walking on the beach in January

Waves and bare feet in January

color pencil and watercolor on paper

8.5" x 5.5"

Last week my daughters and granddaughter came to visit me in my new beach house. It was so great to see them and they picked the perfect weekend to come as the temperature went up to 70 degrees. We went to the beach and it was so warm, we took off our shoes, coats and socks and wandered all around the beach in our bare feet at the end of January! The water was freezing but the sand, wind and sky was warm and blue and wonderful. I snapped a picture of my granddaughter as she stood and looked at the waves. She was laughing and in awe. She loved it and it warmed my heart so much. I drew this yesterday using my photo as a reference. I wanted to catch the awe she felt looking at the big waves. She is four and everything still amazes her. We should all spend time with a four year old to renew our sense of wonder at this great big beautiful world in which we live.

Experiments with dragonfly color pencil drawing

dragonfly experiment

5x7 on toned paper

color pencil and ink

I've been playing a bit with stencils. I want to incorporate stencils into my art. There is an artist on YouTube I follow who uses them and I love the look.  I have lots of ideas and will post as i create. The good, the bad and the ugly!  It's a learning process... 

color pencil study of a dragonfly

dragonfly on toned paper, color pencil

damask print in color pencil on toned paper

I want to somehow combine some pattern of damask onto a color pencil drawing like this dragonfly I did last night. There is an artist on YouTube I follow and she uses damask on a lot of her drawings and I love the look! So I ordered a stencil last night and will patiently (not really) wait for my amazon order... in the meantime, I did this small damask from a brass stencil i have, to practice. 

Art for me is a journey. Ask any artist what is their favorite piece and most likely it will be the latest finished painting or drawing. I don't tend to repeat my work. I may do another chickadee bird but it will be a different season, different tree or a different medium. I usually change something . I think it's to keep things fresh. In my head anyway. :)

A dog and a bee

bumble bee and Pete the Beagle dog

color pencil on vellum

5" x 7"

Continuing on the bee theme, now the bumble bee has landed on Pete the Beagle dog. He was sleeping, and opens one eye to see this bee.   A friend of mine asked me to illustrate a story she wrote. This is for that story. It was pure coincidence that this story has a bumble bee and my previous drawing was a bumble bee. Must be the muse hard at work.   Anyway, I had great fun with this. The nose, especially. If you look at it up close, you can see the texture of it.  

color pencils are calling to me...

bumble bee

color pencil on Bristol vellum

4" x 4"

I wish I could figure out what makes my inner art-clock tick. I seem to go in cycles with my art-making. I learned years ago to stop fighting the cycle and embrace what comes. 

I've been on a tear with oil painting for a few months now. Really enjoying it. Then seemingly out of nowhere, the color pencils start to call my name. They make themselves known in my head and I can't make them go away. So I did this little drawing of a bumble bee to satisfy the color pencil urge. But instead of satisfying the desire, now I want to do a full blown drawing. 

What's an artist to do?  Dear Muse: at least will you let me understand you and your callings? 

Owl color pencil

owl I

color pencil on paper

4" x 6"

DJ Pettitt is a remarkable artist, teacher and photographer. She graciously allowed me to use one of her amazing photos she took of an owl as my reference for this color pencil drawing. I want to try it again as I didn't like my paper choice. I used Fabriano Tiziano cream colored paper. I love the paper for pastels, but for color pencil I found the pattern on the paper distracting and a bear to make it 'go away' by a lot of burnishing. Also, the cream color was not a good choice because of the white on the owl.   I will next try same image with same color pencils, but on vellum.  

I used Prismacolor and my new Polychromas color pencils. Really like the Polychromas! I've always used Prismacolor pencils, but have been hearing good things about the Polychromas. They are oil based with no wax, I need to use them more to really get to know them. 

painting bokeh

I love the photo effect called bokeh. It's that dreamy unfocused circular star-dust-meets-fairy-dust look in the background of photos. Anyway...this is my attempt at drawing it. I used color pencils and watercolor to create the image and had loads of fun.