Friday, March 27, 2009

The Easter Bunny


bunny
Originally uploaded by spinneretta

My Easter Journal spread- done in response to a Love this Journal challenge :)

Done using Pilot G2 Pens and watercolour pencils.
If you look closely, you can see the Pilot G2 hatching- lots of pretty colours in the G2 range :) Unfortunately, when you wet them they bleed and soak through the page some.

Virtual Sketch Date- March Edition

I almost missed this one- just like I DID miss February's one :o
Virtual Sketch Date is a blog where a monthly photo challenge is posted. Artists from all over the world participate- drawing or painting their own interpretation of the image :)
You can see all the other entries PLUS the original picture at the VSD blog :)
This month, the challenge was two house finches at the feeder. It seems to have been a real challenge as it incorporates more than one kind of subject- the birds, the feeder AND the background trees. My motto- have fun and keep it simple :D Which I did!



Soft Pastels on Strathmore Pastel Paper. 9" x 12"

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Free Herb Magazine

I posted this to my garden blog but wanted to share it here.
The Essential Herbal magazine is offering a free copy of its sold out edition concerning vegetable gardens :)
dig for victory here and get your own copy!

You might also like to know that Mother Earth News has a "Grow Your Own Food" guide out as well- worth getting :)
Those of us who have been doing this for years are loving the new trend... :D

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Nature Notes 19th March



Nature Notes 19th March
Originally uploaded by spinneretta
Click for larger image.

I discovered my watercolour Moleskine was not yet filled. I had left it unfilled so I had a travel book in my bag, but recently I have put my other journals in there anyway :) So I decided today was the day to work on those last few spreads. I did a couple of warm up pages- nothing to show here... then I made this page :)

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Art Pages

Playing with my pastels again :) Started out with a study of hands...

I am exploring this medium some, but the limited movement my sore wrist allows is making it difficult :) I really like the one on the left though...
Although I might add that after using pastels my hands can look like the one on the right ;)

Dashed outside this afternoon for a little while to enjoy the sun. It's been 5 days of rain- I am out of practise with that ;)
My daffodils are in full bloom- two clumps are just getting ready :) My hyacinths are smelling sweet and the paeonies are sprouting.
Nice day :)

Whimsy



Whimsy
Originally uploaded by spinneretta
Click for a larger picture.

As I told Lin this morning, I love fog- I always have. That's probably a good thing because there is a lot of fog in the area in England where I come from :)
So when I got up this morning, I heard on the radio that there were fog advisories- THICK fog they said.
"That's not thick!" was my response. It gets a lot thicker in England :)
I wanted to paint the fog- so I grabbed my pastels, and a suitably grey pastel paper and drew. It's a little hard because something has strained my wrist, and it hurts to do things like funny angles of drawing or shaking the fixative >:/
So I went whimsical... the neighbour's stinkford Bradford pear in the fog...

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Spring Garden


Spring Garden
Originally uploaded by spinneretta

Since the weather is supposedly going to get cold again, I took advantage of the 80 degree weather to record some of it :)
My usual yearly peach blossom sketch, a few birds and plants and the rapidly darkening sky.
I really hope it doesn't get snowy again...

Monday, March 09, 2009

Spring Garden


spring garden
Originally uploaded by spinneretta

It's spring (no matter what the calendar says) and the temperatures are in their up-down cycle. Today was 82 degrees and I spent a lot of time outside- taking the opportunity to draw while I did :)
Now the clocks have gone forward, it is light much later, meaning we get more outdoor time :)

Pastels (chalk) and pigma micron.

Sunday, March 08, 2009

Notebook Pages to Start Spring


I have some wonderful friends who, for some unknown reason, sent me some presents... the prismatic chimes sent rainbows over the room, so I added those to my notebook pages :)
The soap and nail-brush was rather useful today and the garden ornaments went outside today as well :)


The Love this Journal group had set a challenge to do a spread for St. Patrick's Day. This is my contribution.

What happens when the weather hits the 80's in March? Well *I* go outside, prep my vegetable garden, plant peas and spinach and broccoli raab and get sunburned.
OK the last is not intentional, but still a yearly event. I always underestimate the power of the sun in March!
Actually I have been burned in January, which is kind of embarrassing!! No- I am not a red-head. In fact I burn faster than my red-headed husband!!
Anyway, I recorded my time outside, then accidentally sprayed my book with the hose! It created an interesting effect with the pastel around the edges... I just read about using the pastels and water to spread it around. I'll have to try it :) I decided to use the pastels to draw after looking through my art books and seeing that some of the Masters used chalk to do their sketches- I figured chalk pastel might give similar effects. I don't recommend hosing them down though... :)

Friday, March 06, 2009

SNOW!!

You can see some of my snow pictures scrolling in the flickr box above, but for the rest, and some of the story about the snow, visit my nature notebook blog:)

Thursday, March 05, 2009

EDM #213: Draw a Microwave

Click for a larger picture.

I had originally planned on drawing this one while cooking my baked potatoes last night- but I forgot because I wanted to finish a book :p Instead, I did it today :) while it just sat there.
we went for years without one, and only replaced it recently after our toaster oven started scaring us by not turning off. We voted on this one because it toasts too- therefore I can now use this to defrost things, and cook cup-eggs and baked potatoes (and reheat) which seems to be all I do with it!

Chalk pastels on Canson mi-teintes in a homemade notebook.

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

The Snow...

OK there will probably be a couple of snow posts- we got a good 8 inches of snow here (at least) and the power was out for 38.5 hours and record setting low temperatures! (That was a cold night).
No power, meant I got to draw quite a bit, but I also took a lot of photos :)
They promise me that the spring comes back by the end of the week :D

Another ATC- I was experimenting with a technique in this one- and I am not happy with it :/
Always something outside the window when it snows...
But when it gets dark, there is not a lot of light! The mirror image really captured my attention...

a trip in the car made me memorise the colours of sun and shade on the snow- which I later painted in pastel :)