Rambunctious

The squirrels moved into the attic last week and have been up to fun and games. Nothing like waking up to the sound of squirrel fights.

Autumn walk

So, it is absolutely gorgeous today, and I decided to take some photos on the morning dog walk.

Landscapes

Currently taking a "Luscious Landscapes" watercolor class (couldn't resist the title). Here's last and this Monday's classwork.

Rio Grande vista

Butchart Gardens in Victoria, BC (still in progress)

Experimental Watercolor

I recently took a weekend class with Jan Heaton at AMOA school called 'Experimental Techniques in Watercolor: Found Objects'. It was relaxed and fun (we were encouraged to use leaves and objects in addition to brushes to paint). I think the best thing I learned was to work on several paintings at once, layering on color while others are drying. It keeps things loose and unfussy and brings out the best properties of watercolor. Here's some work from the class.

Response to Rumi

Inspire Me Thursday prompt:

Out beyond ideas
of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field.

I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down
in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.

Ideas, language
- even the phrase “each other” -
do not make any sense.

Rumi

Happy Birthday

A response to this week's Watercolor Wednesday prompt.

Lion, Tiger, and Bear

Travel Sketching: Ithaca

Sail

So, this is based on a sketch I did a few weeks ago with a little fashion thrown in from 'Girl in Hyacinth Blue' by Susan Vreeland, which I read over the weekend. This is still unfinished, but I just wanted to get it out before the next topic came in.

poof!

One second there was a full bowl of blackberries, the next they were gone...who can say what really happened?

Canned

This might be more tinned than canned, but it's what came to mind...

Foggy

Ink wash sketches

So, trying out ink washes. It's a nice way to think less about what colors work together and just focus on value levels. These are both done from photos.

Seed

So, this is for last week's IF theme, but I made it for mother's day and couldn't post it till today. Birds keep popping up in what I'm doing, and I wanted to add a little 3D element.

Watercolor and ink sketches

Food sketches

Just playing around with a crowquill and watercolors.

Spring publications

So, I've got some photography in this month's NYLON magazine (a piece on Argentinian wine country).


And earlier this year, an illustration of mine---Suit---was included in 3X3's ILL08 directory.

Film Fest

So, SXSW film fest rolled into Austin a couple of Fridays ago and hijacked my life...why must the documentaries be so good? Beautiful Losers was one of my favorites from an illustration standpoint; it follows the careers and lives of a handful of artists from their early 20's till their later 30's, their journey from poor obscurity to recognition to mega-money for ad campaigns back to doing art for themselves. Another 'journey of an artist' film is In a Dream, about a man who has been covering buildings in mosaics for over 40 years, and the mosaics are this initially appealing and then disturbing repetition of the inner workings of someone's mind...20 feet high. The film is just as much about the artist's family and their changes over the course of seven years (it's shot by his son). There are some amazing shots and images that won't easily be forgotten.

Other wonderful documentaries: American Teen (follows four high school seniors their last year: the jock, the geek, the artsy girl, and the rich/popular girl...each portrayal is fully fleshed out and you find yourself rooting for (almost) all of them); At the Death House Door (Carroll Pickett was the minister who spent the last day before execution with death row inmates in Huntsville and walked them to the table, including one man who was probably innocent); Flying on One Engine (grumpy, inspiring doctor with any number of debilitating health problems goes to India periodically to perform marathon surgery camps, something like 50 a day); Wild Horse Redemption (totally satisfying look at the program in Colorado where prisoners train wild mustangs).

Visually and narratively, so much great input.

Water scenes

Just practicing capturing water with watercolor.