The Sassy Sketchers

Nothin' more fun that a group of artists out to lunch. Here we are at the Minocqua Brewery.

Let to right: Leslie Johnson, Susan Lansdown, me, Judy Tuhy, and Joan Stevens. The 5 Sassy Sketchers of the North woods 75 Day Sketching Challenge! It was a farewell luncheon for the snowbirds (the 3 of us to right are the snowbirds). Susan and Leslie plan to sketch snow scenes from their hot tub. The the other three will be sketching palm trees by the pool. We intend to keep in touch and so you'll be seeing those sketches down the road a piece.

Speaking of winter... we all woke up to 38 degrees this morning with a wind chill! Note that we are all wearing sweaters!!! Greg and I have our fireplace merrily burning tonight. Boy does that ever feel cozy!!! We'll be 32 tonight and 29 tomorrow for lows!!! I am totally thinking of Florida now!

One last photo of this silly PT cruiser. Not so much for the framing as for the matting. I wanted to put the painting out for show and tell at the meeting and so I just stuck it into an old frame and mat. Hint: the mat was pre-cut for another painting and it was brown and very faded. I just painted the mat with a coat of blue acrylic paint and dried it with a hair dryer. Voila...blue mat that looks like new.

Having a little fun with the Sketching

I mentioned in one post how much fun it would be to trace a sketch and then add the color. I traced my PT cruiser onto 140 # rough watercolor paper and just had a little fun playing with the image.

My hubby said more slant to the front window frame and larger back tire. I attempted to make those two corrections.

The changes in value in the paint may be distracting...I haven't decided. It was my attempt to "infer" some changes in lighting outside against the "marine" blue car. I always want to drop in colors into large wash areas...a little purple in this case.

One thing I learned, painting from a black and white sketch and with no photo ref is that you don't remember all the colors or shading. I did the tail light wrong. It is actually red with a white dot in the middle, for instance. In many cases it makes no difference but if you wanted it accurate it would matter. I am tempted to add in some background color now...a few trees in the drive way or maybe even the cabin in the background? No time for that right now what with 8 days left to pack up here.

But it is sometimes fun to have a little sketch of something you like that you won't have forever...like a car. I did a nice little sketch of our last RV and we framed it and we love looking at that! Memories!

I remember that J.Hicks has little notes all over her sketches making references to colors. She also takes a photo but sometimes her notes are more accurate. And I think she also makes "idea changes" as she writes her notes such as "why not change first building to crimson". Etc.

Welcome to my friend, Marlene, in Florida who just started the Sketch Challenge too! Now I'll have someone to go out to lunch with in Florida!

(J.Hicks is one of my followed blogs off to the right side of my posts.) She is so generous about putting her sketch and her photo on beside her painting. That is a tremendous help.

75 Day sketching Challenge: Day 30

Wow...day 30. How did THAT happen?

Turns out drawing takes practice! Blah.

Here I thought there was a magic pill if I could just find it!

Lots of things wrong with this sketch but when you start in ink...boy you are committed! You see all the mistakes as you go along. What I think might be fun would be to get some tracing paper and re-draw it making the corrections. Then I would add watercolor to that second drawing. That would be fun.

We are 9 days and counting now until we leave the north woods cabin and head for the hills. (literally). We'll spend about 10 days in southern WI visiting old friends and family and attending my 50th college reunion at Beloit College and then we'll head toward Peaks of Otter where we have reservations in Bedford, VA on Oct 5 in the Blue Ridge Mountains. We will visit a train museum (for my hubby) in Roanke, VA on the 6th and then spend two days with my sister and her hubby in York, SC. Home to FL on Oct 10.

This is our PT cruiser. They don't make these anymore! boo hoo. So when we start looking at cars again this next spring...we'll have to think of something else. With are thinking about a Chevy Equinox. Anyone have one of those?

75 day sketching Challenge : Leslie Johnson

The 75 Day Sketching Club (Ginny, Joan, Leslie, and Susan) are having lunch on Wed. We are bringing our sketchbooks to share! I can hardly wait. What a fantastic bunch of painters/sketchers! So fun! Joan and I are soon headed off to Florida for the winter and so this is sort of a farewell lunch!

I am up to almost 30 sketches now out of 75. Still a ways to go!!!

But what has fascinated us all, is how 4 different people each with only a black pen, can do things so differently!!!

Here is Leslie's most current one...reflecting the autumn feel and full of tomato jelly. OH YUM! Making still lifes out of food or ingredients for a recipe is a favorite of mine. I did a "Making Apple Cake" in acrylic last fall about this time. Several of the Sketch Club have suggested she do this in color later! Imagine the rich tomato colors!!! And I would entitle it "We Eat the Blessed Earth"...see poem below.

I am reminded of something one of my favorite poets has written:

Last year, Mary Oliver published her 20th collection of poems, Swan(2010). It includes the poem "Beans Green and Yellow": In fall it is mushrooms gathered from dampness under the pines: in spring I have known the taste of the lamb full of milk and spring grass; today it is beans green and yellow and lettuce and basil from my friends' garden — how calmly, as though it were an ordinary thing, we eat the blessed earth.

Susan's beautiful sketches

My new friend Susan Lansdown has taken the 75 day sketching challenge along with Leslie Johnson and some others. Susan and Leslie don't have a blog, so now and then I like to post some of their work. Both of these sketches are Susan's. Wow.

Although obviously they put my work to SHAME!

Wow, Susan, these are so wonderful.

Thank you for sharing these with the blog world!!!

75 day sketching Challenge Day 23 & 24

I noticed just as I finished this that I did not have the back wheel of the model train engine aligned with the other wheels. Blah. Well, I was concentrating on the other details at the time!

It was fun to do this, however, and so I'd like to try another car or engine and see if I can do it better. You never realize all the details on these little train cars until you try to sketch them!

Nice for a chilly day drawing. We never got above 50 all day here in the north woods of WI. Whew. May have frost tonight, they say.

I had to do two sketches today as I had a terrible case of flu yesterday and was in bed all day! Lost the entire day.

Am still a little worn out today but feeling much better and should be back to normal by tomorrow. It rained most of the day yesterday and so I didn't miss too much!

On Wednesday it is the reception for Howard Young hospital exhibit in Woodruff. Hope anyone in the area will come by. Take 51 north to 3rd Ave. Turn left and go one block to Maple Street. That is the entrance to come into the hospital for the exhibit. Near the gift shop.

Serendiptiy

Don't you just love it when something fun just clicks. I got the neatest email this morning from someone I did not know.

It had to do with a sketch I made of some folks on Siesta Key beach back in January of 2002.

A little sketch I'd completely forgotten about until now.

The man in the sketch (Steve Humes) and his wife saw me sketching them and asked to buy the sketch. (I did not know his name then.)

And now, because I remembered to sign the sketch, he must have googled my name and found my email address and he wants permission to use the sketch on the cover of his new CD. Is that not cool or what? So I get his email this morning about this! I will be sure to include info about the CD on a later post...it's not ready for sale yet.

So be sure to sign your sketches! And ya just never know what might happen! :-)

75 day sketching Challenge up to Day 22

I know, not many people can get a bear to hold still long enough to sketch him. This was a brown bear too...not a the black ones we see up here in the north woods.

So the fun thing was this "stuffed" bear (sitting in front of a wolf) on top of a plate glass slab on top of an old antique sled was sitting in a used book store in Woodruff, WI. Who would have thought? How lucky to have my sketch pad in the car!!! The tag on his ear says $1,500.

The store is full of bric-a-brac and old dusty moose heads and old broken stained glass lamps, and huge stacks of dusty books! WHAT a fun place to sketch!!!

bric-a-brac |ˈbrik ə ˌbrak|nounmiscellaneous objects and ornaments of little value

This man (actually my hubby Greg) came out looking like a young Freud. Hahahaha. He also looks like he has nodded off over lunch. (Which could be true.) But I am determined that I will try a figure or two every week. Some folks are SO good at them! We had a lovely day down at the pier last week and he held his position for me for 20 minutes or so.

Waiting for Greg to run some errands in Minocqua yesterday, I started a quick sketch of the Twisted Root Emporium and neighboring stores. Very unusual architecture! And, of course, I noticed things I never saw before like a plaque saying 1919 on the front.

Painting my Christmas Card

I know...it always seems nutso but I do my Christmas card every year around Labor Day weekend. And the printer says that I am not the only one!

I have this really good printer up here in Minocqua, WI that I like a lot.

And I love having it all done when I get to Florida!!! I often "start off" my Christmas letter too and just save it on the hard drive because often I find I want to revise or add some things before I run that off and send...usually just after Thanksgiving.

This is watercolor and ink on 140# Arches.

The photo reference is a stained glass window in a little German church in Illinois.

I loved the little angel. You can't read it but I wrote "Peace" in the little rectangle at the bottom. The picture might be better if enlarged it by clicking on it.

I used salt in some place to get some of the bubbly textures.

It is not a big painting...the window is about 15" high.

It'll be a bit of challenge to get the linear shape onto a standard size greeting card but we'll figure it out.

Gorgeous warm day in the north woods of WI but we have a lot of rain and cold coming from somewhere and so we are sort of thinking that this might be the last day of summer for us. Out come the sweaters now!

75 day sketching Challenge Day 16 & 17

I think you can sort of see that as I proceed through this exercise of sketching every day (and you can scroll back through a few of them back to August 13), that I become more interested in "detail" and perhaps even "storytelling" in my sketches.

I find that having to work exclusively in ink I have to plan things that overlap and try to gauge where something will touch something else far more than if I had a pencil and eraser in my hand. My perspective is still "off" but it's getting a little better as I go along...looking at angles now and trying to think through how the stapler stuck out of the shelf before drawing the lines of the actual shelf.

This is my little desk in the guest room at the cabin where obviously I keep a plethora of odds and ends from string, to tape, to envelopes. It's where the books I am reading get stacked and the manuals for how to set the phone machine...yadda yadda. This is a 2-day sketch because I forgot last night and so Brenda says...just do two the next day. I felt that this was complex enough to count for two. This took about 20-30 minutes. But when you are doing it you are not aware of time at all.

Last En Plein Air Sketch for the Summer

I've painted at the Thirsty Whale Restaurant before. But this time instead of acrylic I chose watercolor on hot press paper. (For when you feel drippy.) I have not decided yet if I should go back and do some ink lines on this one. I'll wait a few days to decide that.

It was a beautiful morning on Minocqua Lake...but a cool breeze was blowing and my sweater felt pretty good. It was probably about 73 degrees. We had lunch on the open air deck afterwards (8 of us) and I recommend the chicken salad wrap! Yum. But it was breezy there too and I was STILL glad to have the sweater. (My best garage sale find of the season was that nice sweater!)

Temps here in the north woods are beginning to feel like the cusp of autumn!

Last night I forgot all about my daily sketch! Until 9:39 (as noted on the clock!) So I just sat on my bed and sketched my dresser top!

75 Day sketching Challenge Day 8-11

With quite a bit of company still at our cabin on the lake, all I have had time to keep up with IS the 75 day challenge. (Did a little "blind contour" of the shoe as well.)

I am finding that the little pen I got at the stamping store has been a fun one for the shinier paper in this sketch book. Our company will be leaving tomorrow so I am hoping to get back into the studio and I have one more en plein air sketch group on Friday (if the rain holds off).

75 Day sketching Challenge Day 5 and 6

Greg has 3 tomato plants growing in pots down by the lakeshore where they get sun.

He's so pleased they are ripening up this week.

We had to wait quite awhile in Philips, WI at the Harbor View Restaurant yesterday where lots of folks were having a great old Wed evening. A volley ball game was going on below the deck area and music and lots of good food. So it was worth the wait. (Boy I sure need to practice doing umbrellas!)

I wanted also to share with you a quote from a recent article in the newest issue of "Cloth Paper Scissors" magazine. An article by Loretta Marvel on how drawing was a huge therapy for her in recovery from illness.

...."I picked up a pencil to draw. My view was limited to the living room and what I could see through the double doors onto the wet porch. Ho hum; boring, I thought, but I studiously sketched the two leather chairs and then began on the battered Morris chair, whose many slats kept me busy holding up my pencil and looking up and down to get the scale right. The only sounds in the room were the hiss of the gas fire and the pencil scratching across the page, and after a few minutes I was absorbed in the drawing.....during those drawing sessions, my mind quieted down to the narrow triangle occupied by my eyes and my hand and the page, and I entered reveries as sweet as any that could be had in a tree house swaying in the willows."

(Yesterday we were on our way back from Marshfield, WI where I'd been to see my cardiologist. He says I am doing GREAT! and he's lowering my blood pressure meds again!) Yippee. I wonder if maybe all this drawing is lowering my blood pressure? :-)

Friends in the Sketch Challenge!

These two sketches are by two friends who are joining me in the challenge. I apologize in the tiny one. Susan and I experimenting with large and small photo uploads and I don't think we have it down yet! I hope we can try it again (or you can try clicking on her image to enlarge it).

The two are a fascinating contrast! Susan's is a sketch of a piece of stained glass art work. Joan's above is her studio! Mine (see below) are both en plein air sketches. Anything goes in this thing! Keep tuned for more sketches from all of us. (I promise not to make you look at all 75!)

75 day sketching Challenge Day 2 and 3

These sketches are about 5" x 5" and represent several different kinds of pens.

Tombow water soluable pens allow for some water and shading to be added after the sketch which adds variety to the sketches. I am using my Micron Pens too. And the tomato was just a roller ball pen from WalMart.

And I used a burnt sienna ink pens on the one on the right just for variety. The left is the view near our church out over Flambeau Lake. The one on the right is a small portion of our cabin here on Tippecanoe Lake showing the loft windows and hanging plants and shadows from morning sun.

(The mosquitoes were just terrible this morning while I did this! That keeps you sketching FAST!

While I was sketching my husband handed me his FIRST tomato of the season! (Things grow slowly up here in the north woods of WI). He is glad we may get to harvest a few of these in our last 5 weeks here! So anyway, I quickly sketched it (in ink) and then had to add the color with a water-filled pen and my little Winsor Newton color palette.

I am finding that trying to get shape and shadows using ONLY a pen is a new skill for me. Naturally if I do just a contour drawing, you don't have to worry much about that.

My friend, Susan, who is also taking the Challenge says that she has already noticed that she is looking at details much more closely than before!

Anyone interested in starting the challenge, scroll down to my Aug 13 post for details.

Nature's Jewels

This morning on our pier after the fog lifted I found the most beautiful jewelry in the world!

Three of them actually...hung like ornaments on a Christmas tree or the most beautiful necklaces in the jewelry shop!

I wish I had thought to run up to get a black background of some kind to put behind them.

But they are lovely with the natural water, rocks, and boats behind them too.

They took my breath away.

Lucky me.

75 Day Sketching Challenge!

I had to laugh at this sketchbook cover. It looks like one of those funny "plan ahead" stickers! I thought it was kind of appropriate, however!!!

I needed something that would make me smile every time I got it out!!!

Okay...how many of you are taking Brenda Swenson's sketching challenge? A sketch every day for 75 days (ink only)!

I think this could be SO helpful and fun.

First off...go to Brenda's blog for all her information on the "challenge rules".

Click here and scroll down to her July 20 post.

After you have read the rules go up to her Aug 1 post for some more hints and suggestions.

Then follow her instructions and send her by email your entry information so you make a "commitment" to do this!

I am starting today so day 75 for me will be October 27.

She would like to have a digital photo of yourself to put on your Artist License when you write and tell her you are done!!! All on your honor!!! You don't need to show anyone the sketches unless you want to!

The materials are some paper and a pen! Duh. We can do this people!

The sketches can be small...you don't need to do anything huge!

My personal hint for this would be to find a small bag of some kind for the sketchbook and pen(s). SO that you can throw it into the car when you are waiting at the dentist or at any meeting while you are waiting for something to happen and so you can find your materials and do not have an excuse that you lost them!!!

Lost for an idea? Empty your purse out and sketch what you find.

Sketch the place setting at your table at lunch.

Go for a walk and bring home some leaves to sketch.

Hey blogger buddies...I am NOT going to do this alone. Who is with me!

Painting at Gateway Lodge near Mercer, WI

What a lovely morning! We got lucky (rain came in the afternoon!).

It was a long drive. BUT thanks to Susan Lansdown our great driver, Joan Stevens and I had a splendid ride there! Thank you Susan!!!

There were about 8 or 9 of us there.

And we had a nice lunch afterwards at the Lodge.

This old swing caught my eye...just near the Lake (Turtle Flambeau Flowage).

Watercolor on 11 x 14 Arches rough.

Hoggie Doggie's: a local icon

En plein air this morning was beautiful...about 80 and sunny.

According to the weather man...we are in for some rain and cooler temps this weekend. Perfect timing!

I looked at Leesburg, FL today (my place of residence). It was 101 there today! OH MY GOSH. Everyone there wishes they were here in WI with me!!!

Located on Hwy 47 and J in Woodruff, Hoggie Doggie's restaurant is THE lunch spot for every kind of dog you ever wanted!!! About seven of us gathered to paint around 9 am this morning until noon. Lovely day.

I switched back to acrylic this morning after several weeks in watercolor. Feels all new again! Blah. 11 x 14 on canvas board primed with orange. I just couldn't "get in the groove" today. I was all thumbs and nothing seemed to work right. I loved everything everyone else did! Some days are like that!!! I added the figures when I got back to my studio.

The en plein air show opened today..I need to get up and see how it looks! Also the People's Choice opens this Saturday for two days. I am checking artists in tomorrow afternoon from 3-5.

En Plein Air Show in Woodruff, WI

Although I had 6 possible pieces to put in the show, I settled on these four.

Top back: Arbor Vitae Lake, Top right: Discovery Center: Manitowish Waters

Bottom left: Minocqua Brewing Company in Minocqua (local restaurant) and

bottom right: The Thirsty Whale: local hangout on Lake Minocqua.

These were delivered to Howard Young Hospital for hanging today. And the show should be ready to view by tomorrow (Wed, August 3 and hang through Sept 28).

Besides the local en plein air painters, there will be a concurrent show of the Manito Art League of a variety of art. So lots of fun pieces to view.

If you are local and plan to attend the show here are the directions:

Take Hwy 51 north to Woodruff to the 3rd Ave. (the stoplight at the Citgo Station).

Turn left on 3rd Avenue and go about two blocks to Maple Street. Turn left and you will be at the back entrance to the hospital at the gift store wing. Enter under the portico and turn left and then right following the art show signs past the gift shop.

IN addition, the People's Choice art show of the Lakeland Art League will open next Saturday morning so I am framing for that now. I'll have 5 pieces in that show. I am also in charge of writing all the identification cards by hand. I am almost done.

Note how dark it is behind the paintings through the window? It is not night time! The photo was taken about 10 am this morning. We were in the middle of a HUGE storm with blinding rain and dark dark skies and huge thunderbolts! Flash flood warnings everywhere in our area!