Sketchbook Revival 2025: Birds

 I've been trying my hand at birds again! I followed along with the teacher, Julia Bausenhardt, in the video "How to Draw a Bird in Five Easy Steps". It's in watercolor, and I'm not familiar with this bird, but it's a Bluetit, according to the teacher. 

I kind of did it backwards, but I painted along with her and took notes first, then went back and added the diagram the next day. I tend to get watercolor thicker and brighter than most people. Possibly because my eyes are giving me trouble. Anyway, it was fun to learn and do!

The next one is a seagull from an original photo that I took on our road trip out west in 2019. We were on our way back home and spent the night in Missouri. There was a flock of seagulls in the parking lot of the motel we stayed in, and I captured some of them on film.

I enjoyed working out the drawing and painting it in ink and watercolor!

This one was really a challenge! I saw a photo of a pink bird amongst pink flowers online, and it was so pretty that I decided to try painting it. Not exactly like the photo, because I can't copy anything exactly, even if I wanted to, but it was certainly inspired by the photo. I'm not sure what kind of bird it is. Maybe a parakeet or a parrotlet? The background was as much of a challenge as the bird was, and I got the pinks too purple from the start, and as hard as I tried, I couldn't get rid of it, so I just finally went with it. The pinks were actually more of an orange-pink, which is what attracted me to it in the first place.

It's not perfect, but I'm glad I tackled it. It taught me a lot! Ink and watercolor-The classes in Sketchbook Revival have helped me gain so much, not just in knowledge, but in confidence too. I'm so glad I signed up and have stayed with the classes!

Below is my actual workspace, and, believe it, or not, I do actually work there sometimes. It is our dining room table, which I started organizing my art supplies on, but in the midst of sorting I got the itch to work on a journal or something, so I laid my drawing board on top of the sorted piles to work on. Since then, it has also become very cluttered with works in progress and assorted collage materials, leaving very little work space. On top of that, it is tilted, so that what I'm working on tends to try to slide off. It's a struggle to keep what I'm working on on there. No wonder I do all of my drawing/painting while sitting in my recliner with my necessary stuff on a stool beside me! Seems like I can't find the time for cleaning/organizing anymore. Every time I blink another week is gone!

I am still trying to sketch/paint some every day, and by the time we do our exercises, the day is gone, even when we get up earlier. But I have to do something about this mess!

Anyway, that's it for this post! Thanks for visiting! Take care of you!

Extra Practice Sketches

 Just some random sketches in my large sketchbook on drawing paper! Some are additional sketches for a class and some are just from my imagination for practice. All were learning experiences! Still trying to keep up the sketch a day practice!

Have a great weekend!

Sketchbook Revival 2025-Travel Sketching, Two Quirky Owls, a Royal Tern, and a Bouquet

 Well, I'm way behind with posting here, but I've been busy watching videos and attempting doing the techniques for a lot of varied art. It's too hot here to do anything else much. So this post is a little long, but here goes!

The top painting is in watercolor, and I followed along with the teacher and her photo reference of an island in Fiji, inspired by Leoni Norton in her class "Travel Sketching in Pen and watercolor.

This painting was also inspired by the Travel Sketching class, but I used an original photograph from our road trip out west in 2019. I think this was in Missouri on our way back home to Tennessee and was made as we passed by. It was fall, and the windmill surrounded by water and vines caught my eye. Also watercolor and ink.

A few sketches for Tamara Laporte's class "Embracing YOU, Quirks and All" in mixed media.

My original painting from the "Embracing YOU" class in mixed media. She was such fun to create!

Another fun painting from the "Embracing YOU" class in mixed media! Also fun to create!

Loving these characters!

This bird is from the teacher's reference, and I tried to paint along with her, but mine has much darker feathers than hers. It's a shore bird called a Royal Tern, and it's from the watercolor class "From Bill to Tail Feathers: How to Sketch a Bird" with Shari Blaukopf. I want to paint a sea gull from my own photo next!

I just finished this one today! I followed Sarah Simon along in painting this bouquet from her reference drawing, which I scanned at one fourth the original size so it would fit my sketchbook. It made for a tedious and challenging attempt, but I stuck with it until I thought it time to stop. I haven't tried to paint many watercolor flowers, so, even though it's not as good as hers, I'm proud of it. I loved the colors together on hers and used as close as I had. The class is "Snowdrops and Helebores".

These classes and the challenges have been invaluable to me as a daily practice for learning and forming habits, but I have also gained enough in confidence to actually finish each class and painting instead of quitting when I got bored, or when it became difficult. I just hope I can keep doing that after the classes. I still have many classes to take if I want to, and I have learned so much. 

I have so many half finished paintings and journals for the reason that I got bored, or it got difficult, and I stopped on them, that maybe with this new habit I can go back and finish them.

Right now I have a bird painting and a portrait in progress, both in watercolor, that I'm determined to finish. They are at the stage that I don't know where to go, but I'll figure it out somehow. They may be a mess, but they will be done, and I will have gained from doing them. I also have a couple of portraits drawn off that I haven't begun painting yet. These are not class exercises, although I used some of the techniques I've learned from various teachers. 

That's it for this post! I'm going to take a shower, then maybe work so more on the two watercolor paintings, and the dust bunnies just keep multiplying, making me feel guilty, but I keep trying to ignore them, as I do the new notebook that I need to finish setting up. 😏

Take care! See y'all next post! Thanks for visiting!

Sketchbook Revival 2025-A Garden, a Street, and Some One-Liners

 It's been a few days since I posted, but I've been busy! Still learning and trying new lessons and loving it!

First I grew a mixed media mark making garden in a concertina book with Helen Stamper in her class "How Wild is Your Garden?" A concertina book is made like an accordion, and it can stand alone on its edge when it's opened, or it folds up to look like a book. I only made a small sample to remind me how to do it and glued it into my sketchbook on the backside. You can also make art on both sides if you want to. I used charcoal, oil pastel, posca pens, crayons, colored pencils, sticks, my Zig marker, anything and everything layered over to look like a tangled overgrown garden. I want to do a large one in black and white, and also one in color. Once I got started, I had a blast!

This is another very fun class with Karen Stamper called "Collage The Street", also in my small sketch book. I so want to make a large tall one like she did in her demo. The nosy woman in the window and the dog on the porch are two of my original sketches, which I printed off as thumbnails. Collage and sketching are so fun together. Great workout for my imagination, as most of these classes are!

Another fun class with Carla Sonheim called "One Liner Drawings", in which we took our pencil and drew things from her prompts using only one line to draw the whole thing, like a child. Her prompts were cat, elephant, flowers in vases, and toilets (commodes). I just added the swan-ducks. I did three pages in my small sketchbook, then I had had so much fun I sketched a bunch more in my large book!

After sketching several of each prompt, we picked one idea to re-draw and color (I used colored pencils). Then we picked another idea to collage and color, so I used a piece of text for the swan face and a piece of brown paper bag with asemic writing on it for the wing and colored in in with watercolor and a Posca pen. I also used colored pencils to color one of the elephants just as it was, plus some glasses.

I forgot to make a photo of the sketches before I made paint blobs between them to pull images out of. It also used up leftover paint and cleaned off my brush.

I just finished another class today, watercolor, but decided to put it in the next post. About to watch a new class!

We went out of town the last couple of days, so I didn't get much done. Today, I picked out and ordered a new laptop. The one I have is fine, but it doesn't have enough room for the new Windows 11, and after October 14 they won't do free updates for security for Windows 10. At least, that's what I understand from the messages Microsoft has been sending me. I'm glad I can get a new one, but I dread setting it up and learning how to use it. I'm getting too old for this technical stuff and have nobody to help me. Maybe I'll get through it ok. We'll see.

Anyway, it's really hot in Tennessee right now, so I'm really thankful for air conditioning!

Prayers for all the flood victims in Texas, and that they find all those missing people and pets. Such an awful thing to happen, and it can happen anywhere anytime to any of us.

Take care, be kind, and stay creative!

Mark Making Page and the Girls

 These are not from any classes, but use some of the techniques I've learned in the classes, of course, and are in my bigger better sketchbook, Winsor Newton 7"x10" mised media

Just a mark making page inspired by Helen Wells black and white sketchbooks, which I love. I wish I hadn't started it off by scribbling a stabilo pencil over the background and using a water brush over it. When I made the marks over it with various tools with black inks it made the whole thing too dark, but I learned NOT to do that again. I prefer black and white. It was a fun relaxing page to do anyway!

I'm not sure this one with a pony tail is done, but I kind of like her at this stage. I used a stabilo pencil and a water brush to sketch her, then added a water color tint of yellow ochre and some blue mixture leftover on my palette for light and shade. Not liking the white spots in her hair, but leaving her for the time being. 

I sketched this face from imagination and added some watercolor a couple of weeks ago, then added the napkin collage and butterflies the last couple of days. The quote is from Helen Wells, Artist.

Just for fun things aside from classwork! I have a couple more faces sketched and started, but I'm about to start another class. Not sure which yet!

Thanks for visiting! I appreciate your support and encouragement. See you in the next post!

Sketchbook Revival 2025-Portrait Sketches and Blob Characters

 I am learning so much in these classes! Every time I think I'll take a break, another student posts something that inspires me to take another class, but I am beginning to want to do my own art instead of following along with the teachers, as wonderful as they are. I am so grateful for their generosity in sharing their techniques with the rest of us!

This one came out of the class "Expressive Portrait Play" with Melanie Rivers, involved two colors plus white applied with my fingers. Quite challenging, but fun!

This page was inspired by Carla Sonheim's class Box Journaling and Blob Painting. I do want to do a box journal, and I should have used watercolor for the blobs instead of left over acrylics. I found characters in them, but my pen didn't want to go over the slick finish. I'll do some more in watercolor! A fun little exercise!

These two were inspired by Ida Anderson Lang's class "Graphite and Gold". I had paint drying in my class sketchbook, so I sketched the one above in my bigger better sketchbook. I wasn't quite satisfied with her, so I sketched her again in my class sketchbook and made her bigger. Still not satisfied with her, but I like her better, although I wish the darks and gold paint showed up better in the bottom one.

I'm thinking I might not ought to be sharing my notes at the bottom of the pages now. I really didn't think most people would take the time to read them, or they wouldn't be able to make sense out of them, and even if they do they'd still need to see the video demo to put it together. My notes are wonky, and are usually nowhere near this neat. I know what they mean, but most other people wouldn't. I didn't want to crop them off the picture for my own purposes, but maybe I should from now on?

Anyway, that's my classwork for this week, all of them challenging in their own way, which I love!

Stay safe and well and keep creating pretty things! The world needs pretty things!

Photos From a Lost Roll of Film

This is a post that I started a couple of weeks ago and got side tracked, but several weeks ago I was looking for my sunglasses that fit over my prescription glasses and I was going through some old purses that I left stuff in when I moved into a new one.

In one of them, I found two rolls of 35mm film. One had been shot, the other hadn't. I couldn't believe that I didn't get them developed, because I could never wait to see how the photos turned out. Plus, I haven't used that camera in many years, not since I went digital.

I had no idea how old they were, or even if they could still be developed, but I took them to Walgreens to see. They couldn't develop them at the store, but sent them off to some place that could. No idea what it would cost, but I anxiously waited about three weeks to get them back. They cost almost twenty dollars, but they were worth it.

I figured they were nature shots, and most of them were, and I figured out that I took them in the early nineties at the latest. Judging from the picture of the cat and kitten, and when they adopted us, they are at least 35 years old. And the whole roll of 24 developed perfectly!

I've only scanned six of them into the computer for now, but I'm sharing them here.

Bird on a weed on the little hill behind our house with my dad's tractor shed in the background (my dad died in 2004). I think it's a wren, my favorite little bird.

A pretty shot of my dad's wagon/buggy shed back on the same little hill behind our house.

A  shot of one of the three flower beds, this one with a fountain and bird feeders, that my little Pekingese and I tended for a few years. We loved sitting out there with coffee listening to the fountain and the birds!

The bird feeder that my dad made for me. The paint job was my idea, as we live in the Rabbit Hop community. The squirrels also enjoyed it, and occasionally a cat took a nap in it. We still have it, but it has gone way down hill over the years. The birds still love it. See the woodpecker chowing down?

This very verbal Siamese cat adopted us, and had been here for several days when we discovered that she had one tiny calico kitten hidden under our central unit. I called her Simmi Cat and the kitten Loopy Bocephus. Simmi Cat would let us pet her, but it took about all summer to coax Loopy into letting me touch her. She eventually came around to letting us pet her, although begrudgingly. 

A "snake doctor" caught sunning on a rock on the little hill behind our house when we went walking.

I love going on walks around our little farm taking photos of nature, although I'm no longer able to do that. I'm thankful for all the pictures and memories I've made over the years, and the rest of the film roll has some more great shots, which I'll try to share at some point.

This roll of film was like finding a long lost treasure that I didn't know I had, and there were also a couple of shots of me that long ago! Who knew?