Desperation Sketching

Teeny Sketchbook sketches:  I call these "desperation sketches".  

When it's too cold to sit outside (well, windy and 50 today was not my cup of tea).  BUT you need to sketch cause it keeps you calm and focused.  And you have use what you find in your purse.

Then you are forced to find something in the doctor's waiting room (so sterile and blah) to sketch.  You pick the handle on your husbands walker!  

And later the seat and brake mechanics.  

I know. Not beautiful.  But it's good practice for eye hand coordination and it's quiet ink-to-paper that feels meditative and interesting.  It keep the motor memory going.  And it works on spacial measuring.  Everything done here in ink...no pencil. So you have to make mental on-the-fly measurements.   

These, remember, are only 3 x 4 sketchbooks.  My teensies.

I used my PN Sakura pen.  

Taught my Zentangle class this morning and forgot to take photos as usual.  About 20 gals.  Nice group.  I had fun.  I hope they did.

We are going to have temps around 70 the week in Central Florida.  I don't think that's far from normal in January.  Hope to see a tad warming spell come February which is RIGHT around the corner.

Remember that Ground Hog's day is coming up on Friday...surely you have a gift for your loved one? Oh wait, that's another Feb holiday.  Sorry.

Off to see the State of the Union speech tonight.  No comment.  

So What's a Chop?

This Chinese set of "chops" was given to me by my daughter many years ago.  I have always adored the concept of having one.  The little boxes are adorable.  In China many artist sign their name with their chop.  They are made of stone and feel smooth and cool in your hand. (one for my husband too).  Tiny lions carved on top.  

If you do a little research and google "Chinese chops" you will find lots of interesting info and even website helping you find how your name might look in Chinese so you can make your own.  There are instructions also if you have drawing apps like Illustrator so you can design a chop on line.  

Apparently trying to find characters for a chop in Chinese is fairly random.  Sometimes they will try to pronounce your name in Chinese and find something that sort of sounds like it.  

For instance when shop keepers tried to write Coca Cola for signs in their Chinese shops the actual words they wrote translated to "bite the wax tadpole". Hard to imagine this sold much of the drink! Finally Coca Cola did research and came up with a better symbol which actually translated "to allow the mouth to be able to rejoice."

Okay now that sounds better. 

Chops are traditionally done in red using a kind of wax paste.  My set came with a small pot of the gummy stuff.  But I use red ink stamp pads.  

So below is my Chinese Chop to the left actually carved in China, a hand made larger chop I carved myself after looking it up on line and then below a tiny "chop" just drawn by hand made up of my initials "V and S" for use on my Zentangle tiles.  Maria and Rick both have tiny "chops" of their initials and they encourage folks to do the same.  I always do mine (see two versions) in black when putting on a tile so it blends in.  

TransZENding and TransluZENce

You can make small books by binding together Zentangle tiles too!

With this one I was trying out the tangle "Surf's Up".  It makes a nice frame.  

I thought I'd experiment with two techniques called "transluZENce" and tranZENding.

It's a little harder than I thought.  But worth trying.  You can find detailed instructions for TransluZENce on "A Tangler's Mind" posted Nov 5, 2017.

Here is the example by Lynn Mead that  I was looking at. She really nails it. I have a lot of work to do!  

The tangle itself above is called "Membranart" (found on blog of Tomas Padros).  The idea is to try to emulate a layer on the top of the work that looks like thin tissue paper (membrane).  

A version of the other technique called TranZENding is shown on Maria and Rick's Kitchen Table Tangles video.

I wasn't too happy with my first try but I plan to hang in there and try again soon.  

Going Tiny with Sketchbooks

Remember the "tiny" sketchbooks I designed this week? (see below)?  Well I decided to try one out yesterday while I waited for the food truck to prepare my husband's sandwich.  

We have a food truck show up in the community every Thursday evening 4-6 pm.  They have a pretty nice menu!  (not particularly good for Weight Watchers however). 

I am more and more discovering that the KIND of paper you are working on is more important than any other consideration, even size.  There are dozens of kinds of pens (and watercolors too) and the choices you make are quite dependent on the paper qualities. 

These little experimental books are done using Strathmore cold press 140# paper.  It has a tiny bit of tooth to it.  And it's weight is nice as you can paint on both sides and it doesn't bleed through.  

The size of the tiny sketchbooks necessitates that you decide on one object or one portion of an object or an unclose version of something.  It's also nice as it is surely not intimidating! 

Autumn says to remind everyone that there are different sizes and colors of spiral bindings you can use.  My machine is very inexpensive one and does not offer too many "kinds" of spiral binding.  And Office Depot only carried white and black but in different sizes that accommodate different amounts of paper.

You can, remember, take your pages down to Office Depot or other office supply stores and have them spiral bind it FOR YOU at a very nominal fee. And you can have a clear plastic cover put on the pages.  

I may make up a few of these and offer them for sale in my sketching class in March here in the Florida community.  I am booked to teach a class in WI in June and this would be a good way for me to try out the syllabus and see how much can be done in two hours!  

Here's a good quote about sketching from Danny Gregory:

Three facts to write in the inside cover of your sketchbook:

1. Never compare yourself to other artists. Don't compare your first drawing to their reproduction in a coffee table book. Let their progress inspire but not intimidate you. Compare you to you. That's all that counts.
2.  You're making more progress than you think. You may not see it but it's happening with every page. Guaranteed.
3. Everyone struggles at the beginning. Check out early van Gogh drawings. Awful. Struggle is normal, inevitable, a positive sign that you are working things through. Your early drawings are zero indication of what you will achieve in time. Zero. 

Spiral Binding Small Sketchbooks

With the inspiration of Sketchbook Skools new "zine" I found an article about "tiny" sketchbooks I rather liked.  I do keep an accordion sketchbook in my purse at all times.  And this is "about" the same size...these are 3.5" x 4.5".  Because they are spiral bound, it will be difficult to "draw across the pages" but not impossible.

The cover on the left is "duct tape" and it is a nice sturdy waterproof cover.  The other is just a stencil (Christmas gift from my sister) but I can coat it with gel medium to waterproof it a little.

A friend gifted me with my own spiral binder machine.  

So I am playing around with some of the ways I can use it.  

I'll give these a try now and see how I like sketching so tiny!  You can buy tiny sketchbooks but some of them are VERY expensive!

Worth a try.

And it might be a fun addition to a watercolor sketching class to have some for sale for the participants?  

Urban Sketching in Leesburg, FL

Thanks to Susan who organizes our little sketching group called Fetch a Sketch Trekkers!  Yeah for her!  We had a nice group...maybe 8 or 9? at the Antique Store this afternoon sketching all over the place.  I took a few photos that would make some nice paintings.  

It was fun to be in the company of gently used old china and furniture and lamps and beds and clocks.  A friendly cat visited us as we sketched.  

I used my Stillman & Birn (Beta series) sketchbook and my Lamy pen with Lexington Gray Noodler's Ink.

We went to Blooms on Main for a nice lunch...yummy Chicken Tortellina Soup for me!  It was 80 degrees in Leesburg today! 

Diva Challenge

The Diva's challenge this week was to take a few everyday objects, trace around them and use that tracing as a string.  
(Tangle challenges end on Sunday night...I cut it pretty close!)

I used the tangles called KauriKunda and Lampions.

The tile will be a birthday card for my dear brother in law.

Urban Sketching (inside because it's cold in FL)

Been playing with some new pens. They become somewhat addictive.  These two are fountain pens.  A Sailor Profit is a bent-nib pen and the Eco is a lovely pen (clear so you can see all the ink inside) and it holds a ton.  The bent-nib is quite fascinating and as you can see makes a great variety of strokes.  

The issue now is to find good ink that is mostly water resistant.  Noodlers ink has been a go-to but on certain papers only.  It says it's permanent on "cellulose" papers.  So on some multi-media papers that are slicker paper...the ink never seem to be permanent.

that is a problem for washes.  

Below I used a micron which is a safe choice for the multi-media paper in this notebook.  We were at the car dealership today just playing around with finding out what a new CRV would cost.

Greg talked and I sketched.  Couldn't believe that a gentlemen in a wheel chair arrived with a clown nose on.  No body seemed to notice.  

On this sketch I used the Noodler's ink and had quite a time with the wc wash bleeding the ink.  This was Greg's Essential Tremor Support group up in the Villages.  There were actually about 40 people there!  

Manikin Part II

So this is my second try on finishing up my little manikin.  She needed something on her head.  I cut a little hat from foam and glued some ribbons sort of floating out behind.  I decided she would have white hair (I mean this is a retirement community after all).  There..that feels more finished.  

Sketching is Not So Much Learning About Art as Learning About Seeing

I am pulling together some of my sketching resources as I write up the marketing materials for the classes I am going to teach at the Woodson Museum in June in Wisconsin.  One is Zentangle but the other is WC Sketching.  

Information has to go into print months in advance for these sorts of things.  Hard to think of June in January.  (But if you in one of those winter storms you probably ARE thinking about June.)

I was actually surprised by how many books I own that directly apply to sketching.  Several are out of print now.  Precious books!
It will be fun browsing through them again this winter and picking parts that may be useful.  

I am suggesting an inexpensive option for beginners in the materials list. It is a Koi outdoor sketch box and it comes with a water brush pen (still collapsed in the box).  It's only about $10. Has 12 colors including white and black. I decided I needed to try working with this kit myself for awhile to see how it responds.  I never use white watercolor so I immediately tipped that color out.  In it's place I put quin. gold.  I have never understood why companies put white in.  White gouache is sometimes useful.  But not white watercolor.  I carry a white opaque pen with me in case I need some opaque white for something small. 

Once I put together the water brush pen,  I think I might glue in a few empty half pan cups in that area and add a few of my favorite go-to colors like "leaf green" and alizarin crimson.  The empty tiny pans are about 50 cents each online.  A little super glue would hold them in place.  I would squeeze tube colors in the pans.  

There are dozens of empty Sketching "tins" with little half pans to fill that you can find online now.  But if the students are brand new, they are not going to have the tube paints to squeeze into them.  We have 2-1/2 hours to do this class.  So things must be simple and quick.  

I am giving some consideration to teaching a "dry run" to this class at our community park here in FL in March when the weather is more consistent.  Speaking of which it is still in the mid 30s here at night in central FL.  Sunny and maybe 50 in the daytime.  NOT warm like we are used to!  Slowly warming.  We should be 78 on Thursday.  THAT is more like it.