Accordion Journal

A Sample of my Accordion Journal

A few pages from my accordion journals that I'm keeping during this "stay at home" thing.  Some days are just plain hard, and some not so hard  -  what's the difference  -  nothing changes.  

A very dense fog just rolled up from the Bay.  This would all feel better with a little warmth and sunshine. The sketching and painting feel really good.  It feels normal.  Giving myself some goals makes me a little accountable, even if it's just to my journal, or the little peg-man I drag to the street on google street view.

Are you sketching?

Checking In

I hope everyone is doing well in this crazy time of quarantine!  Have you had some time on your hands to get some projects done?  Have you been painting and sketching?  

Forty Days of Paintings

Before Easter, I set myself a goal of painting a little 3X5 painting every day for forty days.  I painted views out our windows, things around the house, and of course, food.  I did them on pieces of Aquarius II watercolor paper because that is lighter weight than a 140 # paper, and I thought I might want to mount them in a sketchbook.  So far I'm happy with them just bundled together and tied with a ribbon.

Forty Days #1

Accordion Journal

By April 1st I decided that I should be keeping a Quarantine journal.  Instead of overthinking it and never getting started, I just folded a strip of watercolor paper (spliced to make it about 5" X 60") into an accordion fold.  Using both sides of the paper, it gives me about a month's worth of space.  Of course, now I had to start another one for May.

Stay at Home Journal

Google Street View

About this time of year I can't wait to get out and start sketching cottages and street scenes.  It has been very cold and there is no where to go.   So  -  I've started sketching using Google Street View.  These are just small, quick, scribbly, continuous-line drawings in ink.  Such fun!  I am stuck on the East Coast.  Try Nantucket  -  it's great. 

Google Street View Nantucket

So Much Stuff

So Many Distractions

I'm trying to get things straightened around for my classes to begin next week.  There are so many distractions on my work tables  -  sketchbooks to work in, sketchbooks to work from, paintings to finish,  paintings to start.  There are stacks of sketchbooks, piles of paper, clipboards of upcoming class information, things I want to be able to get my hands on, things I don't know what to do with   .   .   .

If it sounds like I'm complaining, I'm not.  I love this stuff, and I love the possibilities it all represents. I had intended to go out painting this morning, but it's raining.  We'll try for this afternoon, and I'll try to get all of this "stuff" in some kind of order by then.

The sketchbook page at the bottom was done yesterday  -  very hot and sunny.  The house is very complicated with many odd angles and at a difficult view point. To get it down, I just did a very quick continuous line drawing and didn't worry about what was what.  I'm happy with it.  It is that house to me.   Don't forget  -  your sketchbook page is your sketchbook page, and that's all that matters.

Another Day Out Painting

A Painting in my Sketchbook

Trying to get in a few more sketchbook days before cooler weather sets in.  This is a very sad looking cottage.  I like the shape of it and wanted to brighten it up by leaving it white.  It's actually a very flat/worn/dull shade of  -   something.  Maybe dusty rose.  Maybe mauve.  

It looks lonely.  If I were to buy this cottage, I'd paint it white, throw open the windows, turn up some music, and invite a bunch of friends for dinner. This place needs a party.

That's what's fun about painting  -  you can make anything whatever you want it to be.

Are you getting in some outdoor painting days? 

New Brushes

House Shapes from my Sketchbook

I took a workshop earlier this week from Sandra Strohschein.  It was great  -  lots of information.  She used these brushes and had them available to purchase, so now I'm obsessed and can't put them down.

This painting is about 7 X 11.  These cottages are from my "collection" of simple house shapes in my sketch books.  I love houses of any shape, size, or style, and often when I go to paint them, they don't always end up in their original settings. In real life, these are surrounded by many other cottages, but as I sketched them, I liked the way "the viewer" could, maybe, just walk over that ridge to the beach instead of more cottages and the highway.

Art is a control thing.  You can make a subject anything you want!

Go out and sketch some cottages or houses in the city, country or by the beach  -  then put them in any setting you want.  It's not about reality, it's about the composition.

Have fun with it!!!

Another Porch

Painting on Another Porch
Painting with the Walloon Lake Group before having lunch on the porch overlooking the lake.

Webster: "Porch -  a covered area adjoining an entrance to a building and usually having a separate roof."

And usually having coffee, tea, or lemonade, comfy chairs, a nice view, a vase of wildflowers,  something good to read, a cat asleep in the sun . . . 

It's getting cooler now, and the walnuts are falling onto the porch roof and rolling down, dropping to the ground. A few leaves have turned.  Mornings and evenings are much cooler.  I'm really not a fan of much cooler.

I want to get in a lot more time of journaling and sketching outside.  Have you taken your sketchbooks out for a stroll lately?

Finding a Breeze

A Great Place to Paint on a Hot Day

It's been pretty warm this summer in northern Michigan, but there is always a shady spot and almost always a breeze coming off the Bay.

We sat on the porch and painted, drank jasmine tea and ate green tea mochi ice cream.  

Today I'm tearing up my garden  -  if you can even call it a garden.  Everything is soooo out of control.  It looks like one of those old gardens that was at one time very pretty, and then because of neglect, it just became overgrown and tangled  -  that's exactly what happened.  So, I'm finding my way down to bare dirt, and we'll just see what happens when spring comes.  If things come up again, I'll have to decide whether to let them grow or pull them out.  If nothing comes up, I'll have to decide whether to replant or plant grass.  

The tiger lilies were devoured by red lily bugs (REPULSIVE), and the day lilies and hostas were eaten by the deer. Maybe next year there won't be anything for the predators -  that'll show 'em.

A Productive Weekend

A Fun and Productive Weekend

Spiffing Up My Studio Classroom

With the help of our granddaughters, we finished installing a new ceiling, painted the walls, and painted and installed most of the trim  -  in a very short time.  Unlike us.  Of course "a very short time" is relative, isn't it? Let's say less than two month's time, or less than a year. Seriously, we were able to get a lot done with the help of our teenage paint crew. We ate a lot of pizza and listened to their music  -  not that bad!

Then I spray painted the chandelier and covered the candle things with decorative paper. The paper does NOT touch the bulbs.

More Journal Pages

Journal Pages

A couple more journal pages from March.  

It was very sunny part of the day today, and that is really a welcome sight now.  I saw a few crocus leaves today along the edge of a big pile of snow in the back yard.

I'm putting lesson plans together for summer  Bay View Watercolor Sketch Book classes.

Crocus leaves and summer lesson plans!  The winter doldrums are beginning to lift!

Journal Pages

A Couple of Days in March

  Finally we are beginning to get some sunshine, the huge piles of snow are melting, and we can even see some grass.  It's brown, but it's grass!

I've been trying to spend a little more time with my journal.  In northern Michigan it will still be awhile before we can get out and sketch and paint. My winter journal pages usually end up being about food.  Some people ski in the winter  -  I eat.

We have a big house project going, and it is very very dirty.  You know what dry wall dust is like  -  this is 120 year old plaster dust!!!  We are tearing down and replacing an old ceiling.  The dust is EVERYWHERE.  Every single thing in the house is going to have to be washed, dusted and/or vacuumed.  It's time for a good decluttering  -  then there won't be so much to clean.  

Still Life Value Study

Small Value Study and Painting

I love doing quick little "thumbnail sketches", and especially like doing them on toned paper with chalk and charcoal as a value study.

A thumbnail sketch is a very small, quick sketch  -  2 inches, 2 minutes. The purpose is to get your composition figured out before you even touch your watercolor paper.  I start out drawing just the shapes  -  absolutely no detail.  When I get the composition I like, I start working on the values (lights and darks, contrasts).

In class we played around with some thumbnail sketches, transferred the best ones to the brown paper, and worked out the values with the chalk as the lightest value, the paper as the medium, and the charcoal as the darkest.  We then transferred our original small sketch to watercolor paper and did little paintings using the value sketch as a guide for our lights and darks.  

It was a fun project and made us think about the process of planning a painting.  It's hard for people to drop the detail and just do shapes in the step.  I like to think of it as brain storming.  Kind of like a few people sitting around a table having dinner and someone gets a bright idea and sketches it out on a napkin. No detail there.  It's just the very first step toward a finished project.

Looks as if our days of painting out on location are over for the year. We have had high winds with some snow and sleet for a couple of days.  It's time to snuggle in and work on compositions, still lifes, and maybe try something new and different.  I'll have to give that some thought.

Fond Memories of Our Workshop

September 2018, Mackinac Island Book Binding and Watercolor Journaling

Sketchbooks Made by the Workshop Participants

We took a little break from painting and arranged some of the sketchbooks on the boardwalk along the water's edge to admire them and take pictures.  Aren't they beautiful?!  We had a total of twenty-six colorful, beautifully made books.  Such creative people!  

My workshop partner, Cathy Cohen, teaches the bookbinding and I teach the watercolor journaling.  We had such a fun bunch of people attending and they all took to each other like they were old friends.  I miss them.

Here we are, arranging the books for their photo op.

Painting in Our New Books

Chunky book at the top  -  the 3 cent stamp on the left was a gift from one of the students.  She brought one to everyone to put in our journals.  It seemed appropriate to put it on the facing page of my little light house sketch.  From where we sat to sketch the light house, we could also see the Bridge.

We all sketched our keys  -  real live keys  -  not a card.

Mackinac Island is Magical

One evening a few of us walked down toward the west a bit to see the sunset.  As we turned to go back, this is what Main Street looked like.

Don't let the magical glow of the evening lights fool you. At 10pm they play taps at the fort, and then things really get ramped up out in the street.  It's noisy and crazy until  about 2am.  But it's Mackinac Island crazy, so that's okay.  It lulls you to sleep :)

Book Binding

My New Journal 

and a Page From Our Book Binding Workshop

Last week we did a two day book binding workshop.  It is so much fun to pick out the fabric and paper for the cover.  I felt that the design of the fabric (on the left side of the book cover) needed to be broken up just a bit, so I cut out two shapes from the paper (on the right side of the book cover) and glued them on.  

The shiny reflection on the book is the acetate cover we use to protect them.  They take a beating  -  paint splashes, grass stains, pencil smudges . . .

One of the pages we did on day-two was "what I wore today", which is also the homework assignment for my Wednesday and Thursday classes this week.

The books made in the class were just beautiful, and the creative participants were such fun to spend two days with.

Today I'm watching dark and dramatic clouds over the Bay. The sun in and out of the clouds (mostly in) is doing some interesting things to the colors of the hills across the Bay and the surface of the water  -  a good day for some color swatches in my journal.

Museum buildings' steps

The Steps in the Garden 

Behind the Woman's Council

This is one of my favorite places to paint in Bay View.  The light is always changing and the garden is doing something different every time I go there.  Move three feet one way or the other and the view and perspective of the quirky buildings change.  Zoom in,  zoom out . . .      The garden is right behind the Woman's council building with a good view of the museum buildings just a few feet away.

I did this watercolor sketch at least a month ago, and now the sun and the garden have really changed.  It's very dark and windy today.  I'm all about comfort  -  I won't be going out painting.

Do you have any creative plans for the weekend?

At the Waterfront

A couple of evenings ago I went down to the waterfront to walk.  I went east for about a half mile, and when I turned around to go back, this sky to the west just took my breath away.  Look at the color of the water!

Last night there was this juvenile cormorant sitting on a rock right near the walkway.  Some kids came down and sat on the rocks right near it.  It didn't seem to mind that we were right there talking about it.  That lone duck kept hanging around too.  

What is it about cormorants?  They're a little creepy. Very creepy. But thrilling to see up close and personal. 

Another Cottage

Early Fall Garden

The flowers in front of this cottage are hanging in there  -  still colorful.

The little door on the left has always fascinated me.  It looks like a regular paneled door, but on a much smaller scale. I think it must go to the basement.

Another warm week here.  Nice! Last week was beautiful, and I went out sketching a few times.  Now I need to buckle down a bit and get things ready for classes, but I'm sure I can get in a few more outdoor days.

How has your September weather been?  Have you been out sketching?

More Rooftops

Painting in the Evening

It's getting late in the season to be painting in the evening.  This is really not what was going on with the light.  In fact, not much at all was going on with the light. Because of all the trees, the sun was a little too low to reach this location.

On the way home we saw the most gorgeous sunset! We were hoping to see the green flash, but it didn't happen.  I have only seen it a couple of times in my life.  

Another beautiful day here today.  I am heading down to the waterfront with my sketchbook.  My plan is to take my sketchbook out every day this week.  Day two.

Rooftops

Rooftops on Stephen's Lane

It finally warmed up to about sixty degrees Friday, and there was some sun, so we headed out with our sketchbooks.  With the sun so low in the sky now, it kept going behind the trees, and we had to keep moving to stay in the warmth of it.

It is pretty quiet around here now, so we aren't as likely to get run over if we sit in the middle of the road to sketch in the sun. 

Just checking the weather forecast and my calendar for next week. My goal is to get out every day and paint.  The weather looks perfect and the calendar is pretty empty  -  perfect combination.

Julio In and Out of the Studio

My Pal in the Studio

Julio loves paper, pencils, pens, and paint brushes! I have to shut him out of the studio when I have a class because he tries to help everyone paint.  He's not that helpful.

Today I'm really feeling the effects of summer's end.  No more outdoor classes, no more open doors and windows, no more evening meals on the porch.  Well, there may be a few, and there will be more days of sketchbook journaling out and about. Oh yeah,  there's always that stuff to do in the yard.  I think people who take good care of their yards call it "putting the garden to bed".  I call it "cutting down all the overgrown stuff that has taken over".  

Really, all I have to do is switch gears to autumn mode  -  there are plenty of fun projects to get going on.  I think instead of cutting down all that stuff in the yard, I'll go out to the farm market and get some fall produce.  

I need to sketch something  -  I like paper, pencils, pens, and paint brushes too. 

Are you sketching?!

Soup Season

My Favorite Spot in the House?

When I did this watercolor sketch, the stove was new and it was soup season.  It's the beginning of soup season again, so this seemed appropriate to post.  

I have neglected this blog for at least two years.  Short breaks sometimes have a way of turning into a long stretch of neglect.   When I got back to my blog again, I was going to spiff it up and do all the "fancy" things other bloggers do  -   Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, links to everything out there, moving parts .  .  .  .  That's not going to happen.  I'm just moving on here, as is.

It's the day after Labor Day, and it feels like someone flipped the "change seasons" button. 
I have some summer sketchbook pages I'll be posting  -  maybe that will stretch summer out a little.