My Life in Limericks, Back to the Azores

I have not posted anything in weeks because I've been sick. I'm better now and have done a bit more in my journal. In the last post we were living in Bermuda. Click on the picture to view it better:

This was our second tour in the Azores, and we had a great time there. I started working at Lajes Air Force Base, and the rest of the time we were playing sports. We got our first horse there, a little Portuguese cart horse named Canasta. It was a great place to raise children.

Carmen

A Day in the Gardens

L

Left to right, Denette, Kathy, Donna and Fay

My journal page 

Carmen Beecher

Art Challenge for May, A Page from My Sketchbook

This month we are challenged to post favorite pages from our sketchbooks.

Kathy Garvey...I’m traveling and have to do this on my iPad and it won’t let me scroll down very far. So here are some favorite pages from my sketchbook and some resultant digital works. They are not in order and won’t let me rearrange them...but they show what I love about my sketchbooks...I can scribble anything that comes into my head and then go pick something to play with in Illustrator or Photoshop when I’m in the mood to create something.

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Unlike a lot of artists I don't use my sketchbook to paint when I travel.  I can never seem to get it together.  But, I am lucky, I have some artist friends who sketch every day and we text these sketches to each other to keep us going.  These are a few sketches from my notebook to show all the different ways you can go with your sketching.  They are all fun, quick and great learning exercises.

This is called blind contouring.  You look at the photo only, put your pen to paper and draw in a continuous line...no peeking.  It's great fun.

This exercise is useful in getting your head into gear.  All it is is drawing lines.

 

  This exercise is fun with kids too.  Just put a line on paper and then try and make something of it.  Also on the bottom I just drew a box and filled it with different shapes.

These are drawings from photos I took.  I use a pen so I can't erase and I try and time myself.  Sometimes it works and others there are lots of cross outs. LOL
Just have fun.

Donna Vines
www.DonnaVinesStudio.etsy.com

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We are in North Carolina helping friends remodel a house, and yesterday we took a day off to go to the mountains. I reached a point in my hike where I knew it was time to stop and sketch in my journal, and I sat on a log and painted.

Carmen

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I almost never paint a portrait, but I do enjoy drawing heads, especially people I know.

My mother, from her high school graduation photo.

My mother's sister, Charlotte

My friend, Linda.


These are all quick sketches, perhaps 15 minutes each.

Carol Schiff
www.CarolASchiff.com

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Jean Thomas

Greetings from St. Maarten!

We recently spent a week on a 44' catamaran near St. Maarten. It was a week full of sailing, snorkeling, eating and drinking and visiting various ports.

 It was a challenge to sketch while the boat was moving, however I did a few while we were anchored. Below is our favorite skipper and first mate, Vincent and Florence, who were both from France. Florence could sail the boat, tend bar, make gourmet lunches and dinners. She was amazing! Vincent kept the boat going (as it turns out, no small feat!)

 As a goodbye gift, I gave them this page in my sketchbook to thank them for an awesome time. Quite a challenge to finish it while the boat was moving and with permanent ink only!
All six of us signed it. So much fun!

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Unfortunately for my artistic development, I do not do much sketching. I have, however, committed to trying to do more in the future. Or should I say "some." 

I did however do a sketch of a detail of a collage I hope to complete this year. It is based on several photos I took on a sail around the island of Capri in Italy several years ago. It was an idyllic experience on an ideal day with good company and plenty of time to stop for a swim or snorkel here and there. I'd like to recapture just a little of that extraordinary memory. 

As I have trouble with determining values, I first made a chart using my drawing pencils. 

Next I tried to find the relative value in each surface of stone on the cliff I hope to represent.

I'm thinking it almost looks like a craggy outcropping. Just what I was aiming for.

PS> That funny little roundish thing on the top left will one day be a little bush. Just saying. 

Fay Picardi

"Catchfly" or The Joys of Sketchbooks and Retreats

by Kathy Garvey

Two years ago I went on a great, but way too short, one week retreat in a cabin at WildAcres in North Carolina. I had a beautiful fully furnished cabin, three glorious meals a day and all day long to wander the woodlands…all while being entertained by the Kumandi Drummers who were also on retreat that week.  And, I had a new sketchbook that could handle wet media! (Click any image to enlarge it.)

While there I photographed and sketched plants and critters (like marmarated stinkbugs) we don't see in Florida. When I got back, I started painting from them.

The great thing about a sketchbook is you can revisit it whenever you want. And this week, while packing my Stillman and Birns sketchbook for another retreat, I did just that. I remembered loving the shape of these beautiful little flowers that I had trouble identifying. Then I discovered it's common name was "Catchfly"...Yuck! I started working with one of my little ideas for them.

(I totally forgot that I had already done just that. Below are my images from 2017. And I called them Evening Lychnis because it sounds so much prettier than Bladder Campion or Catchfly!)

I was really surprised after remembering the first versions above to see the difference two years has made in my depiction of the same little sketch. Below is the mixed media version I just started and finished this week.

And here it is after a round of playing with the same painting in Photoshop.

I'm really looking forward to my upcoming retreat at the beautiful Furnace Mountain Zen Retreat Center in Kentucky! What wonders will I find scouring the Kentucky woods? 

You can visit the websites for both marvelous places.

http://www.furnacemountainzen.org/

http://www.wildacres.org/

For information about Artists Residencies at Wildacres, visit
http://www.wildacres.org/workshops/residency.html

Digital Art: Sketchbook to Poster

by Kathy Garvey

I dabble with paint, but I thrive on digital art. My favorite way to relax is to bring up Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator and just play. The great thing about digital art is you can print it to fabric, posters, tiles, etc. The not so great thing is that it only really exists in your computer until you do print it. 

In hopes that there are some people who read our blog who are interested in digital art, I've assembled a few graphics that show my process - from sketchbook to poster. 

I do keep a sketchbook. When I have time to create, I usually start by scanning an idea from my sketchbook. These are often only a few inches in size, but I scale them up to 8x10 because that makes a great 16x20 poster. I then place the idea in Illustrator and start building the design. Sometimes I build in color, sometimes in black and white. But I always experiment a long time with color, gradients, patterns, blend modes and strokes in Illustrator. Once I'm happy with the idea in Illustrator, I can't wait to take it into Photoshop. Then it's even more fun to experiment with color, gradients, patterns, strokes and blend modes. And there it stays until I decide to print it to something!

In the three recent examples below, the left image is the sketch right from my sketchbook. The next image is about midway done in Illustrator. The third image is at the end of the time in Illustrator right before taking it into Photoshop. And the last image is the final image after time in Photoshop.

(Click on any image to enlarge it.)

If I Could Fly

Orchid Sketch

Flower Sketch

Fabulous Guest Speaker Diana Gessler

Diana 

One of Diana's Books

Thanks to Cindy, the Pieces were fortunate enough to have a talented, witty and informative guest yesterday, Diana Hollingsworth Gessler. Diana is the author of the highly successful series of hand illustrated travel journals about Charleston, California, New Orleans and Washington, D.C.. We also found out today that because of her beautiful journals Diana was invited by the Sampoerna family to do a privately commissioned work about the journey, over several generations of the Sampoernas, from impoverished immigrants from China to the third richest family in Indonesia.

Diana shared the story of her life so far: her childhood as an Air Force brat, attending The Ringling School of art, and her long career in New York City in many art-related fields. She was such a successful, busy woman she didn't have the time she would have liked to devote to painting. While on vacation she decided to keep a journal and sketch in it. That was the beginning of her love affair with illustrated journaling.
Diana was full of information on how to adapt your art to your life no matter where it takes you. She has developed her journals into works of art. She is an accomplished watercolor and oil painter who is represented by The Shaw Gallery in Naples, Fl.
Diana teaches Journaling Workshops and has developed a wonderful "Sampler" to help you get started. She has also put together a kit that contains everything you need. They are available on her website. She has also been asked by Artful Gatherings to develop an online six-week course called "Fantasy Journaling Charleston" which will be available online in June.

A rapt audience

Cindy, Kathy and Carmen were lucky enough to take her Workshop and have become sketching fools who cannot say enough about how wonderful the experience was in so many ways.

Thanks so much for a wonderful day, Diana.
www.dianagessler.com
www.shawgallery.com
diana@dianagessler.com