Finally Finished

Well I haven't had much time to draw, I have been trying to finish this quilt before a show deadline. I did it! Yippee! I am so done, I struggled with the size of the quilt and manuvering it through my machine to quilt it, wow, how I like small quilts better! My arms just burned as I tried to keep it rolled up as I shoved it through that small hole in the machine. It ended up being close to 80"x49". I just don't see how they quilt those quilts that are 8 -10 feet long, wow, I admire the people who are doing that size of quilt. I know that when I took Velda's class her newest quilt is 12 feet long. That is some big quilt. Well here it is, comments are welcome.

Our sketchcrawl at the Mission at San Juan Capistrano

My friend Susan and I went to the San Juan Capistrano Mission with the Southern California sketchcrawl group. I had such a good time but wish I had gotten to visit with more people. There was such a good turn out,about 20 people, that we only chatted with the people sitting next to us at lunch. I want to get to know everyone better next time, what a great group of people. The weather was great and at lunch we all passed around our sketch books to share. What a perfect day, after lunch Susan and I went back to the Mission and took a bunch of pictures, I will share later. In one of the fountains there were beautiful water lilies that were blooming in the most wonderful colors. Yellows, purples, pinks with big koi swimming under them. Here are a few of the drawings/paintings I quickly did. Thanks Jane, for setting this up, what a successful crawl you orchestrated.

Another update

Here is the piece to this point, I am still struggling with the horizon line and figuring out what I should put there. I would like the get this one finished so that I can start the next in a series of three.

Colored Pencil update

After seeing how far I had actually gotten I thought I should go ahead and scan in the drawing. Who knows the next step could ruin it. I always feel like I am one step from disaster since its hard to correct any mistakes here. But so far so good, and I am pleased with the progress. Unfortunately, my scanner cuts off her other leg. I do learn alot when I scan the picture and put it on the computer, the different angle and view helps me identify problem spots. Like right now, to me, the horse's chest looks a bit narrow, so I may have to make it wider. I will have to look at my photo first. Comments always very much appreciated.

Colored Pencil of my granddaughter on horseback

I am really trying to fit it all in these days. I know I have to be HDHDS, whatever they call it, I have a million projects I am jumping around on and never think twice about excepting more. Need to get a reality check and focus so I can wrap a few up. I am working on a huge quilt that I hope to enter into Houston, it was my goal this year to at least submit something and the one I was going to submit I can't, so I am trying to make a new one. But inbetween, when I am just sick of looking at fabric, I not only am sketching but working on getting to know colored pencils better. I am working on this picture of Kylie, my granddaughter, taking her riding lesson. She is riding the cutest bay Arab and I just love them together. I am a bit farther these days but thought I would post this early scan of it and I will post either another update or the finished drawing next.

Drawing in public

Well I had my yearly womenly doctors appointment. You know the ones where you get assaulted and have to pay for it. Well the waiting room is always full of moms, and kids and pregnant moms-be so I took along my sketching book. I knew the wait would be long so it was a great opportunity to draw people. The hardest part about drawing people in a small room when everyone is sitting in a big circle looking at each other is to not let them know I am drawing them. I have been getting better at looking harder and better so I don't have to look up as often. There were a group of kids in the waiting room, the one boy kept getting in trouble for not staying in his seat. His mom would scold him and he would sit still for about 15 seconds and then his spine would turn to jello and he would slither out of his chair, going under the arm and into the one next to them. It was funny watching her try and keep him corraled. The next set of kids were brother and sister, waiting for their mom with their grandma. The young girl kept trying to be the mom but the grandma had the final word. The little boy would pull away from the grandma and say "Where mommy go?" and the grandma would say "Shes coming" and then she would say "Come here" and he would say "NO!" and the whole conversation would start again. It repeated itself about 40 times before the nurse came out and put on a movie and saved the day for the grandma who was trying her best to keep him in line. LOL, the good ole days.

WC Weekly challenge- dogwood

One of the members posted pictures of her mother's dogwood that is in full bloom. She took several pictures and posted them for us to draw this week. It was a great study in value and negative spaces. I am really pleased with the results, I did it with mechanical pencil in my sketchbook. Where I live we can not grow dogwoods so I envy those who can. I have tried several times, I order them from a catalog and this tiny little twig arrives. I spend the next few months babying this thing in hopes it will grow, but I haven't managed to get one to survive a full season. Its just not a Southern California (desert) plant!

Another WC weekly challenge

I loved the challenge picture this week, I hope to get a chance to redo it in color. I did the sketch after the zoo on Saturdays sketch crawl. I love the idea of capturing the reflections in glass since color shows up and is distorted. I haven't done much of them but admire those who do and want to attempt drawing it more often.

Sketch Crawl at the Zoo

We had a great day today sketching with everyone. It was so nice to meet new people and just hang out. Although I think the zoo was disappointing the animals were very accommodating by keeping their movements to a minimum so we could draw them. The enclosures posed there own problem by limiting our view at times and we had to stand to draw. I took some great pictures which I plan on turning into paintings or more refined sketches. The flamingos were beautiful, bright oranges and soft coral pinks. They looked like someone took spray paint to them. Randy and Jennifer and I all talked about how poor the animals habitates were and how it was like going to a small town zoo where there was no budget for a real zoo, in LA! Shame on Los Angeles, it should be a top of the line facility. But it was a great day with some great people and most of the animals had babies which are always great for sketching. We have another sketchcrawl in a few weeks and I am hoping to make that one too. I really enjoy the time to just concentrate on drawing and visiting with fellow artist!

EDM #65 Noses

Here are the noses living in my house, the exception is my grandsons nose at the bottom. I also journaled everyones favorite smells. I will do the rest of my family as they come over to visit and write down their favorite things too. It was a fun study.

Another Colored Pencil

I am trying to keep practicing on my colored pencil. I am working on a friends daughter. The original sketch I noticed the mouth was too small so I made some adjustments. Everyone who has seen it says it looks more like her but I may have to start over. Its all good when its a learning process. The scan really over exposes the drawing, it is not so bright in person.

New Watercolor postcard

I traded watercolor postcards with a girl in Canada, she sent me a horse and I am sending her a cat. They are really small paintings that are mailed in envelopes. They don't send them through the mail to be stamped by the postoffice. I think I like it when they do that although you do run the risk of damage to the artwork. I sent out 26 fiber postcards and all went through the mail perfectly. Only one had any damage of any kind. This painting is a watercolor, 6"x 9".

Final colored pencil drawing

This is the third post in the series of my progressive application of a color pencil technique. Scroll down to the first post to see how the picture started and progresses, its interesting although I am just really beginning in colored pencils. Here is Nathan's picture finished. I don't like the skin tones at all so I will do another one but thought I would share in the learning process. I will have to change computers to post the photo I took and used as a reference. He really was trying to eat that big green plastic egg!

Second posting of colored pencil technique

Here are more in the series of drawings, you can see the progression of layers of color. Then in the final layers you add the real color, so everything changes. Its kind of weird.

More colored pencil

I wanted to do a piece with my grandsons picture at Easter and I had been reading about a colored pencil technique where they apply an under painting of complimentary colors first then the final color of the piece. Colored pencils are done layer by layer, sometimes 20+ layers of color. Anyway, I decided to attempt this and I am disappointed with the results but I am going to do it again, not using the underpainting and see how he turns out. I have lots of cute pictures of him! It is an interesting concept and probably takes some time to master. Here are the series of progressive pictures. You will have to scroll up to catch them all. Dianne

EDM #62 Draw a previous challenge in a different medium

My daughter brought home a beautiful daylily yesterday. She told me that she would love to grow them after seeing this flower. It was an unusually deep shade of orange/red. I have seen some really lovely colored pencil drawings where they say they layer up to 20 colors and layers to get the depth of color etc and I have been dying to play. I used to do colored pencils but not with any true knowledge of how to use them and they always were just a nice soft picture. I am really please with my first attempt and want to get more familar with this medium again. I want to know how they are burnishing the colors down etc. Seems like I just have to have my fingers into everything!

Newest weekly sketch assignment at WC

This picture was really hard since the reference photo was really dark and details were hard to make out. It is a cute picture of some kitty's having a moment, by the window in the sun. I did it with mechanical pencils but the scanning process really doesn't lend itself to pencil drawings. I love the challenge of working in different mediums. It doesn't really matter what it is, its all about the creative process.

I have been working on several quilts, one is my newest art quilt for Houston! Hopefully it will make it into that show, one of my many goals. I will post as soon as I finish painting all the fabric and getting it fairly put together. Stay tuned.

More Huntington Gardens picts

Well I will be done with the Huntington gardens after this post. I have too many other drawing to try to get onto the blog. I find the more I draw now the more I want to just draw or paint. Its hard to stay focused on the things we have to do verses the things I want to do.

Huntington Gardens

We had a wonderful day at the Huntington Gardens, the weather was perfect as was the company. We met up with Karen, Robin, Wendee and Nancy. Jennifer and Randy came with me and took off on their own for a fun filled day while I drew with the group. I must say that my only complaint is that the time flew by and I didn't get as much drawn as I would have liked too. I am posting a few today and more to come of the sketches I did while there. Most are very quick renditions of things. This drawing is of a bonsi juniper in the Japanese garden area, the water was a bit dirty due to all of the rain runoff I am sure, but beautiful none the less. I just loved the trees and interesting textures that the area was full of. We also had a few visitors as we sat and sketched, they were coming to see if we had anything to eat in our pencil boxes.

EDM #61 Draw a grouping and Huntington Gardens

Well I decided with much encouragement from Robin to join the weekly sketch over at wetcanvas. I need to do the watercolor one too, now that I have seen the beautiful egret. Anyway, I did last weeks sketch tonight but need to start the new one. It was a grouping of three+ apples so it qualified. I had such a wonderful time at the Huntington Gardens with everyone. I will post some pictures soon. I enjoyed meeting everyone and dispelling some myths about certain people hehehe. Everyone was so wonderful and fun, we had a great time. But it went far too fast. All of the Southern Calif people need to come to the next one for sure!

EDM #15 Draw a tree or trees

We went to the Mission Inn for Sunday Brunch and the weather was great so we sat outside. I love to go there, every spot is a drawing opportunity. I could just spend the whole day ( which I may) drawing different areas. They have inside courtyards, and arch covered walkways with huge wisteria growing over them. A wonderful pool area and several chapels etc. Here is my quick sketch/painting. Normally we have never been disappointed in their food but I must say nothing went right today. Our reservation was wrong and they didn't specify a wheelchair, so they couldn't seat us, so we went to a different area where we were finally seated. Then they had a grease backup, and this carmel looking gooey grease started to creep out of the sewage covers right by where we were sitting, yuck, so they moved us again. Needless to say it wasn't the nicest of visits but we wont hold it against them. I am not done drawing!

Velda Newmans class

I went to a wonderful quilt class in Glendale, Calif. last week. We took Velda Newmans class and learned a bunch of new techniques for achieving specific looks on our fabric. It was a fun day and I think I will use more of her methods in my quilts. I really love her work anyway. She is so nice and down to earth. She was recovering from brain surgery where they had recently found a tumor and had to operate. She seemed to be doing great except she would have a hard time finding the right word occasionally, but I do that all the time and have never had brain surgery. I sat during part of lunch and drew this sketch of items around the room. A friend won 1st place at the show and we worked on painting realistic apples.

EDM # 58 Draw a frame

Well I am not overly happy with the results of my attempt at drawing a frame and picture. It was a challenge thats for sure. The frame holds a picture of my mom who is standing behind a beautiful poinsettia at Christmas. My sister took the picture and it turned out so good. She had it blown up and framed and sent me one. My mom is such a beautiful woman, she was a professional model and Miss Flordia back in her day. Whenever you take a picture of her she knows how to pose and she has the head tilt thing down pat. My sister and I always laugh and try to figure out how to tilt our head just the right way so we look good. Its not unusual to have our family photos turn out with all of us tilting our head from one side or the other. We all look like we can't hold our heads up anymore. LOL I will always love this picture, my mom in red, at the holidays, in my kitchen cooking! Memories.

EDM #59 Draw something Spring

Well here in Southern California we enjoy early springs and flowers year round. But I do love the first burst of color that the spring brings along with all the trees budding up to burst open in bloom too. I sat today and decided I was going to draw my iceland poppies, I need to dead-head them to encourage continuous blooms. Since its so nice and warm today, thats my project. The seed heads are almost as interesting to draw as the flowers. Our whole side yard is full of poppies, petuna's and rannacula's that I planted back in November, the yard is full of color. Dianne

The same retreat, new drawing

Well, they said it wasn't exactly what they were looking for, so in an effort to give them what they invision I redrew it. I also added color to both just incase they decide to add it. Free stuff is always more labor intensive that the stuff we get paid for!

EDM #29 Draw something architectural

Casa Colina:This is the new rehab hospital just opened this last year. They tore down the old one and built this beautiful facility. They now have these wonderful areas for everyone to sit and its beautifully landscaped. It's done in a California Mission style with courtyards and lots of bouganvia (sp). I sat and visited with another mom as our daughters visited for awhile. For being so beautiful, it holds so much pain and suffering, yet hope and renewal too.
We have been going here so long its like a second home, with many friends and family.

EDM #58 Draw a hat or cap

This is a picture of my daughter who received a red hat and scarf from my mom for Christmas. She looked so beautiful in it and really loves it. I did the drawing in pencil and the hat and scarf in colored pencil. The drawing really does not do her justice and I am still trying to capture the thing that makes us uniquely us! Whatever that is and where ever it may be. LOL But the fun is in the process.

Womens Retreat

I was asked by the women to draw a logo depicting their scripture for the womens retreat. I am often asked to design logos or do artwork for the church. I love it, what better gift than to give it back to the one who gave it to me in the first place! It had to be a simple sketch, no color, since the cost of printing color is prohibitive.

EDM # Draw Chaos! Here's more Chaos

I have decided I love chaos! It either makes me feel like I am not the only one out there that has lots of it or I think it makes for interesting drawings, can't decide. I was sitting in the Orthotics office with Jennifer, trying to get her prothestetic leg fitted properly when I spyed the chaos under the exam table! Wow, we all have a ton of stuff we are always trying to find places for! I will probably draw lots more chaos in the future. I will probably be on the hunt for it now.

The little girl sketched in the circle above was done earlier while we sat in the waiting room. She was staring a hole through Jennifer. Kids are always so fasinated by the fact that Jennifer is missing her leg. They are so cute and curious, and often walk right up to her and stare at her missing leg, and touch her and say, "Where did it go" or " Where is it"?? I wish adults could be as open as kids.

EDM #30 Draw a chair

Sitting outside on a rainy day while Jennifer was having therapy I decided to draw the outdoor furniture, getting wet.

Illustration Friday challenge "Insect"

My daughters favorite "dead pets".

EDM #27 draw anything else you want

Well I haven't played with my watercolors on real watercolor paper in along time. So I decided last night while making dinner I would draw and paint these wonderfully colored peppers I got at the infamous Costco trip.

EDM #56 Self Portrait 2006

I finally made myself do this, I think I always draw parts of myself when I draw other people. My eyes for example, but it is so hard to put it all together and make it look like that person. I don't think I did it this time, I need to work harder at capturing my true likeness. I think I made my face thinner than it is, funny how I see myself!! I wish if that would work on my the rest of me.

EDM #33 Draw an eye

I was watching a show on raising giraffee's and this baby lost his mother, as I watched the show its their eyes that get you, those long eyelashes. So I thought I will draw that eye! I did a quick sketch with pastels, I have not used them too often as you can tell!

EDM #36 draw out in public

Its that time of year when all of us women need to go get their mamograms. I try and do it at the beginning of each year, it gets it out of the way and starts the year fresh. As I was sitting in the waiting room, I decided to draw the women reading sitting across from me. I still feel uncomfortable drawing people when they don't know, I would probably feel worse if they knew! I would hate for them to say "Oh, let me see how I look!" and then I would have to recesitate them after they see what I drew! So I try and do it incognito, but its hard to draw something without really studying it. I find that I am assuming where the line should be so I don't have to stare at her chest! That kind of thing. I found a blog where the guy drew the people on the subway, oh my, was he great. He was able to capture them perfectly, although many were sleeping, that always helps.

EDM #44 Draw an animal, a pet, zoo animal, ...

It is unusually stormy for us here in southern California the rain is giving us a much needed watering. It is not overly cold but when we do get a storm, our kitty, who loves being outside, decides she wants to cohabitate with us mere humans. She is a calico, which should say it all, if you have ever owned one. A bit temperamental, and aloof, overly needy when she desires it, but normally only allows affection on her terms. She has a talent of choosing those times when, for instance, my husband was fixing a broken sprinkler, he was laying on the ground, with his arm in a hole trying to get to the broken PVC pipe, when Skittles started rubbing on his face and head butting him. Nothing like a arm full of mud and cat hair up your nose! Anyway, here she is, some loose sketches of her on Jenn's bed, cleaning herself and curled up and all comfy on this raining night.