had some of both, 

from the Pittsburgh Center for Creative Reuse.

We dunked the string in the ink bottle, then flopped the inky string on the page, closed the journal and pulled the string slowly out.

I love the wispy, swirly lines that this technique creates.

The designs looked like the engraved drawings of seashells found in vintage science books. 

Relaxing by the ocean is one of the things that makes me feel fluid and joyful, so I kept the "seashell" marks and added ink washes & colored pencil lines around them.

  

The blue, Serendipity ink ($2 at PCCR) has lovely, shimmery qualities when it dries, 

and looks red in the photo.

Interestingly, I bought the white Prismacolor pencil at the PCCR, too. 

If you haven't joined in Care December yet, there's still time to participate!

Even if you read this post long after December 2023, you can still find the course on Kasia's website.

I hope you take some time to make some art just for joy, just for yourself -- For self-care!

Copyright 2023 Betsy Bangley. All rights reserved.

 

Travel Journal Practice

I'm preparing for a vacation in England, and have been Googling little towns south of London.  

A photo of this mill in Winchester caught my eye, and I sketched it in colored pencils, and added Neocolor II watercolor crayons to bump up the color in a few places.

Below is the first layer of the drawing, using Faber Castell Polychromos colored pencils.

I have been selecting the art supplies I want to take with me on my journey, and I realize that my tiny Winsor & Newton watercolor palette at 2.5"x 5"x .5" packs a lot of color into a small box.

As much as I love my Neocolor II crayons, they take up more space and complicate my kit. When I compare them with what my watercolors can do, I love the transparency and vibrancy of my Winsor & Newton watercolors.  I'm going to leave the watercolor crayons at home.

Whether you are traveling the globe or armchair traveling, I hope you'll take the time to make a travel journal. It's a wonderful way to document the journeys of your life, to slow down & enjoy the moment.  All while building your drawing skills.

Happy journaling!

A Private Session with Model David

I recently had the privilege of drawing David at a private session. 

I used a variety of different drawing media, selecting whatever looked like fun at the beginning of each pose, from colored pencils, to graphite, to ink pens, an ink brush pen, and even watercolors.

The session began with a series of 1-minute gestures.

During the 2-minute gestures, David used a bright fabric flag on a staff as a prop.

We moved on to 5-minute poses, and I was able to add complexity to my drawings.

The short gestures helped me to warm up, and the 10-minute poses felt extravagantly long.

We finished with some 15-minute poses, including one with a bag of snack food.

I'm grateful to David for his creativity in presenting these beautiful poses.

 I got a new set of Faber Castell Polychromos colored pencils for the Pet Portraits in Colored Pencils class at the Community College of Beaver County.

One of the easiest ways to drop into creative mode, I find is to simply test out your new supplies by making a chart with the name of each color and a sample of that color. This process of swatching shows you exactly what color each pencil or paint type is.  

Now that you are familiar with your new supplies, ideas pop up for sketchbook projects.  In my case, the daylilies were blooming right off the front porch where I sat in the late afternoon sun.

I hope you'll try swatching your art supplies.  Perhaps you have some colored pencils or watercolors, or a set of markers.  Testing them out can be your entryway into creativity!

Portrait of a Kitten

I recently taught a Pet Portraits in Colored Pencil course at 

the Community College of Beaver County.  

As a demonstration, I used the photograph below to create the drawing above.

A high quality photograph is the best reference to have, so references like this Life magazine will give you a great start.  Because photos like this are copyrighted, you can't sell your resulting artworks, but they are very helpful to use when you are practicing.

I started with a graphite sketch, then erased most of the graphite marks, and began adding in the colors swatched along the left side of the drawing.

I started with the eyes, as I find that they are the most important feature in a portrait.  If you get the eyes right, and give the idea of the other facial features, with loose lines for the fur, 

the viewer's eye fills in the rest.

If you'd like to practice drawing animals from high quality photos, 

check out my Pet Portraits in Colored Pencil page here: 

https://betsyblissart.blogspot.com/p/pet-portraits-in-colored-pencil.html

I hope you have fun drawing these beautiful animal friends!

Pet Portraits Update

Following that quiet little voice of my intuition, I finished my drawing of my friend Brad's cat Sedona using wild colors and active lines.  

During last week's class, I invited my students to use toned paper. Below is a class demonstration I created using Strathmore Toned Tan drawing paper and Cezanne colored pencils.  The tan paper fills in the midtones, so you can focus on adding the light values, the darker values and a bit of color to quickly create a portrait!

If you are interested in taking a class with me, you can find the most updated list here: https://betsyblissart.blogspot.com/p/online-art-classes.html 

I hope to see you in a future class!