Tricyrtis stem

This sketch of a tricyrtis stem in a glass indicates that I need to work on looking-down-from-high-up perspective!

Wrist corsage sketch

I made time to practice my sketching skills this morning.  I don't like the way this drawing turned out, but I'm grateful for the occasion to practice and - ever so gradually - improve.

More kitchen planning

I worked on the kitchen design again today.  I'm feeling full of doubts about it, even after trying several new layouts so I don't feel excited about sharing.  Here are a couple of sketches, just as a taste.

Kitchen planning

We're about to begin renovating the kitchen at our country house (along with many other rooms) and I've been procrastinating about settling on a final design.  Today I took advantage of the mental distance created by being out of town to come at the process with fresh eyes.  I also forgot all the most recent sketches I made (a good six months ago, maybe more) at home.  With the slate wiped more or less clean, I started thinking about how the cabinetry might look.  I'm planning to conceal all the appliances within full height built-in closets along the north and south walls.  The shorter east and west walls will be all doors and all windows respectively.  Here are some ideas I played with, the first two (full height closet doors) reference other architectural features on the property:

Sketch of a flower-filled urn

I'm traveling this week (and next) so I can't keep working on the ceramic stool.  Instead I'm going to devote some time to practicing my sketching, which has fallen by the wayside the past could of weeks while I worked on the design for the stool.  It surprises me to discover that I miss sketching...it's almost a form of meditation.

Flower arrangements

My husband and I are hosting a party for some of his colleagues tomorrow so I spent the morning making a few bouquets for the dining tables.  It's been pouring here so unfortunately many of the flowers in the garden are soaking wet and a bit beat up.  I might amp these up with a few more blooms, but here's what I've got now:

Fern pattern, part four

Yesterday and today I worked some more on my fern design, orienting it around a more symmetrical central shape.  Here's what it looks like now:

Fern pattern, part three

Friday and today I've been working on the fern pattern.  Here's where I was at at the end of this morning's work session:

Although I think the negative space is an interesting shape, I think I would prefer something more regular and symmetrical.  So this afternoon, I decided to scrap the composition of fern leaves that I'm working with, along with the idea that the pattern would roughly form an "X" and try a more traditional design.  Hopefully traditional doesn't mean boring and predictable, as I had originally feared.

Completed: Rabbit Notecards

I don't know if I mentioned on this blog but I've decided to begin a new project that I think of as "Sweet Nothings".  It involves regularly undertaking short projects (1-2 days maximum) and giving away the results to people I love. 

I drew that second rabbit from a couple of weeks back for my brother, whose birthday is coming up in mid-September.  I knew I needed to make the drawing part of something else since I dislike giving or receiving non-utilitarian artwork that is supposed to be displayed... unless the prospective recipient has previously seen the work and fallen in love with it.  I feel like it places too much of a burden on the recipient to hang a piece that they might not like enough to want to look at constantly, never mind something they might not have the space for. 

For a while, I couldn't figure out what to do with the drawing that I thought he might like (he's extremely pragmatic) and that I felt would be both special enough to rate as a gift and that would honor the spirit of the work.  Using a print of the drawing as a birthday card just felt stingy (and the original is much bigger than greeting card size).  Then someone suggested making a series of blank notecards that he could use, perhaps as thank you cards for something related to his new daughter.  Perfect. 

 

Second day with the fern pattern

I continued developing the fern pattern today.  One of my biggest questions is how much white space (if any) to leave between the various groups of elements in the pattern.  I decided that there was too much white space between the elements I'd arranged yesterday, so I enlarged those.  Then I incorporated a second cluster of fern leaves into the pattern.  I'm not sure whether I've got the right amount of white space around this new cluster or whether it should overlap with the edges of the leaf groups in each of the four corners of the page.

Beginning a fern pattern

Today I began to create a fern pattern inspired by Honiton bobbin lace.  My idea is to have it be a part of a ceramic garden stool that I want to make.  Here's where I got with the work today:

Tomorrow after transferring the second pair of drawings and darkening up the lines, I'll think about how to fill in the open space.

Where I was last week, and a couple of Icelandic sheep

I didn't post last week because I was away taking a five day intensive introduction to woodcarving.  It was really challenging but good.  I had a chance to begin practicing some techniques that I hope to develop further on my own, once I have a set of tools.

Today I sketched did a couple of sketches of Icelandic sheep, just to get back to drawing after the time away.  They're rough, but it feels good:

Completed artemsia cut-paper project

It's so nice to be able to describe a project as "completed".  This artemesia project was an interesting experiment in making a two dimensional image a little more three dimensional.

Crow sketches

I thought it would be useful to practice making slightly quicker, smaller sketches so I did a few of crows in various positions.  Results below.

Starting another rabbit

I wanted to try drawing another rabbit, to see if I could get the proportions a little truer to life and capture more of the expression of the creature.  Here's the picture I started today:

Wild rabbit

I love rabbits.  We have so many wild ones on our property, especially near the (fenced!) vegetable garden.  This morning I felt like drawing one.

A weed, and a cherry tomato twelve ways

I had a lot of fun sketching this morning.

Better hellebore leaves

Ok, they're better because I didn't try to shade them but still.

Giant mushroom and a hellebore leaf

This morning I bought a giant orange mushroom at a local farmstand.  It was unexpectedly pricey so I assuaged some of my guilt by using it as a model to draw from:

I probably "should" have gone on to apply watercolor to the sketch this afternoon (it's on watercolor paper, I plan to eat the model for dinner tonight...) but I've been feeling a lot of resistance about watercolor-ing (fear of failure, I think) so instead, I sketched a hellebore leaf from the garden:

I didn't realize it at first, but the leaf was gradually moving/drooping as a drew it, so I had to keep going back, erasing and redrawing parts that I'd thought I'd nailed.  I should have taken a photo before I tried adding shading because I feel like I wrecked the drawing with the shading.  To be blunt, the shading sucks (too choppy/not gradual enough).  But it was fun to be able to lay the color on quickly instead of working laboriously on tiny lines, as I usually do.  I plan to buy some charcoal (I was using the side of a soft pencil) and practice adding value just in black and white to future drawings.  I'm including the photo of what I made here because if I practice and am able to improve it will be good to see how far I've come.  Looking at it feels yucky right now, though.

Bird and flower sketch

This is what I drew today.  It's based on an 18th century Japanese bird and flower painting.  It's hard to tell in the photo but the central dark area is composed of thousands of tiny circles.  Ouch!

As you can see, I was exploring the idea of positive and negative space.

Artemesia papercut

It looks like I forgot to post on Friday.  I spent that day drawing and cutting out the artemesia leaves and was pretty happy with the way things were turning out.  I made a few more leaves this morning, filling in some gaps in leaf orientation and the overall shape of the cluster.

I'm not sure what the next step should be so I didn't glue them down.  The obvious thought is to tint each leaf lightly with watercolor, to bring them towards the silver-grey of the living plant.  (They are made of watercolor paper after all.)  But what I find most interesting about the leaves are the interactions between positive and negative space and the way the thickness of the multiple layers of paper moves a two dimensional material towards a three dimensional form.  I'd like to explore those ideas further, especially the second one.  It makes me wonder whether there is a different, thicker, material I could use than paper that still has enough flexibility to it to be able to conform to the contours of the varying levels beneath it.  I also makes me wonder what functional thing I could create using this slightly sculptural collage technique.

The antique Chinese ceramic-inspired pattern, continued

I've been playing with the elements of the Chinese porcelain platter that I drew earlier this week, to see if I could find a way of using them as part of a textile pattern.  I don't have anything I like yet, but thought I'd share couple of sketches.  The first shows how the octagons might relate to each other, the second shows new and and much more complex detail in the interior of each octagon, incorporating the other three elements of the pattern that I included in my last post.

Elements for a pattern inspired by a Chinese export platter, c.1750.

Today I was sketching some of the elements from a gorgeous antique Chinese platter that I saw in an auction catalog.  I'd like to see if there's a way that I can turn them into a textile pattern.

Blueberry twig greeting card

I was charmed by the simple beauty of a blueberry twig that I found beneath the bushes while picking berries on Saturday.  I drew the twig this morning, then turned the drawing into a blank greeting card.  The card is heavyweight card stock (130lbs) and the envelope is watercolor paper - the only heavyweight paper I had on hand in a large enough size to accommodate the roughly 4x8" card. 

I don't know who I'll send the greeting card to yet, but deciding will be fun.

Natural dyes

I've been interested for a while in making natural dyes derived from the plants on my property.  After spending the morning sketching artemesia leaves, this afternoon I set out to collect some plant material for dyeing.

Here are the things I chose, with most of the stems removed.  (In retrospect, there were some cases in which I think I should have been more diligent about removing the smallest stems.)

After steeping and straining, here are the dyes I ended up with at the end of the process:

It was surprising to see what colors emerged.  The mint was disappointing: I was hoping for a greener color, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised given the color of fresh mint tea.  The bignonia flowers were also a letdown: I thought they'd yield a pretty red.  I surprise myself by liking the brightest colors the best: the red-leafed Japanese maple, the purple viburnum berries and especially the bright orange wildflowers whose name I do not know.  Maybe I'm gravitating towards bright because of all the watercolors I've been mixing over the past couple of days and the realization that it's easy to tone down a color that starts out bright but I don't know whether it's possible to amp up something muddy.

Watercolor-tinted artemesia sketch

Here's what I made today: a sketch of some artemesia leaves, tinted with watercolors.

I enjoyed working with the watercolors again.  Their delicacy really appeals to me.  It was a challenge to figure out how to mix the colors I needed from only red, yellow and blue and I found it satisfying to be able to approximate the actual colors of the plant.

Martagon lily with watercolors

I took the leap and today tried coloring the same martagon lily that I worked on yesterday, this time with watercolor paint.

The brushwork definitely needs refining and, as you can see, I goofed and applied color to one of the spaces that's supposed to be empty between the petals but I enjoyed the challenge of working with this medium and I prefer the delicacy and gradual fading/blending of color it produces.  It's quite the challenge - in a good way!

Martagon lily with colored pencils

I tried again using colored pencils today on a drawing I did of a martagon lily flower.  I love the way the colors bring the flower to life, even if the texture produced by the pencils produces an effect that's much grainier than I'd like. 

Coloring the poppy pattern

Today was all about adding color to yesterday's sketch.  My verdict: very slow going and kind of boring.  Here's where I got it to by the end of the workday - not sure I'll continue and finish it.