Shelves

A few weeks ago, I read an article offering free home decor ideas. You can give your bathroom towels a spa look by rolling them rather than folding them.

Star

Someone recently gave me a belated Christmas gift, a chocolate-filled star, another reminder of the Nativity story. The candy, wrapped in colorful foil, was delicious. Now I will remember it for years.

I sketched very little the week or two after Christmas. Then, my Lamy Joy fountain pen appeared to have become clogged. Maybe I left it lying flat too long? I rinsed it; it revived, but reluctantly, scratching, skipping. I gave it a break and used a few other pens for a week or so: the Platinum Carbon, the new Lamy Safari (stilled filled with a cartridge of water-soluble ink), the tinted Uniball Vision Elite.

Then the light returned; the days got longer. Suddenly, the Lamy Joy began writing smoothly again. The line seems a bit wider. The right, familiar tools make a big difference in comfort and keeping a habit.
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Today is a gold star day: the three-year anniversary of my beginning to keep an illustrated journal. My first drawing was a tiny thumbnail sketch of our poster of the Grand Haven pier.

Incense

It was trendy to burn incense in the 70's. I had a little burner I used a few times back then. Eastern Orthodox Christians still burn it today, part of their (sensory-rich) worship services--or to accompany prayers at home. I ordered some, along with a burner and a roll of charcoal, from Legacy Icons to see what it's like. The burner is a work of art--the frankincense kit, tactile and beautiful. I am fascinated we can come so close to this physical element of the Nativity story, one of the gifts of the magi.

Video: How to burn incense

The mystery of art

Jonathan Jackson, The Mystery of Art: Becoming an Artist in the Image of God, Clergy-Laity Congress, Greek Orthodox Church in America,  Nashville,  2016.

Seek silence. Listen for the still, small voice. "The whole world is a sacrament."

Gala apples

Another pattern, this time with watercolor. I painted yellow circles, gave them time to dry, then added a watery glaze of cool or warm red. After the glaze dried, I added stems with a Uniball Vision Elite pen, and shadows at their bases with neutral mixes left on the palette, adding a little purple.

As an afterthought, I sketched in part of our new wire fruit basket across the bottom, from memory.
Pentallic Nature Sketch.

Getting back in the groove

More gouache and pen

A further riff on Koosje Koene's gouache and pen exercise, this time inspired by a bag of Trader Joe's tangerines picked up yesterday.

Pigments:

M. Graham gouache, Gamboge and Pyrrol Red

Holbein yellow (contaminated with Holbein blue, which I found interesting)

Pen: Uniball Vision Fine
Paper: Cachet (Daler Rowney) 4x6 sketchbook, final page

Veronica Lawlor (Sketchbook Skool teacher), in a recent interview about the challenges of sketching in winter, mentions drawing patterns from observation. These are not from direct, specific observation, but were inspired by actual seeing, peeling, and tasting. I think of patterns as training wheels, to get back into the groove of sketching after the holidays.

Recommended reading: John Muir Laws, The Enemy of the Good: moving beyond perfectionism

Gouache and pen

This exercise is based on Koosje Koene's gouache and pen demo in her Draw Tip Tuesday video today. I didn't finish the pears off with internal patterns, as she did. I copied her mix of blue and yellow (but skipped white),  and left highlights. The dried out Holbein gouache I used was thin upon reactivation, and created interesting shading on the lightweight paper.
This page is the next-to-last left in my 4x6 Cachet sketchbook, used mostly for tv sketching, with dry media.

Pen: Uniball Vision Fine

(Greenery is Pantone's color of the year for 2017.)