A cold rainy Sunday

It was the kind of day to stay home in front of the fire. Of course, I had to find some things to draw, but first I headed into the kitchen to make a cup of tea...

After the tea and drawing the honey bear, I found the rest of my drawing subjects on my very messy corner of the dining room table.

I go through more Cerulean Blue than any other color. It's time to order a new tube or two before I leave for Bali.

Two of my other favorite colors along with Ultramarine Blue and Quinacridone Gold. More for my wishlist.

My very messy palette after an afternoon of painting.

Farmers market—Portland Maine

It's getting cold here in Portland so the farmer market is waining. Really all that is left are the cold weather root vegetables. After sketching a bit, I bought some delicious carrots and two bunches of kale to make the even more delicious kale crisps.

With winter just around the corner, the beautiful colors of fall are fading. The late summer flowers in window boxes and flower pots in front of the businesses in the Old Port have been replaced with mums and ornamental kale. Soon it will all be replaced with holiday balsam, lights and wreaths.

It's pie season. This lovely apple pie was in a coffee shop on the way home. No pie for me though...well, maybe a bite...maybe...

Inspired by the wonderful Yupo paintings by Suzanne at A Brush with Color, I brought this Indian Corn home to try my hand at painting on Yupo. The unpredictability of paint that floats on the surface is a challenge but can be very fun and creative.

Shoes and sunset

New shoes "TOMS": Living in Maine it is inevitable that I finally have to put away my flip-flops. So now that old man winter has blanketed New England in cold darkness, I am wearing shoes, but not socks...yet.

I saw these shoes at a boutique in town. For every pair of Toms shoes that are purchased, TOMS will give a pair of shoes to a child in need. "ONE for ONE". That is so cool and how cool are these gilded gold herringbone shoes. I also ordered glitter black. Then I started thinking I should order white canvas and paint them...

Beautiful sunset last night over the city. I quickly sketched with conte´ crayons and ink.

This week...

"The Great Gatsby"

Jerry's son, Alex, has a sweet rescue boxer named Gatsby. He is way more trained than Sophie when it comes to "sit, stay and come", however, he did think he needed to show that he was the alpha male dog...in the house. Sophie just walked into the bedroom with that "I would never do that" look on her face.

I practice drawing hands whenever I am at a loss of what to draw. The other day while in the waiting room I did this partial blind contour drawing from a magazine. I added color when I got home.

For Grace Uhm, a fellow Julia Kay Portrait Party member. She asked me to do a sketch for her from a photograph she sent me. Here it is Grace. I hope you like it.

In today's class today we did collage portraits using magazines and pasting it on with our hands. Martha brought books from the artist Romare Bearden. The model was sitting in front of colorful draped fabric in the studio. She didn't have a dog and neither of them had crowns...

Halloween weekend sketches

Line 'em up, Line 'em all up. 3 of 15 scarecrows at a farmhouse in Cape Elizabeth. Brush pen and colored pencils.

Sketching at the farmers market. Dip pen, ink and watercolor.

Sophie and I glamming it up in front of our building. One last time in my Halloween costume. An olive green "witches hat" with a black veil made out of netting with spiders worn comfortably with my jeans, black t-shirt and pearls.

Happy Halloween

Portrait class—Halloween self portrait

Self portrait

22X30 Rives print paper

Our assignment this week was to come in costume with a mirror to do a "Halloween" self portrait. I arrived in a $3 green witches hat with a black veil, green eye shadow, blackish/red lipstick and a large silver cross and pearls around my neck. Jerry asked if I walked through town that way and I said yes, but no one noticed. I blended right in...I think...

This is the process, I described a few posts back, using burnt sienna oil paint thinned with odorless turpentine for the initial drawing. Charcoal and pastels seem to grab onto the painted surface. More very thinned color can then layered to blend and create a surface to add more charcoal/pastel layers and on and on. I did this in about two hours, but I could have stayed at the studio all day. Unfortunately another class was waiting to start. It's quite messy! A far cry from ink and watercolor in a small sketchbook.

Bali art prototypes

Over the next five years we will be spending more time in Bali than here in Maine while Jerry implements his sustainable seafood project for Indonesia. I am leaving in January and won't return until July—my longest time away from home and my dog. I am starting to put together ideas for my art while in Bali.

Creating a watercolor background that resembles batik fabric.

I am trying acrylics for the first time. I am used to oils and the acrylics dry so quickly that it is taking me time to figure out how to blend and manipulate the paint before it dries. On the other hand, that quick dry time has it's merits.

Faces and masks on rocks using acrylics and varnish.

Acrylic on canvas board. Matte varnished applied after paint dried.

Acrylic and mixed media using local papers and batik fabric. Varnished when dry to seal.

Bali dogs possibly supporting the Bali Street Dog organization. Acrylic on 5"x5" stretched canvas. 1 1/2" border painted black. SOLD

Portrait class—mixed media

Mixed media exercise today—model is sketch loosely with odorlees turp and burnt sienna oil paint. This is a very light wash establishing shapes. Then charcoal and pastel are layered over the oil wash drawing. The pastel grabs onto the turp wash creating a wonderful layered effect. Then more turp to blend and more pastel and charcoal layers and on and on and on...

20 minute sketch from model(so little time)

15 minute sketch (even less time)

Pastel (without turpentine and oil paint wash)

Music at the farmers market

We have a wonderful farmer's market every Wednesday in downtown Portland, Maine. It is getting cold here at night, so these days it is mostly filled with pumpkins and squashes, but there is still the last of the summer harvest available. I stopped to sketch this sax player before heading home with some of the vegetables I bought.

Portrait Party on Flickr

I continue to take part in Julia Kay's Portrait Party on Flickr. Actually it can be somewhat addictive. I usually just post them on my Flickr site, but decided to add these two to the blog.

Ink and watercolor

Ink, watercolor and pastel

Portrait Party

Sophie and I are home alone until December so we spend a lot of time together. I did this self-portrait for Friday's homework assignment. We were suppose to use pastel with music. I had just come in from a "Sophie walk" so I kept my favorite sunglasses on, which I love because not only are they oversized, but they are readers. I decided to smile because non-smiling looks so grim, dismal and UGH—old. I sketched with a brush pen before adding pastel.

Self—brush pen and pastel.

I caught Sophie resting her muzzle on her stuffed toy—sooooooooo cute! I quickly sketched her and added watercolor.

Portrait Class

I am taking a portrait class on Friday mornings at the Maine College of Art (MECA) in Portland Maine. Using materials I have never used like pastel and charcoal powder to capture the live model. It's great fun and I am pushing myself way out of my comfort zone.

Assignment to use only three colors of pastel and paint to music.

Trying to smudge and blend the pastel.

My first time using pastel. I didn't even smudge or blend.

Homework—Each week we get a homework assignment and this was a self portrait with India Ink. Night before class—tired!

Around town

Sophie and I take quite a few walks around our little in-town neighborhood. Most of the time it is because she has to go out. Sometimes when it is a nice day, I throw my sketch book in my bag and out we go. So, while she sniffs the corners of every building, kisses anyone who shows an interest in her, growls at large dogs and barks at random cars and people, I am able to do a few quick sketches.

Monument Square—a few blocks up and over.

The corner of Fore and Exchange Streets—sitting across the street from our building.

Doorways on the Old Port

Doorways on our walks around the Old Port

I sometimes think I depend too much on ink or pencil in my drawings, so I experimented with just using watercolor directly to create the images. I added a little crayon for the dog.

"Randomness"

Sketching doesn't comes so easily these days. I find I throw more away than I keep, let alone post. So I find I am in a state of ran•dom•ness—"things made, done, happening, or chosen without method or conscious". Hopefully this soon will pass...

House guests: Michael and Marcella are visiting the USA from Costa Rica. Michael is the son of an expat friend, formerly from Connecticut and a diehard Red Sox fan, who has lived with his family in Costa Rica for years. Marcella is from Buenos Aires. They own the wonderful restaurant, Salsapuedes, in Quepos Costa Rica. I loved the T-shirt she bought while here in Portland so I did of sketch of them last night. I gave it to them as a souvenir parting gift as they left for more USA adventures.

Beso: This is one of the many residents that live out at the farm that my kitties now call home. Beso is a "Schnoodle"—Standard poodle and Giant Schnauzer. When Nina throws a stick in the air, Beso goes airborne. She looks like a furry snowboarder.

Bobo: I bought the book Drawing Lab for Mixed Media Artists. When I feel like I am creatively stuck, I find some of her exercises help me work through the block. I especially like this one where you let the random paint marks "tell" what to draw. It is fun to just slop on the paint and go back later with a pen.

My kitties have a new home

We are spending more and more time in Bali because of a sustainable seafood project. Looks like it will be going on for the next five years. In January I will be going for six months—my longest time away from my home in the USA. 7 year old Sophie will be going to California to stay with my parents until we can move her to Bali. The move to Indonesia would be much harder on my 13 year old cats, so they have moved to a wonderful old farmhouse not far from here with my good friend Nina.

Bobo, my orange tabby and a dedicated flosser, has had a bit of a hard time with the transition. It seems as though Nina and her kids all have dogs that are easily 4' tall. However, recently he has decided that it is much better lying in the sun at the bay window near the crunchies then under the bed or in a closet with a dog or two between him and his food.

Nothing bothers Jazzy. She settled right in on the first day. Dogs of any size don't even faze her. She will sit on the back of a couch and just watch the dog antics on the floor then get bored and go back to sleep. As long as there is a sunny window with a comfortable place to sleep, she is a happy cat.

Jazzy is a very social cat and loves to be with people. When friends come to visit she is usually in the middle of the party. She is not a small cat and there is not much room once she spreads out. However, the night before I took them to Nina's, I scooched forward and let her share the chair with me while I painted. We all then piled into the bed for one last sleepover.

Nina's home is a good happy place with lots of love and life, however, I think she has drawn the line at letting Bobo floss with her...

Summer in Maine

The Presidential Range in the White Mountains of New Hampshire

One of my favorite places to hike and on this beautiful day we hiked the Glen Ellis Trail to the Glen Boulder. Precariously perched, this huge boulder was pushed by the glaciers and landed in this spot never to move again.

We had a spectacular day with incredible views when when got above the tree line. I swear I could see my house on the coast of Maine from where I sat and rested before we headed up to have lunch at the boulder.

Waiting for my friends gave me time to sketch.

Merideth, Terry and Jerry coming over the ridge.

Northeast Harbor on Mount Desert Island Maine.

View from OP and Martha's house at the top of School House Ridge overlooking Northeast and Southwest Harbors.

A boat ride up Somes Sound.

Late summer days

We have had such a wonderful summer here in Maine. I have lived here for many years and I have never seen the sun shine so many days in a row like it has since early July when I returned from Bali. Of course, some say this will mean a very cold snowy winter (please, no). When you live in Maine you learn to live with very unpredictable and many times disappointing weather. Someone once told me "in Maine we have 11 months of winter and one month of bad sledding". But for now, we are continuing with beautiful sunny warm late summer days through next week. How cool is that!

Harbor view

We sailed through the passage known as the "Deer Island Thorofare" which meant we would pass by beautiful Stonington Harbor on the southern tip of Deer Isle. Filled with lobsters boats, it is still a working harbor and has been for generations of lobsterman and fisherman.