Plein Air Paint Out -Day 7

Today we were at Fairmont park, its a beautiful park with lakes and wonderful trails covered by mature trees. The weather has taken a turn for the COLDER! Brrr, we have a storm coming in and the temps are supposed to drop into the 40's again for the daytime high! We all made a good college try at a painting but once the drizzle started most packed it up. I worked in watercolor too but it wasn't drying to well concidering. Jennifer and Chloe came with me today, even with her little pink sweater, Chloe never did stop shivering.

Tomorrow is the Quick draw and a crique of some of the painting we have produced this week. Should be fun, most have decided to paint in their cars since we are expecting a few inches of rain. I can't wait to see what we produce in our cars!

Plein Air Paint Out- Day 6

I had forgotten to mention that at Jurupa park I ended up with a fan, he happened to be Canadian goose that followed me around the lake all day. Then someone actually fell into the lake trying to get to close. Plein air is not for the faint of heart! We went to the Oak Quarry Golf Course again. It turned out to be a beautiful day to paint. We started early and then stopped to have lunch in the club house. In the afternoon the sun came out and created beautiful light. The golfers are amazed to see so many people painting the golf course instead of playing on it. We have had a lot of buzz about the paint out. CBS news was out doing a story on plein air artists and then the local paper was out taking photos. The group is wonderful, so many amazing artists and everyone is warm and fuzzy!

Plein Air Paint Out- Day 5

Jurupa Regional Park

I am posting these all on one day as I have been feeling defeated and tired when I get home. The sun, the pressure and the concentration are making me feel like giving up. Everyone keeps telling me how horrible their first paintings were when they started painting Plein air and not to give up, so I am telling myself everyday is a new day. Really!? Why does it feel like everyday is worse than the one before! LOL Today we went to Jurupa Regional Park which is also a camping site. They have beautiful lakes for fishing and more bike trails and you can have dogs so Chloe came along for the ride. I decided to paint smaller, bite sized paintings since one of the hardest parts of Plein air is editing what to paint. It becomes a sensory overload as you take in the surroundings and then have to choose what to paint. I find that the biggest problem is trying to capture too much information on your canvas, dah, thats for sure. I have been analyzing myself and I have also started talking to myself! This could be a bad sign.  During one of these episodes I told myself if I painted smaller canvases it would be more like my sketchbook.  Therefore forcing me to crop and edit what I would paint. WRONG!  I crammed 3 palm trees, background trees, midground brush, shoreline, lake and reflections on a 5"x7" LOL I am hopeless! It was a better day though since I did have to leave off the gazebo and the fallen log.  I managed to get three smaller pieces done. Today was also cloudy and cold, we heard that a new storm is coming our way. Tomorrow we are back at the Oak Quarry in our down jackets and I hope to make myself settle in and get something painted!

Day 3&4 - Plein Air Paint Out

Day 3 and 4 were harder days that left me frustrated and tired. Martha McLean Park was nice and I started a pastel of the train bridge going over the water. I didn't finish it and my finger was so sore from sanding off all my fingerprints from blending the pastels on that sanded paper. We took Chloe and as we were on our way home the painting slid off the back seat and onto Chloe's bed which smeared all the pastels. Sorry no post for that day unless I get it fixed inbetween. The Oak Quarry Golf course was beautiful but I just had a hard time settling in. We were all scattered across dirt hills and on the deck of the country club restaurant. It was empty when I arrived and I started painting and was fighting with my set up and paints etc when I turned around to see a restaurant full of people watching us paint. AHHHH I just wasn't ready for that, I decided to move again and then just left. Thursday will be another day there so hopefully it will go better. I got my new Pentel Pocket pen and decided to play a bit, here is my poor excuse of a painting or sketch. I am sharing everything, good and bad, mosty bad at this point. Plein air is challenging!

Day 2- Plein Air Paint out

Today I was a bit later than yesterday, about 9:00, the continental breakfast was over and they were all on there way out to grab their sites for the day. My little support group and I drove around looking for an area to paint and I decided on the Coffee Depot. It was a part of the original train station that was built in 1904. It closed in 1971 and remained closed about 30 years until Geof Gaines purchased it and renovated it for the Coffee Depot. It was much more than just a coffee house, as it was also a theater, concert venue, etc. Read more by following the links provided. Anyway, I love this building and when it closed on Dec. 26, 2010 it saddened the community. It still sits vacant and I decided to ignore the giant "For Lease" sign, the Coffee Depot truck and painted it.

I spent a few hours on this and I realize I need lots of practice painting plein aire. It was a beautiful day but when that wind blew it was so cold. It is supposed to be warming up and the rain is gone, I am keeping my fingers crossed. Jennifer managed to get a sunburn with her sunglasses on, she looks like a racoon now!

Day 1- Plein Air Paint Out

En Plein air is the french expression that means "in the open air" and is used to discribe painting outdoors. Today was the first of 9 days in which the Plein air artists of Riverside, or PAAR, will paint at different locations around our city. I am the newest member of the group and I am hoping to learn more about painting plein air and not just sketching plein air. Last week the weather was perfect, this week rain storms are expected. The weather paused today long enough for the opening ceremony and for us to paint. Today we are painting the Mission Inn, tomorrow we will paint the area around the Inn. I managed to get this one painted before I got too cold and the rain started.  Tomorrow may prove to be more challenging.  It is nerve racking and exciting all at the same time. Although very chilly, people had come out for the Farmers Market so there was a lot of interest in what we were doing. More tomorrow, I am looking for some fingerless gloves!
    Since I haven't done a lot of plein air painting I am a bit nervous on how much painting I will actually be able to do on site. I can't even decide if I want to paint in pastel or watercolor. There are some wonderful artists in our local plein air group so the pressure is on to perform, but all self imposed. Plein air painting also required me to figure out what I will wear in an attempt to stay warm enough to paint. I must admit the weather was constantly changing the lighting and the temperature, much different than studio painting. But there is something exhilarating about standing out in weather and painting. You become part of the street activity as well as an observer and recorder. It is wonderful to see artists in the streets painting, it reminded me of Paris and all the wonderful artists that filled the streets, selling and painting. We don't see that very often here in the states, sadly. But today I was comforting to see others out painting, filling the sidewalks and courtyards with easels and umbrellas. Randy was kind enough to cover me with the umbrella when the rains started and helped me shuffle supplies and equipment to and from the car. I am not accustomed to hauling art supplies around town so I look like an amateur. Jennifer stayed with me too, only leaving to shop the farmers market, my own little support team.

Finishing up my SAQA Auction Quilt for 2011

Every year the SAQA, Society of Art Quilters Association, holds an amazing auction. It is filled with hundreds of mini quilts from famous and well known art quilters. They begin with an amount which continues to drop over the week if the quilt does not sell. Read more on their blog, the auction is in Sept. I find that most of the quilts go very quickly. I love the whole auction process, the excitement of seeing if my bid has won. I hope you will mark your calendars.  This little mini quilt is done with bleach discharging, pen, hand painted silk and threads. Does the butterfly look like its floating about the wood?

I have so many projects on my work table I can't see straight. I am trying to finish them up so I can get back to doing some artwork for my portfolio. I love the whole process of being creative, what are you working on today?

Saturday is the first day of a nine day plein air paint out and its supposed to be pouring rain. Should be interesting and I think I need to rethink my materials and medium. Randy has offered to be my umbrella holder! LOL

Happy Valentines Day!

Friday my Art Quilters Group, Sub Q, met for our monthly meeting. Being so close to Valentines day we each brought a valentines gift or card we had made, sealed in a brown bag. After a musical chairs type pass around the bags ended up at their final destination and we each took turns opening our gifts. I made a bookmark out of the cut off edge of a quilt I just sent to SAQA's " this is a quilt". I had micro stipled the background of my painted, inked fabric and added some embroidery and beading for detail. After trimming it to the proper size I had some wonderful scraps left over. I satin stitched around all the edges and then around a few flowers for detail.I cut out around the top flower and I even took my new white fabric marker and added some highlights here and there. Here is the bookmark that Nancy recieved on Friday from me. I received a beautiful little quiltlet/card from Ann T, thanks Ann I love it!  Remember to tell those you love how special they are to you and make the time to appreciate your family. Happy Valentines day!

The Postcard from my walk

I belong to an amazing group of artist that enjoy painting plein aire and exersizing so they combine it in a group called "sketchersize". We have decided to do a postcard exchange as I mentioned in a privious post. There are 13 of us and from all over the world, it should be such fun recieving a postcard each month from a different country.  Mine was posted today, you should come over and see the amazing artwork that has been put up so far. Its exciting to be a part of such a talented group of people. My postcard went to Katherine in London, hers came to me but I wont be able to share until the 20th. Check back then to see her amazing work. 

Descanso gardens

Descanso gardens
Originally uploaded by ddhabicht

We had a photo Meetup at Descanso Gardens today. It started off a bit chilly but turned into a perfect day for the gardens. Most of the camelias are in full bloom right now making the gardens a must see if you are in the area.
Randy decided about a year ago, to join a photo meet up group in an attempt to learn more about photography and meet some like minded people. One of the things I enjoy about belonging to the group is exploring some of the amazing areas that I never knew exsisted! Some of these areas are right under my nose!  Its so true that we often will travel for days to go sight seeing when we haven't even visited the sites closest to our own homes! These day trips are perfect for us as we can include Jennifer who loves to explore.  Although we have been to the Decanso many times but it was fun to explore with a camera and a paint brush. You begin to see things you have never seen or noticed before. You begin to pay special attention to lighting and shadows when you are painting or photographing.

 Today at the gardens was "fairy day" and all the little girls were dressed up as fairies, it was just too cute! I am posting my sketches now but I will add some photos of these little pixies in the next day or two.
                            
After the gardens we were invited to have lunch at a very dear friend's home who lived close by. After a perfect lunch and some great conversation we headed home! What a perfect Saturday excursion! What did you do today?

Pool mural

Pool mural
Originally uploaded by ddhabicht

I am working on the pattern for the custom tile guys. This is going to be a 26'x3' mural for the back of a pool. It will be done in blues, oranges, yellows etc. They will use this pattern for the wax resist and then all the glazes will be hand painted.

Rainy Day Project

Rainy Day Project
Originally uploaded by ddhabicht

I have SAQA deadline tomorrow so I am finishing this up to send. Acrylic paint, fabric paint, inks, markers, thread, now I am beading and embroidering a bit. It's a perfect rainy day project.

UCR Botanical Gardens

UCR Botanical Gardens
Originally uploaded by ddhabicht

Today our plein aire painting group was invited to paint the botanical gardens. They have been closed since Christmas due to flooding and they are going to reopen next weekend. There is 46 acres of gardens from succulents to tropicals, roses to herbs. Everything is starting to bloom. This hillside was in the South African garden. This is one of my sketches.

Postcards from our walks- Sharing Art Globally

I belong to an amazing group of international artists who live in wonderful, dreamy places around the world. The group is called "Sketchersize", started by a renowned artist and blogger, Katherine Tyrrell. You might have seen Katherines Tyrrell's post on her well traveled site "Making the Mark" about the group and our newest venture. It is called "Postcards from my Walk" featuring the postcards we will be sending each other over the next year, there are 14 of us participating.  We exercise by walking or hiking and somehow manage to sketch along the way. It is so exciting to see all the wonderful places that these cards will be traveling from. Currently, on the blog, each of us are introducing ourselves, a different person each day. Everyone sharing a glimpse of an artists life in different parts of the world. Get to know more about these extrodinary artists, each so different and talented by visiting daily. Cathy Gatland was kind enough to design our "logo" and its perfect. I will add it to the sidebar with a link to the site. A special thanks to Ronell Van Wyk for her hard work in organizing the group and getting us going! I hope you will follow the journey of our art around the world!

Vasquez Rocks- photo meetup group

We went with the photo meetup group to Vasquez Rocks. These rocks seem to jet out of the earth at these sharp angles and can reach up to 150 feet tall. Made of sandstone the rocks are barren and void of most vegetation, it was like being on a different planet, a moonscape. The area has been featured in many movies, advertisements and music videos.  I ended up painting two watercolors and did one small 5x7 pastel. These were all done with no prior drawing  and sitting with Jennifer on a picnic table while Randy hiked up the mountains to get some vista view photos. I was glad that the weather is still cold enough that I think most of the snakes are hybernating since we ended up walking around the mountains to find another plein aire paint group that was there. The weather was perfect and afterwards we all went to lunch and then to another site were oil was discovered in Calif back in the 1800's

The suns out, and we are out for our walk

With the weather being so wonderful I couldn't stay inside with Blake so we all decided to go for a long walk. We ventured over to the local coffee shop where we had coffee and I sketched a bit. We then stopped by Sprouts on the way home and got fresh veggies for dinner and our juicer. Little Blake was fast asleep by the time we arrived back at the house. Here is my quick sketch of the seating area outside the coffee shop, it has a silly pot with a sad orange tree trying to survive a very unfriendly environment for anything green in this sea of cement! On the way home I noticed that the Red Oak trees were starting to drop there leaves, finally. They had long turned from their beautiful mahogany color to a muddy brown color but the shapes, each unique captivate me. I can't resist them. I seem to gather a few everytime we walk by, when they are new, when they have turned colors and when they are dry!

Lino Block carving Workshop-A fun day in the sun

Saturday I had a linoleum block carving workshop. It was such an amazing day, the weather was perfect and we ended up working outside where we also had our lunch. Here are some of the photos and beautiful prints that we achieved. I want to share the process so you can also try this yourself. Some of the women felt it was almost Zen as it was so relaxing, a perfect destresser!

I took some of my photos of a fountain, of some of my paintings and I even used a sketch. I scanned them into photoshop where I used the stamp filter to change to a simple cut out design. You can decide how smooth or how cut your stamp will be, by sliding the adjustment bar right or left. For a more complex look you can also make multiple stamps for different layers of color by using the cutout filter. In some cases changing the photo to grayscale helps but often just letting the computer assign colors works for easier transfer to linoblocks. This will require you to seperate out each color and cut a lino block for each color. It also requires you to have a stabilizer and alignment method so each block will line up correctly for the layers of stamping you will do. If you decide to use the easier approach which is the stamp filter you will be able to print up a black and white copy on your inkjet printer which can then be burnished onto the lino block.  Also remember if you want to use text make sure you mirror it first and then carve so that your stamp will produce the text correctly.  If you use speedball printing inks for printing your stamps they will bleed if you decide to paint over your block prints.

Each student recieved a packet of 5 different images from which they could choose. Some brought their own image and we ended up with all unique blocks as a result!


We tested the standard Linoleum blocks which are already mounted on wood verses the softer carving material that is also available. Most prefered the linoblocks as they seemed to cut cleaner, producing a much cleaner edge.

I used a photo of Randy that I love from our trip to Italy.

Desiree

Here are some of the results. These block prints can be printed and painted, printed on fabric. We are thinking of using them for stamping our artquilts using fabric paints. So many ways to use them and they last for a very long time. Once you have created one of these unique stamps you can print multiple copies for cards, for selling etc. Make sure when you get a good print that you sign below and number. A limited number of prints keeps the artwork valued. You can also display your blocks on a shelf as a piece of art, Enjoy!

Kay

Marilyn

 

Marta

Nancy

Berry trees

Sorry the photo isn't great, another quick shot from my phone in my studio. Its funny how much Christmas stuff  I need to paint and it seems like after Christmas I just want to be done with it for awhile. I thought while I still was feeling it I better stick with the Christmas energy and keep painting. I have been working on these berry trees, these are two of a series of four. I am hoping to see them as cards and also want to transfer them to fabric and some applique patterns. Done with tissue paper and watercolors. I have added text to them using Photoshop and I like the results. I need to post from a different computer to share the end product.

WDE Jan 2nd

WDE Jan 2nd
Originally uploaded by ddhabicht

More sketching,painting and creating is on the top of my list for 2011. Unfortunately, I found myself feeling to sick to paint or draw on day one, here is my entry for day two after spending most of it on the couch. I loved this photo of the dog tucked into the cushions on the couch, much like my day!

Happy New Year!!!

Its hard to believe another year has gone by, wow, where did it go. I have personally done much more this year than I have in years past regarding my business and artwork. I have designed fabric, signed with a licensing agent, was juried into a major pastel show in New York, was published in a book, magazines and expanded my teaching. Yet even looking back on this year I feel like I have just started to scratch the surface of what I want to do. I am even more excited as I look forward to what next year will bring. I would love to double what I did this year. It seems like the more I do the more people I meet and I have throughly enjoyed meeting so many creative people this last year. I want to thank all of those special people in my life that have inspired, encouraged and supported me this year.

For my quilting friends, Stitchin Heaven is having a New years eve party online, find them on Facebook, twitter or go to their website. They are giving away tons of gifts. I will be a part of the fun as I will be giving away patterns, fabric ect. Join us for a fun way to bring in the New Year. Along with the products I am giving away on their site I will have my own giveaway on my blog. If you post a New Years goal that has to do with being creative I will put you into a drawing for a special gift here! Just post a comment on this post for a chance to win! See you next year!!!

Block Print Workshop Jan 15

After all the fun I had creating my Christmas exchange gift I scheduled another workshop in my studio. This project takes a simple sketch, yours or mine, and then we will transform it into a block print using linoleum blocks and carving tools. Its a wonderful way to create your own stamps from sketches, you can then use the stamp to print on paper or fabric. You can then create unique and personized gifts or cards. Check out my website if you are interested http://www.desireesdesigns.com/

Zentangled Christmas Get together

 Today I hosted a Zentangle Christmas party for my wonderful students today. I have the most wonderful students and they are all friends. Around 20 amazingly talented women came for a day of creative fun and a lot of visiting and eating! Homemade soup and quiche with salad and deserts hit the spot on this rainy day. I loved watching everyone create a unique little piece of art that they can enjoy this holiday season. Thank you for all you do to support my teaching and classes!!! Here are some pictures of the day but I will not share Marilyns amazing quilt since she is going to be showing it and I don't want to spoil the surprise. Merry Christmas everyone!!

Watercolor Christmas cards

I love painting my Christmas cards, I have done that for the last few years. I paint an original and then upload the image to be printed onto cards. This year I was feeling a bit Scroogish and wasn't going to send any cards. I wasn't even going to paint a card but I also belong to an online watercolor group and every year we paint one original painting as a card and send it to an exchange person. I love this group of artist and really enjoy doing the exchanges with them. So I painted this cardinal and decided I liked it well enough to have some cards printed. My Christmas cards will be late this year but at least I am sending some. Cindi got the original and she liked it. I don't paint birds very often so this was working outside my comfort zone.

Getting ready for Christmas

A few weeks ago as I was unpacking my ornaments for the tree I took the time to take some pictures to share. Years ago, when I was a young mom and didn't have alot of money I would have ornament parties. Everyone would make 12 ornaments and then we would get together and we each got one of each persons handmade ornament. It was so much fun, fun to create something new every year but more than that the fun was having something that a friend made. Every year as I pull out my ornaments, I think of those people, many of which have moved away and I say a prayer for them. I remember the good times we all had together in those early years. Decorating my tree is much more than just putting up store purchased ornaments its a trip down memory lane every year. Even after all this time these are my favorite ornaments, they are priceless. 



This was my ornament, I collected eggs from my brothers mad goose and cleaned then out and painted on them, sealed them and made a hanger for them. This one is dated 1989



This one was made by Roxanne, I love the cinnamon sticks for legs.



This one was Dorothys, the little mouse is made from felt and it was amazing she made all those clothes and everything!



This one was made and painted by Sabina, she was a tole painter and made some really cute things over the years.



This ornament was china painted by Ramona, her and her mom used to do a lot of china painting. I got three of these for my kids that year, Missy wasn't born yet. The picture is of Jennifer



This is Judy's hand embroidered ornaments, she made 12 different ones all heavily embroidered that year.

Merry Christmas to all of my friends, both near and far, I appreciate how you have touch my life through the years.