Round Robin, Week 3

This week I'm doing the final illustration lap of the Round Robin collaboration with Marsha Riti and Diandra Mae. Marsha kicked it off with a beautiful setting of the scene, and Diandra created some wonderful characters and drama. Decided to add a little atmosphere.

Round Robin, Week 2

So, it's my week to kick off our round robin collaboration.
Check in with Marsha Riti and Diandra Mae over the next couple of days to see what else develops in this scene. Happy drawing!

Round Robin, Week 1

Conducting a little art experiment with illustrators extraordinaire Diandra Mae and Marsha Riti where we collaborate on a piece every week round robin style. Diandra handed me the most adorable, forlorn fox, and here's what I added.

Marsha, over to you for the last leg of storytelling/artmaking!

Happy Halloween!

Costume idea for the manatee with a sense of humor

Landscapes Three Ways

Just playing around with watercolor approaches. I posted some progress shots of these last week, but here they are "finished" and scanned.

Watercolor, charcoal & graphite
Outlines in thick indigo watercolor, filled in with transparent watercolor layers
And landscape detail outlined in softer watercolor of different colors My photo reference (the amazing Butchart Gardens in Victoria, BC) and a postcard of Toshi Yoshida's woodcut "Linnoji Garden", my jumping off point for experimenting with technique.

Squirrels Night Out

I just read last week's 7-imp post on David Ezra Stein's Ol' Mama Squirrel, which is going on my book wishlist straight-away. Love how he captured their fierce, chastising nature, even when dealing with creatures many times their size.

I recently drew several pages of squirrels, trying to figure out the look and personalities of some that are going into a story I'm writing. Thought these guys ended up looking like what might happen on squirrels night out.

From the sketchbook: dino & flamingos

I feel like this guy has a story, but I'm not sure what it is yet...
My nephew stopped by while I had out the bright fuschia liquid watercolor and wanted to try it out. His snake (he's 2 and everything he draws is a snake) looked like a flamingo, so I embellished and then did one of my own. I'm partial to the energy of his! Might have to use it as inspiration to stray a little from my own comfort zone.
Do you ever feel like you hold the year in the palm of your hand? You might be right
...or maybe you just ordered a mini-calendar online thinking it would not be quite so mini.

Drawing Chickens

Yep, more birds. Sunday evening I met up with various members of the Girllustrators and Armadillustrators in the garden of Eastside Cafe for some drawing, socializing, and lemosas (refreshing mix of frozen lemonade, champagne, and raspberry). When I first sat down, it was hard to tell the chickens apart (about a dozen birds of the same breed, with all reddish-brown feathers). But they're are pretty expressive when you hang out with them for a while. Some have puffier bits. Some just want to take dirt baths. I'm kind of into drawing chickens now...and lemosas.

Bird snacks

Saw a green heron catch a minnow and a kingbird catch a caterpillar this morning at Shoal Creek. And yesterday an oriole was eating ants from inside the trumpet vine in the backyard (photos here).

Drawing Day: Hamilton Pool

A day full of sketching, swimming and enjoying nature at Hamilton Pool. What made it even better: got to hang out with various Armadil- and Girl-lustrators and a couple more fine folks. Seriously, if you have not been to Hamilton Pool and you are in the Austin area, you must go! Floating on your back while looking up towards a waterfall and a cliff wall covered in ferns and the daub-y nests of cliff swallows...amazing.

Please don't feed the dinosaurs

This is what you don't want to find when you walk back to your lunch! Dedicated to Harper and her dinos.

Cars, Music, Dinosaurs

It's Lonestar Round Up time in Austin, and yesterday I joined up with Shelley Jackson, Jeff Crosby, and their daughter, talented artist/dinosaur handler Harper, for an afternoon of sketching the South Congress scene. Shelley and Harper enjoying music at the end of the sketch day. More pictures of cars here.

One fish, sketch fish

Some fish that didn't end up getting used on a recent project.

Sketchbook: A Simple Black Cat

More poppies

Still painting wildflowers, this time for a garden blog banner update.

April Flowers

I keep forgetting to take my phone when I walk the dog and miss capturing photos of the wildflowers along the trail (poppies backlit by the morning sun and shady masses of dayflowers). So, the past couple of days I've tried to fix in my mind, Frederick style, how I would paint them in watercolor.

Getting along with Gouache

Sketching some of my usual tools with my new favorite medium.

Playing with gouache

Gouache is a medium that I've always wanted to try out but have never quite known how to begin. I mean, even spelling it is an adventure. But I feel comfortable using watercolor, and I figured that gouache was like watercolor with the ability to go opaque. Yesterday afternoon I got to play with some colors (thanks, Marsha!), and it was a little weird. I kept expecting it to do watercolor-y things like create nice color bleeds when put on damp areas (it mostly stayed where I put it, and I had to drag a wet brush through to mix the color on the page), or dry lighter (it dries darker). It's also very easy to start out super thick, and get loads of opaque texture, which can be cool if you're expecting it. One really nice thing is how easy it is the thin out/lift dried color on the page (much easier than traditional watercolor). I'm just realizing how watercolor-geek this is sounding...

Below are some close-ups from my sketchbook (actually just a 10"X7" piece of hot press paper, on which I crammed way too much). The primary blue/marigold orange are looking a little harsh this morning, but they seemed like a good combo at the time.

Winter fruit

The jewel tones of winter citrus and persimmons and pomegranates always make me want to break out my paints. I've been going back in my watercolor sketches with pencil to add some darks; still working that out. I actually like the photograph of the persimmon better than the scan because it shows those different textures. The etrog is something I've never seen or bought before, but the description at the grocery mentioned that it was used in a Jewish holiday and could perfume a room for weeks...very intriguing. It smells like citrus meets rose.