Sketch chain, pen - Baseball

My sketches for the Scavenger Hunt on wetcanvas.com. #6, something with a flower on it - the local art magazine, #7, chain links (3), oops, I sketched four on my key chain, #8, something you push - the top of my Pilot pen and #9 something that annoys me - cell phones, especially in restaurants, but public in general. I don't care what you are having for dinner or what your ex best friend is doing. Oh my. These were done in the Blank Book with my Micron 05 pen, about thirty minutes, total. I sketched while listening to the end of the baseball game.



The magazine, Heart of the Pines, is a local art and business news magazine, flyer type, that is left at restaurants and hotels, etc. My show was in it last month. I bought an ad for last month and this month. They put it on line as well, so a nice feature. You can check it out and see what is going on in Bastrop.

We went to Austin this morning to pick up a huge TV that was donated to the Crisis Center, where we volunteer. It is rainy and cold. The high of 52 degrees was about five o'clock this morning. It is 39 degrees now. Brrr. It was 76 degrees yesterday. Ah, Texas, if you don't like the weather, just wait a while. That is, except in July, August and September then it is a steam bath of 90 - 100 degrees most days with 74 - 80 at night, with 100% humidity, day in and day out. Ouch!

We had lunch at the Cheesecake Factory, very nice, with Joanna. Yummm. On the way home we listened to the start of the baseball game. The Horns played Kansas in Lawrence and it was 32 degrees and windy. The Horns returned to form and won, 6 - 5. Nick hit his second home run of the season and Kyle hit his #19 and #20 to tie Jeff for the all time high for a season at UT. Wow. He should go well over that mark. Read all about it here on the official page and Joanna will post as well.

Nancy Moskovitz, artist (and baseball)

I was wondering what to blog about tonight and went to my blog reader to see what other artists were doing. One of the blogs I read regularly, Nancy Moskovitz, was pointing to me. :) Nice surprise. I have been following her blog for some time. She paints in pastels and other media, does a lot of paint out days, teaches and seems to be enjoying her art world so much. Check out this pastel portrait demo and the other useful info on her web site. Her paintings are beautiful as well.

I just love how small the world is with blogging and how interesting the artist blogs are.

Thank you Nancy, "see" you around.


The baseball news is very disappointing. The Longhorns lost to Kansas 14 - 6. Whew. It was cold and windy in Lawrence, somewhere around 36 degrees again. Definitely not baseball weather. I'm glad I was in my warm living room listening. So the big story is on the official page. They just couldn't get it together today. Hope tomorrow is better. Hook-em!

Finish, Hot Air Balloons, Pastel Painting

This is the finish of the hot air balloons. This is a snapshot. I will take a good photo with the tripod, etc., before framing. If you want to buy now before framing, the price is $230.00 with free shipping. The photos do not do justice to real paintings, so satisfaction guaranteed. :)




This detail shows the people in the baskets. The photo doesn' show the pastel strokes very well, either.



It was a pleasure doing this painting. The balloon fiesta is such a fun time. Many pleasant memories. The square format is very interesting, I will have to try it again. It does require that I order a frame. This is not a standard size, 12 x 12 inches. It is on pastelbord so does not require a mat. It can be framed with spacers or touching the glass.

Here it is with a couple of framing ideas...

Sketches in graphite pencil

This is the second post today, I was keeping score of the Texas Baseball game with a pencil, so decided to sketch a little. I sometimes just doodle so you don't have to think. I like the effect of pencil/graphite sketching. I decided to try the watercolor pencil over the graphite on the blue bottle and did not like that at all. If I hadn't shaded with a dark pencil it would have been OK. The sketchbook isn't made for water, so didn't want to get it too wet. It is the Blank Book. I used a regular 2B and a 3B pencil.

They are all on one page and probably took about an hour with the distraction of the game, or during the game I was distracted by sketching . However you care to look at it. It is difficult to talk and listen coherently when drawing as you need to utilize the other side of the brain. Did you ever watch Bob Ross, the happy painter? He would stumble on a word and say, "Sorry, I had my eye teeth covered and couldn't see what I was saying." At any rate for the Scavenger Hunt #35, #3 the inside of a shell, abalone shell from Peru, #4, ceramic animal, giraffe from Chile. Gene used to buy one of these every time he ate at the big park. They are white with blue designs on them. #5 odd shaped bottle, a little blue glass bottle from a discount store of some sort.



I listened to the Longhorns on the internet, they played in Lawrence, Kansas. Horns won 11-6. They batted around in the eighth. Nick Peoples hit his first home run of the year to jump start the inning. Yahooooo. Keith said on the radio that the attendance was announced to be around 600 fans. He said it must be counting the people in the dorm across the way as it was 36 degrees and windy. Not too many people hanging out watching the fun. :) You can read about it, see the box score and play by play on the official home page. And for the rest of the story, check Joanna's page.

Sketches, Brass and Change Container

I'm finally getting something posted in the Scavenger Hunt #35. It started on April 2, so some artists are over half done. I'm just happy to sketch as much as I can. It is great practice for my old eyes. By that I mean that I'm always trying to learn to see and put down a descriptive stroke quickly and without erasing. Interesting challenges in painting and sketching. It must be good for your state of mind as well. When you are in the "zone", you don't think about anything else .. problems, time, etc. I don't think you even think about painting, you just paint. When I am planning a painting, I think about the "rules" or principles of painting. Perspective - both linear and aerial, atmosphere, composition, value, and color scheme. When I'm really into painting, like I said, you just do it, experience and knowledge take over. Usually those are the best paintings!



Sketches for today, #1 is something brass, a bed post. A good thing it isn't that crooked in real life, would be a shaky bed I bet. #2 is something you keep spare change in. I don't keep spare change, I spend it. Gene saves it in this wine bottle and the pennies in the jar. Sketching glass is a little hard as you have to leave the highlights and sketch around them. Also try to put in the background. Mrs.Yolanda Aguirre, teacher in Bolivia years ago, told me to just paint the light and darks and forget you are painting a bottle. It really works when you can concentrate on that. Easier with paint (except watercolor) as you can just put the light value over the dark one. Sketching and watercolor you have to save the white.

WIP Pastel Painting, Hot Air Balloons

This is not a plein air painting. :) It is done from reference photos that Gene, Jennie and I took in Albuquerque last October at the big festival. There were over 850 balloons they said. The morning we went was great. It had been rained out the two days before and was pretty cold and they were expecting wind, so the crowd was small. A few balloons took off earlier and because there were so few people we got really close to some. These balloons in my painting were arriving, not leaving. The field was too wet to have all the vehicles and people all over the place. No special shaped balloons either as they were having a competition dropping markers on the field .. playing poker. As we were leaving, some of the special shapes were arriving, maybe a painting of those and some close ups .. a series?. :)

I worked on adding people today, not on the balloons. I first painted the guy with the cowboy hat very bright and he competed with the couple with the child and they are to be the center of attention with the big balloon, so I toned him down.

I added some more folks and continue to develop the scene. I will even out the horizon a little to reduce the slope, it shouldn't be that much of a hill. I just haven't worked on that area much.

I'm also trying to have the painting very colorful without using every color in the rainbow, which is very tempting. You know I love bright colors. The balloons and clothing are every color in real life, but in a painting it is distracting and begins to be more like a photo. I'm trying to keep the shadows connected to have more large shapes and the light areas connected as well. Trying to have good contrast without having everything half and half. The shapes of the balloons aren't too bad. I'm including the black and white for you to see the contrast and a flip and upside down to check the shapes. Do you see anything too awful? Lots more to do ...... tomorrow .....

WIP Pastel Painting, Balloons

WIP, work in progress.

Today I worked on a pastel painting of some balloons and am adding the crowd watching. This is very far from being done. Many more balloons and people to go. It is square format. Something new to me. It is on Amersand Pastelbord, green, 12 x 12 inches.

I did the under painting with pastels and water.



Then put in the sky with several colors of blue pastels, blending with a plastic bag and a hard pastel. The plastic bag saves the fingers. (An idea from Richard McKinley's demo at the Austin Pastel Society Meeting). Other ideas for blending are styrofoam peanuts, foam pipe insulation, tortillions, fingers, etc. There won't be much blending except in the sky. I hope to end up with the early morning look. The balloons take off at the break of day.


I continued by putting in some darks where people will be standing and starting on some balloons.



The man is just about done with the child on his shoulders. The balloons still need work.



It is exciting to start a painting, so much enthusiasm. It is hard to keep it up after you leave it and come back, but I will try. All artists work differently. I read in one of the art magazines a few years ago about a watercolor artist that took about 150 photos of a still life and painted on the painting for six months. Not for me. I do not have patience for that. No sir. I can see why the baseball players and other competitors loose concentration when they wait in between turns, etc.

I will try to post more tomorrow, there is a baseball game in the evening. Hook-em!

I'm posting before midnight! Wheeeee.

Sketch of pots, Sketch Artists, Baseball Photos

One of my favorite sketch artists, or artist who sketches, has joined the blogging world. I met Richard Rudnicki in Nova Scotia 2003. He sketches daily and posts his sketch of the week. He sketches something from the day before, from memory. He is a great artist and I had such a good time being invited to one of his plein air painting days and joining in on Paint the Town in Annapolis Royal. (Scroll down past the Bee Caves Paint Out) Stop by his blog and check out his web page, too.

Marie-Dom is another of the sketch artists from the United Kingdom, that I enjoy chatting with and she does beautiful work. She employs watercolor and colored pencils in her sketches. Just lovely. We have Peru in common as she lived there for a time as well. You may have seen her comments at times here on my blog. Check out her page, I'm making a link in my links, below.
This evening I sketched my pot people for the Scavenger Hunt. I promised to do the pot dog as another artist, Nitsa, Anita Davies, in the United Kingdom, had sketched a pot man that her mother gave her. She is such a good artist as well, here is a link to one of her blogs to see her pot man and you can discover more from there. My pot man and dog came from our friend, Sue in Michigan. The lady pots are cement pots from Bolivia.

This sketch is #11 Something decorative, my last for this Hunt. It was done with a Micron 05 and some Derwent watercolor pencils, dry, in my generic sketchbook. About half an hour. Susan and Karen noticed when they were visiting that Gene had arranged the people around the pots and the doggie perched up on a rock. All gathered around the big pot from Mexico. :)



Baseball was not good. Oklahoma won 5-3. Bummer. Check the story on the official page and on Joanna's page.

This is a pitch to Travis with Nick on first, you can see the ball on the way.



Nick sliding back with a toss from the pitcher. Looks like the ball in the glove. He was safe. :)



One of the last outs, Randy fielded the ball and tossed to Chance for the out.