Green Glass

Good enough

Once something is fun, why not keep doing it?  Since I have several journals I'm working in, I'm spreading myself around.  I added this to my selfie book.  Apparently I do NOT collect many shiny things (and yet I feel like such a magpie) but whatever I have is good enough.

Playing

I signed up for a four week sketchbook skool class "playing"  I think this might be the shake up I need not to get so bogged down in "getting it right" since I don't know quite what I'm trying to get and wouldn't probably know if it was right.  But a week at camp gets my juices flowing and then… I get too in my head.  So this light hearted class with fun exercises seemed directly to reflect what I need.

 

We had three assignments this week.  I'm taken the time line loosely, jumping around a bit as I am inspired.  Taking my inspiration and letting it lead me.  After all, the point is to PLAY - gosh darn it.

Just so you know - them ladies is me.  Both of them.  Multiple personalities.  I feel more coming on.  Stay tuned.  Or be warned.

About that trip

I've had very little energy since we got back from our trip.  What little I've had to spare has gone into completing the work of the journals I brought with me.  Despite the on-going cruddy feeling, I'm very pleased with that since too often the blank pages I've left to fill in later just get left period.

Below are pages from a larger (than I usually work in) landscape Moleskine journal that I decided to try out.  I've used smaller formats before, but I'm not usually a landscape format.  Don't know why.  It makes so much sense.  In the end I didn't enjoy working in the Moleskine as much as the Stillman and Birn, which surprised me.  The dappled nature of the Moleskine surface ended up being distracting - it was too uniformly dapped when the watercolor settled in (which you can't see in this but in other ones).  Anyway, I'm glad I brought it and tried it out, especially trying the landscape.

None of these are post production, they're from during the actual trip.  Above was our first day in Santa Fe and I decided that I just needed to put some lines down since I hadn't been doing much recently and was feeling very unsteady.

The trees above were probably the most satisfying sketches.  We were told we would have to wait for seating at the restaurant we wanted and they and a lovely courtyard, but we were all tired and a little cranky.  The few minutes we sat and sipped lemonade and I sketched ended up settling us into a great mellow dinner time mood.

I keep taking pictures of myself.

For better or worse

I continue to use myself as a life model.  Or is it live model?

My husband, patient dear soul that he is, has been and would be very patient and sit for me.  But the truth is he always wants to see the result and it's always nothing like him but he feels compelled to say something reassuring to me.  I don't need reassurance.  I don't do drawing of myself thinking they will look like me.  I do them to see how to work with shading or see how a pen will work or what will water do to this ink.  Taken together, all the drawings I've done of myself, well, in total there are maybe two or three that come close to looking like me.  Some are so off they make me howl.  And I love them all.  Well, I don't, but I do love doing them.  I'm terribly patient.  Almost as patient as my cats.  And I don't mind it when I stare or squint or grunt, which is more than I can say for the cats.  So they will continue.  For better or worse.

I'm peeking at you

Sometimes I know when I'm going to take a break.  Sometimes I don't.  This one snuck up on me.  Or I should say, napped up on me.  I've been doodling along here all this time, just couldn't get organized (or stay awake long enough) to get things scanned/photoed/edited/posted.

Things like this - tried sketching my cat upside down.

She complained later that I made her face too fat, but she's fussy like that.  After all, I don't have a hook nose, but you don't hear me complaining, do you?

Hope all is well in the land of blog.  What have you been up to while I was napping?