Computer Sketch for Hunt 425

I am so lazy, but you already know that. It's my reason for sketching on my computer at my desk today.  Gene puts up some trivia questions every morning for the family.  We all make our guesses and then he puts up the answer about 10:00 a.m. or so.  I was waiting for the answers and decided I could sketch while waiting!

I used Sketchbook Pro.  I don't used it often so haven't figured out textures and a few other things.  This took over thirty minutes.  Can you believe that??

Number 6, yellow - a cleaning cloth on my desk.  I usually have to really search to find anything yellow in our house.  Thanks to Gene for getting a whole bag of yellow cloths.  They are showing up everywhere.

I did a small pastel painting over the last couple of days in spurts.  That is one of the reasons I like pastels.  They just sit there open and ready to go.  I can paint for 5 minutes or for 5 hours.  No prep on the equipment or any need to put them away and get them out again.  Just pick one up and go for it.  No waiting for paint to dry and when you come back to it later, you just start in again.  Lucky for me I have a great studio where I can leave my pastels open and my easel ready.  I have abandoned them for a while, but who knows?

Scavenger Hunt 262 - Yikes!

I was writing this post and had a surprise.  Usually Blogger saves as I go along and I don't have to worry about wandering around deciding what to post for photos or pictures and looking for URLs to link.  I had about 3 paragraphs written and 3 pictures up and it said you have changes that haven't been saved and you will loose them.  I thought it meant the photo I was posting so said OK.  I lost all the writing I had done.  (Now it is saving as I go.  Hmmmm.)  What button did I push??

The gist of the post as I started was that I am surprised to see Hunt 262!  I have been joining in the Scavenger Hunts on wetcanvas.com since 2006 in the summer.  I started in Silver City, New Mexico.  Sue Modrak, my artist buddy and friend from Michigan, was always after me to sketch more.  She would give me a sketchbook when we would get together once a year.  

I found the Hunts wandering around on wetcanvas and thought it would be such a good way to practice and I would not have to think about what to sketch.  You all know that I am lazy, so would sketch the landscape or something that was very familiar and easy.  The Hunts make you sketch things you wouldn't ordinarily think of and from life so you put on your thinking cap and practice, practice.  

The Hunts were instrumental in keeping my blog going as well.  I have never stuck with a diary or journal until  now.  Yikes!

It has been very good for me.  You cannot always see the improvement, but when I take my time, my strokes are more sure and I "look" at things better.  It has helped my painting as well.  If you look at a  couple of the sketches I'm posting today you will doubt that I'm improving, but I can sketch quicker and easier and with more accuracy.

These sketches were all done in my brown paper Ultrecht Sketchbook with the Prismacolor Premier 08 pen.  As quickly as possible, freehand.

Number 1, water - the lake and an attempt at reflections.  Number 3, man made - birdhouse, really it is, but a poor rendering on my part.

Number 2, sky - another subject I find difficult with pen and ink.  Number 4, natural - the Indian Paintbrush in the yard before it gets mowed.

Number 5, together and Number 6, apart.

Number 7, open and Number 8, closed.

Number 9, rectangular - rug on my studio floor and Number 10, top and Number 11, bottom of my camera.  Oops, also the bottom of the page.

For my artist links today, I will point you to some of the sketching blogs from the Hunts.

Jeanne Grant, in California, has been sketching on the Hunts even before me.  (Like two, but she never misses.) She often tries to get many of the items in one sketch.    In California.

Joan Tavolott , in New York, who sketches outside most of the time and in her car.  She does beautiful watercolors with ink.

Tresgatos, in Arizona, fairly new in the Hunts in comparison.  She usually sketches in paint.

Ai, in Thailand, has 2 small girls, teaches in university, and is sooo busy all the time.  Don't know when she has time to sketch and tries all media. 

Jacqui, in Australia, is getting her art degree and sketches with us.

Bonnie, in Canada, is fun and a great artist, too.

I hope this inspires you to sketch and maybe even join in on the Scavenger Hunts.

Christmas Card Comment

This is another little computer sketch from a few years ago. I think I used it on tags for packages. This was done in the little graphic/paint program in Appleworks with the mouse. Maybe I will start sketching that way again. It is good for trying out color, composition, and testing ideas. And, it is fun.

I have a little correction to the Christmas card post. I made it sound like Gene started his telephone calling in 1999 also. He has been calling friends for many years before that. We just stopped sending cards about then.

Also the last few years of cards, I sent them later and later and they were arriving sometime after Valentine's and maybe by Easter. They were more just "a stay in touch" card. :)

Christmas Card by Phone

Wishing you a wonderful Christmas and the best holidays.

We don't send Christmas cards. We haven't for a few years. Back in the OLD days when our kids were little we would have cards made with a photo of them and send them out with a letter, not a mimeographed letter, a handwritten letter. The first year we were in Bolivia, 1974, I drew cards with pen and ink. I think I drew about 50 with a church and a llama on each one. Some were pretty good. :) The next year I found a printer that made a metal plate of my drawing and printed them with raised ink. (I don't know what that process is called) After the printing I had a wooden block with the metal cut out of my card on it. We did that for a few years. I continued the pen and ink for several years in the states, too. From Lubbock, Texas, in 1980, it was a prairie dog. Lubbock is famous for the prairie dogs.

When we moved here to Bastrop I did a water color of our house and had 8 1/2 x 11 inch color photo copies made. At that time they were $1 a piece. Pretty pricey. Probably sent over 100. It was a nice way to send out our new address and letter. I printed the letters on the computer on the copies. I did customize and write every letter I sent.

The next year, I drew the poinsettias above on the computer. I had a program called Color It and drew with the mouse. Not many realized I had drawn it as I printed them with the customized letter on nice parchment. One of Gene's sisters asked me where I got the stationary to print my letters. :(

I suppose it was in 1999 then, that we stopped sending cards. Gene started sitting down with our address book and calling everyone he could reach on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. That has turned into a great custom and that is our cards at this time in our life. So, if you want a call from Gene and talk to me, we need your telephone number. :)

P.S. To send your phone number, my e-mail link is in my complete profile. Scroll down or send to: jo at jocastilloart.com

Making a Web Page

Geraniums
Computer drawing by Jo, drawn with the Mac program and Dabble with a mouse. Fun!

Bag Blog asked in a comment about starting a a place to have her art together and be able to browse through her watercolor paintings. I'm thinking a web page. Maybe this post will give her some ideas.

Why not start with a little history. When I started my web page, we had AOL for an internet provider and they host free space for their members. Their templates were for PCs and because I had a Mac, I could not take advantage of that. I had a small program that came with a printer, I think, called Adobe Page Mill. I started making my page per the directions with that program (which I still use) and put it on AOL. Then AOL up and changed my page to Frames with no warning. The web site name was very long as well, something like "homepage/aolhometown/jocastilloart.com or some such which I couldn't remember much less pass it on to others. I decided to plunge in and buy my domain name and go with another server.

I bought my domain name and started my page with Cedant. They have been so inexpensive and have much more technical help than I ever needed. I pay something like $7 a month by paying a year in advance. They have only been down once for a few hours that I remember in about 10 years. Pretty consistent. They also have templates and all sorts of advanced things that I don't use. If you do use them or need more space, the cost goes up, of course. You need some knowledge of html and how things work, but they will help you.

There are some free providers. Sitekreator is one. This internet provider is popular with artists on wetcanvas.com. José Carriho in Portugal is a good example. He has been happy with his web site.

Something I would recommend now, is Fine Art America. It does not require any knowledge of html or codes. I have a web page there for free. It is super easy to use. You can put up about 85 paintings or photos and a bio. You can scroll through them with comments and prices. You can list your events and have a blog. The blog part is new and doesn't offer the perks that Blogger has that I can see, I put up a post today, so I need to see if there were comments. They do have a discussion forum. They have started something new that I haven't looked into yet for selling prints of your work, called print on demand. With framing, the prints are more than my original painting, Ha. So I probably won't use that. There is a charge for that service. The advantage is, that it is promoted well to artists and galleries and now to public collectors. I think it will really grow and may help with sales. On your private control panel you can see where people are that look at your work and they can comment on each painting. Take a look. As an artist just starting a page, it looks great. No cost .. at least at the moment.

Fine Art Studio Online is a very good one, but it has charges. It is very easy to use, too. About $24 a month for a good size website. They do publicize more. I read their marketing newsletter and you can read it, too, free. Subscribe here. They are starting a new section for art collectors with a newsletter especially for them. Rebecca Neef, a great artist in Bastrop, has her page with them. You see she has her own domain name there. I have been thinking about this, the pages look great. Rebecca has sold from there when she was doing animal portraits, but I don't know about now. Maybe a trial run. :)

If you just want to put up photos of your work, you can use Picassa with Google (there is a link from Blogger) or one of the other services like Webshots or Flikr. You can have public or private storage for your work.

There are many ways to go and so many ideas out there. At this point, I am just hoping to streamline my page and make it a little easier to see my artwork. My page has grown almost out of control, don't you know?