EDiM days 4 - 7

It's That Time of Year

Once again I am participating in the Every Day in May Challenge. I'm giving myself permission to be a little more relaxed about it though this time around, at least as far as posting my efforts goes. So it'll likely continue to be every few days I throw up what I've done in the interim. Up first Days 1-3. For my own info, I'm using a 6x6 field journal from the hand-book paper co. It's my first time painting on Fluid brand wc paper and so far I'm impressed. 

#1 - a toy. Only cat toys in my house and even though I had lots to choose from, this peacock feather is Touille's current favourite plaything.

#2 - something with folds. Thought about this one for a long time and for some reason ended up with crow's feet. Thankfully mine aren't quite this extreme yet.

#3 - a hammer. Was much more inspired to paint this Hammer than the one in my tool box. 

Catching Up with some more orphans

I love just about everything about blogspot except my inability to put pictures where I want them to be. This layout doesn't make me happy but it's the best of what I can come up with! You'll just have to use your imagination and move the cat up to the big open space at the top middle, where she belongs LOL. 


I was going through a few of my old sketchbooks looking for some small images to put into Cooking at the Hedge and found these few, that with a few adjustments, would work nicely. So here they are here first. 

Shari's class

Signed up for an online class at Craftsy with Montreal artist Shari Blaukopf. This is my rendition of her sketch of the Flatirons near Boulder Colorado. In doing this I realized just how long it's been since I painted a landscape LOL. Overall this was quite successful. I have a few more modules to complete but I'm looking forward to incorporating what I'm learning into my own reference images.  

Painted on 9 x 12 140 lb cold pressed paper but my scanner bed is only standard letter size so the quality of the scan is less than optimal.

Beets- update

As scary as putting in the darks can seem, the impact they have is undeniable. I'm very happy with the beets themselves; now I just have to take a deep breath and go back in and tackle the leaves.

Of course that means making sense out of what now is just a jumble of green.

Beets

Definitely not a favourite vegetable to eat but they're lovely to paint. Trying to get the right earthiness of colour I mixed quinacridone magenta with sepia and the odd touch of indigo.

Looking at them here I can see I need to do some work on depth of field so they read as 6 individual beets, 7 if I turn a stray blob into the tip of another one. I'm happy with the far left one, now I just need to fix his friends!

EDM2015 Collage

I finally finished all of my challenge pieces AND figured out how to get them into collage format so they would all be in one place. Well almost all - the photo editing program I used had a maximum of 9 photos per collage so that meant some just weren't going to make the cut.

 Awww, too bad so sad that the little painter didn't make it. That really pains me LOL.

In looking at the whole though I'm really pleased with my output - I don't even think I could pick a favourite. My top five would be the cheesecake, the peppercorns still life, the beach, the mask and the toadstools.

Will definitely be doing this next year!

New Coffee Mug

Anyone who knows me knows that I practically have my coffee mug surgically attached to my hand. So when Touille decided to push my old one over just to see what happened - well let's just say it was a sad day in Nukiville.

I soon was on the hunt to find my new favourite mug. It had to be of good size and weight, fit well in my hand and then there's that aspect of je ne sais quoi - it needed to speak to me.

As soon as I saw this one I knew it was the one . Well, actually it's the two - it came in a matched set. So, should boredom strike the calico princess again, I'm ready.

Updates on unfinished EDM pieces

Continuing to work daily, here are a couple of updates of pieces started at the end of last month. The eggs I am forcing myself to leave alone, it's just too overworked already and I think I've salvaged as much as I can from it. They still look more like rocks than eggs to me and no, the random splattering didn't help LOL.

The purple martin house is only at the intermediate stage so there will be another posting about it when it's further along. I need to strengthen the shadow under the left side of the roof as well as the bottom of the house itself. And of course put the birds in!

 

9/6 - okay this is where I'm stopping. 

Moving Forward

While I'm extremely satisfied with my efforts and commitment to last month's challenge, I'm looking forward to the flexability of choosing my own subjects for my daily art. And breaking out of the sketchbook format, today's piece notwithstanding LOL.

I'm going to continue to do something creative every day but I'm relaxing on the daily posting for now and just see how it goes. If I find over the next week that one spurs on the other then I'll put that back in to my routine.

I have checked out the Every Day in June prompts and can fall back on them for ideas if need be. There's also another blog group that I want to check out that posts a different prompt every two weeks. They've been around for awhile so will have an archive of past prompts to pick from as well. Plus the Virtual Paintout visits Estonia this month. A plethora of riches awaits!

EDM2015 - eggs

These got terribly overworked and I'm still not happy with them. They look more like robin's egg blue stones than eggs. Have restated some lines here in pencil to see if that will help but definitely not a given.

They also would make more sense if done in a nest but that ship has likely sailed for this sketch. We'll see what I can come up with. (I'm writing this June 1st, having painted this much yesterday, the final day of Every Day in May challenge.)

I had an absolute blast participating in the challenge and I know my art is the better for it. I've tried a number of new approaches to my work, most of which I've been really happy with the results. I've also found that I'm problem solving situations with more confidence and greater speed.

Having said that I think the biggest thing to come out of this month is I've learned to slow down and be patient. Watercolour insists that I work at its pace and not my own. Accept that and all sorts of possibilities open up to me.

EDM2015 - a birdhouse or feeder

Just checking my perspective - close but not quite right yet.

EDM2015 - a faucet

There's so much more that I want to do with this but it has to be really, really dry before I move forward . Plus I need a little trial and error practice on another drawing so I can see if what I'm thinking will work will in fact give me what I'm looking for. That is the one downside to working in a sketchbook as  opposed to a loose sheet of paper - there's nowhere to hide the mistakes.

So all of that to say, this is as far as it goes today; more tomorrow. Shocking, I know LOL!

EDM2015 - a yard ornament or statuary

I wanted to do something different for today's look. These toadstools were a gift to our family from dear friends many years ago. I wanted them to be the front and centre, hence the background tree is graphite with a bit of help from my smudging fingers, just to provide an anchor to the sketch. 

   Okay, happier with that look.

Hmm, I always see much more clearly when I post things here. The right side of the biggest toadstool needs more of a shadow. Will fix that tomorrow - I'm done for today!

EDM2015 - something fuzzy or furry

Sometimes I know right away what I want to do for the daily prompt and other times I just want to throw caution to the wind and see what happens.

For this one, I decided to just google fuzzy and see what came up. This guy immediately drew my attention for obvious reasons, nevermind that any critter that wears apple green is a star in my book!

Meet the saddleback caterpillar! Funny, to me he looks like he's wearing a basketball jersey rather than a saddle LOL. I don't know where his real eyes are but mother nature sure gave him an interesting mask with the big green pair on his face. He will eventually turn into a stout-bodied much less colourful brown moth. If you see one of these look but don't touch - those spines will sting! Painted from an online image seen on a blog called the Walden Effect, using watercolour pencils and marker.

EDM2015 - a sign

 I had every intention when I started this piece to colour it in black, the way the original sign is, but when I scanned it I liked this look. So for now this is the way it stays in my sketchbook. That is not to say I may change my mind later LOL.

The sign was a housewarming present for my sister and brother-in-law from very dear family friends. It was the perfect touch to their new home.

For Abbey, with love.

EDM2015 - an apron or coverall

Not particularly inspired by today's prompt. When I think of aprons I think of my grandmother wearing hers as part of her daily uniform. She was of an age where every day of the week had a specific purpose - bake day, wash day, beat the rugs day - in addition to her regular chores keeping house.  I doubt the routine ever varied much.

So I wanted to do something non-utilitarian; no plaids or dreary little floral prints but something with a little colour and joy.

EDM2015 - some keys

Oh, I'm struggling with this one. I'm posting this at what I call the ugly stage. I seriously considered ripping the page out (there's nothing on the other side yet) and starting over but I am persevering. And yeh, it's meant to be viewed in landscape orientation but I couldn't be bothered to redo the scan.

If I can salvage this I will definitely be patting myself on the back LOL!



25/5 - okay this is as good as it's going to get. I don't even want to look at it anymore LOL. The keys are fine but I totally botched the background. This is where knowing photoshop would be a handy skill to have.

EDM2015 - interesting detail of a building

Well I decided to do a feature from a building that I used to pass all the time in my old neighbourhood. It's the spire atop the old 'Normal School' on Elmwood Ave.
When it first opened in February 1900, it was considered to be the most modern teacher-training facility in the country.

The structure is trimmed with cut stone and its once orange-red brick has now weathered to a pale salmon colour. Several miniature cupolas, typical of its Victorian architecture adorn the roof. It has served several education related purposes after the faculty moved to new digs in 1958. I'm not sure what is housed there now but it remains a fixture at the epicenter of the Old South community.

EDM2015 - something that is attached or hangs on the wall of your house

I promised myself when I started this challenge that I would do my utmost best to post every day and to share everything that I did, no matter the results. Up until now that last part hasn't been an issue, but oh boy, did I ever want to disregard it today LOL.

Hanging in our dining room is a print of Renoir's The Small Painter. 
It appears to have been done in sanguine pastel so I tried to reproduce that here as well. Renoir has nothing to fear from me. This barely resembles the original - I got just a tad carried away with trying to blend on the paper so this poor child's face just looks like s/he got heavy handed with mom's makeup!

Back to working on yesterday's detailed piece and looking for an interesting subject for tomorrow's.