Weekly Planner: Spray Ink & Stamps

Shopping for class materials at Michael's I found the clearance section and scored a 3-pack of Ranger Distress Oxide Spray for half price.  I love the antique paper look they create. My weekly planner is a great place to test out new supplies, so I spritzed on some Vintage Photo and added a dash of Walnut Stain.

When the ink dried, I stamped in the days of the week and dates with a little alphabet stamp kit I bought years ago.  The page still needed a bit of decoration, so I used a few hand-carved eraser and cork stamps I made years ago.

What supplies would you like to test out?  Having a weekly planner or even a sketchbook where you allow yourself to experiment with no expectations is a great way to relax and make new creative discoveries.

Happy Creating! 

Spring Cleaning & Inspiration

I've been spring cleaning of late, turning out boxes, baskets, even entire closets of stuff, and sorting out what no longer serves me.  It's a beautiful feeling to refresh our spaces just as the warmer weather arrives.

And my work turned up this little slip of wrapping paper from a gift someone gave me.  I loved the loose, playful watercolor design!

It inspired me to create a 5" x 7" card, just for fun.

May your next tidy up yield some inspiration for a creative project!

Happy Creating!

Nature Journal: Coltsfoot is Blooming!

A stroll on a sunny, almost-spring day turned up an unexpected Coltsfoot bloom (Tussilago farfara).  I snapped a photo of the flower and painted a sketch of it in my nature journal later.  

The time I spent walking was good exercise and uplifting to my spirit.  The time I spent painting felt like a meditation on the beauty of nature and the change of seasons.

The first blooms of the warming weather are all the more special after the months of cold and snow.  Giving yourself time to sketch or paint these beauties is a wonderful way to celebrate spring's renewal.

Happy Spring and Happy Creating!

Spring Flower Inspiration

A walk through the greenhouse at The Frick lifted my winter weary spirits and inspired me to paint.

Though I didn't have my paints with me in the moment, I snapped a few photos with my phone and made this watercolor sketch at home later.

Admiring blooms and playing with color always raises my mood.

What do you love to look at?  Does it lift your spirits to draw or paint those things?  

Give it a try!

Happy Creating!

Storytelling with Model Elizabeth

Our Osher Figure Drawing class was fortunate to have model Elizabeth as our collaborator in artful storytelling in our most recent class.

We looked at the art of John William Waterhouse (1849-1917), a British Pre-Raphaelite painter whose artwork took myths, the poetry of Keats and stories of contemporary authors as their subjects.  His work was rich with detail and color.  We set out in class to tell our own stories with studies of Elizabeth's elegant poses.

We began with 2 minute gestures.

In each pose, I could imagine a story being told of picking fruit from an apple tree,

or of listening dreamily to a story being told.

Perhaps now she was reaching into a pond for a magical crystal.

Here, she seemed to be admiring a lover or watching the stars.

And now, she was being coy with her fan at a party.

We moved on to a long pose, and took the first 4 minutes to create a quick gesture of that pose to help us in composing our drawings.

Elizabeth held a silk rose to her breast and several more draped at her feet.

For my final drawing, I imagined Elizabeth dreaming of her true love in a rose garden, escaping the summer heat in a shady patch on tasselled brocade pillows.

Isn't it amazing how we can infer a story from another person's posture?  

Elizabeth's imagination and elegance swept the class away into a land of stories and creativity.

Many thanks to our inspiring model, Elizabeth!

Figure Drawing with Model Ryan

For our second Osher Figure Drawing class, I brought in India ink, brushes and dip pens to play with sketching the figure in ink.  The challenge of ink, of course, is that you can't erase anything.  But this is also the beauty of ink.  It pushes you to commit to the strokes and marks you put down.  I find that facet freeing.

Our theme for the class was "Men at Work," so our model Ryan held gesture poses representing hoeing a garden...

...lifting blocks...

... and carrying them to build a wall.

In his last gesture pose, I imagined Ryan as a shepherd watching over his sheep from the shade of a tree. I added the background details after class.

In his long, seated pose, I found that being pushed to commit to marks made my process much faster, so I had extra time.

I took the opportunity to practice drawing Ryan's hand in light and shadow with a water-soluble pencil. I love the combination of being able to draw details and move the pigment with a brush.

Many thanks to model Ryan for his "Men at Work" poses!

Figure Drawing with Model Tiffany

We kicked off a new semester of figure drawing at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at CMU with model Tiffany.

Her beautiful poses got us back into the flow of drawing with a series of gestures.

We began by turning our charcoals on their sides and drawing with big, swoopy marks and lines.

We changed to a more abstract approach, and created 5-line drawings, allowing ourselves only 5 lines to tell the story of Tiffany's pose.

Like a Haiku poem, the limitation of lines forced each artist to find the most expressive marks possible.

At first, my 5-line drawings felt inept and childish, but soon a flow took over, and I really liked this final one.

All of these gestures prepared us for a beautiful long pose.

Having an inspiring model makes all the difference in the world, and Tiffany's poses swept us away into the joy of drawing an expressive figure.  Many thanks to model Tiffany!