Watercolor Holiday

The lovely afternoon view out of our balcony window.

I wanted to do a watercolor but I knew I had a small rectangle to work on.

I sketched it out with colored pencils and then watercolored it in on top. I didn't work directly from the photo but instead from the actual view which was changing. I lowered my head so that the top of the farther away bluff didn't show below the top railing as it does in the photo. I might do another watercolor to match the photo as I really like that extra stripe of yellow sky right below the railing. This would also make a nice abstract composition for a quilt.

Here's a colored pencil + watercolors piece that I made while listening to *Political Bit* the reporting preview of the upcoming Supreme Court mifepristone case. I guess those shapes are the pills that are now providing 60% of the abortions in the US which are possibly getting banned nationwide. So it's a rather moody piece...grrr.

That piece above was made in a bigger space in a new Moleskine watercolor journal that I bought last year at Dick Blick.  You can see the size comparison 5x 8.25" versus the 4x6" watercolor postcards I literally just opened the journal up this week to use for the first time. So I obviously don't need to make another trip back to Dick Blick as I didn't even use the thing for an entire year. When I'm at home, I just don't sit and do a lot of watercolor work.  

I guess I like working in this bigger space in the journal compared to the size of the watercolor postcards. 

*Political bit* This was done while listening to the reporting about the arguments made in the Supreme Court and the various expected outcomes for the fate of accessible abortion health care in our country. Seems like even if it's a "good" decision in this particular case, what comes next if the Comstock Act of 1873 is all of a sudden enforced again. Amazing that an anti-obscenity/chastity law from that long ago, which was never really repealed could come back into enforcement because we are no longer living in a country under the Roe decision. Guess I'll keep on calling my representatives and writing postcards.

 

Watercolor Travels

 

One of my outings in San Diego was a rather long walk to Dick Block Art Supply in Little Italy. They've got everything in this place, just like online, but you get to see it and hold it in your hand before buying it. I bought a new to me type of bendable color pencil from Derwent, their new Chromaflow line. I was just going to buy some more watercolor pencils, but I reminded myself I have plenty of those already so I really wanted something different.  This review was the reason. 

The four mile walk was lovely, but definitely a bit too long and I'm still dealing with a bad blister on my foot, but that was because I was wearing new tennis shoes (d'oh!).

The new sketch pen in grey from Windsor Newton worked really well, even on the toothy watercolor paper. I sketched the view looking out our hotel window.

The new watercolor brush worked very nicely, it had a smaller brush tip than the one I usually work with, but that was fine with the smaller images I working on. I tend to use watercolor pencil the most, so I had to remember how to work with the pan colors.

I've had this little travel watercolor set for ages, and I'd forgotten that it has a sort of secret picture of Van Gogh that's only visible at the right angle or in the right light (like this!).

The next view I sketched was this one.

I like how it turned out. The reflective surface of the hotel was quite striking at some times of day, capturing the blue of the sky vs. the blue of the water. 

Here it is, trying to approximate the viewing angle from where I was sitting.

I wish I'd felt up to sketching out in public this trip, maybe next time I will, but at least I had this nice view to work with from the comfort of the hotel room.

At The Local

I recently visited the local Japanese grocery store (Misuwa Marketplace) which is the size of a regular ol' American grocery store but has the added benefit of a very cool bookshop inside of it. This is once you get beyond the awesome factor of a whole refrigerated case of various sorts of tofu, another filled with an amazing selection of mushrooms of every sort, all the seaweed you could ever want, an in-store sushi chef, noodle cafe, a Shisiedo makeup outlet, etc.

It's a bizarre sort of place, but very enjoyable and friendly and I'm glad there's one not too far away to visit occasionally.

I found the above goodies in the bookstore.

•  A new watercolor brush that holds water in the handle, very handy for travel.  (And hard to explain to Chinese airport security guards, whoops)
• A new kind of origami paper, which I like to use in collages since I'm pretty awful at origami.  
• The beautiful red fabric is an official Furoshiki, a cloth that is used (and re-used) for wrapping gifts.  I've been doing my own half-assed version of this when I give presents, especially to quilting friends, but I thought it would be fun to try it with a real one.  Who will be the lucky giftee has not yet be decided but the red and the almost polka-dots is a pretty big hint I'd say.

As I'm on a non-Nook-book diet, I had to put back several crafting, paper, Japanese clothing, knitting (whywhywhy, I don't knit) and art books.

Freezing Watercolors

The one and only watercolor I did on our recent trip to China.  This was done as I sat at the landing area for the tramway up the hill to the Mutianyu Great Wall , hanging out under cover because it was snowing.  The boys were running (!?!), no really they were running up the other way on the wall that we hadn't already climbed.  I wasn't up to it, so to kill time while I waited for them to come back I attempted to entertain myself with doing this little sketch and watercolor.  Which went pretty well until it suddenly got much much colder and the water was freezing in my watercolor brush.  And freezing on the paper before it could soak in, which is why the pigment looks kind of strange.  I couldn't get that effect again if I wanted to I bet.

As I was in the waiting/transit area lots of other tourists were passing through and many of them stopped ot look and see what I was doing.  I didn't speak their language, but by the faces they were making they either liked it or thought I was a crazy person for sitting there painting when it was below freezing.  For a long time I was the only person, no one else coming or going, which was maybe the only time I was alone the whole time we were in China, there are really a lot of people there.  So it was noticeable to be by myself.

By the way:  This is my 1,400th post! Wheee!

All We Ever Hope For Was The Dawn

 Watercolor crayon, words say "All We Ever Hoped For Was The Dawn."  I should have taken this picture after the page was flattened out after drying, it looks so funny like this.

So many layers to this one, I was going for a look of transparency, December 16th, started with pen doodles in a pattern, then stamped the words MESSY MESSY MESSY and another stamp that has always reminded me a bit of fingerprint.  Overlaid on top is a light was of watercolor crayon.

This Could Be A Good Time

 Another imaginary landscape in watercolor pencil and crayon for December 13th.  No words this time.

For December 14th, a collage with fabric scraps, printed paper napkin, stamped images, pen, circular ink daubers.
Words in the margin say: Dragonfly says.  Words in the collage say This Could Be A Good Time.
Which is one of my favorite lines from a great song called "High Sierra Morning" by Diane Patterson off her new CD World Awake.  I had just gotten to see her perform live, and this song was one of the ones stuck in my head (in a good way!)

Blow Me Away

 Watercolor crayon and pencil along with ink drawing for December 10th, words in the margin say:
Blow Me Away

For December 11th, A magazine picture collage, with pen marking, and printed and solid tissue paper. The words say:
Is Your Tank Half Empty or Half Full?

Imaginary Landscapes

 This time it was a pen and watercolor crayons in the daily practice journal.  The words in the binding say:  Imaginary Landscapes Draw Me In Every Time.

December 7th just magazine words this time and some pen marking.  Words in the binding are: 

You Know You Do.

Dots Done Directly

When you have to write a card to someone, what do you usually do? Sometimes I just use all the ones I've accumulated over the years. I'll buy interesting looking designs or textured paper notecards. Lately it seems I get a new set of note cards from charities trolling for donations every week (hello FINCA, I think I've gotten 7 sets over the last few months! Which makes me not want to donate...). I tend to use those freebie ones for the not so formal communications, like sending checks to people or businesses.

But when you're writing a thank you note or just a letter to someone, it is nice to make a card that you think will suit them. I don't usually take a lot of time to do these, sometimes it is just to use up excess paint from something else, or extra fabric or paper bits that need to be collaged on a very small scale.

In this case I was writing to Jaye who really really loves polka dots. So I took a watercolor paper card and used my Caran d'Ache watercolor crayons to make some brightly colored, randomly dispersed dots. After the addition of a little water, the card still needed something. Which in this case was some black pen circling the dots and adding some specks in the background.
I was pleased enough with how it turned out that I snapped this picture.

It makes me wonder whether this is a good enough type of design for a run at a Spoonflower custom fabric printing order??