Working with lessons from Celia Yadro again. She is a gouache expert and I have so much to learn. I like her face. She is intense and still a bit confused about what to do next.
Alex and I saw a varied thrush from on our bird feeder yesterday. I did an illustrative look with these. So I wasn't going to anything too realistic. I love the way they turned out. I think I have an emerging illustrative style. Which is exciting because I can keep things simple and add more expression to my work. Justin Donaldson is always taking about communication and how our paintings can communicate a mood, a moment, something beautiful, anything we want. I am beginning to understand what he is taking about. I hope that by the end of the month I will be able to identify a style.
Last Thursday I went to a life drawing session at the Tacoma Art Museum. First time in 7 years and I had forgotten how much fun it could be. Each pose was 10 minutes long and I scribbled as fast as I could using pencil and paper. Then when I got home I did a digital transfer and colored it in. I look forward to future classes.
I am working on a value study today.
This is from a photograph I took while biking along the Canal du Midi in 2012. I don't know if I am going to try to do this in color. For now, black and white feels daunting enough.
October 25, 2022
Happy Birthday Dad. You’d be 94 today. Always the reader. Reading next to your homemade BBQ pit was the ultimate afternoon experience. After reading the paper, he would use them to ignite the outdoor stove for dinner. Making good use of paper was so natural to him. In fact, both of my parents knew the value of material goods. They were not wasters. Let me put it this way, the garbage bin was always half full come garbage day. My dad didn’t even use shampoo. A bar of soap would do for all hair and body. The increasing use of plastic in our society was a real concern of his. Rightly so. He would surely "roll over in his grave” if he knew to what extent this next generation consumed.
Note the shorts. I think he was the front runner of cutoff jeans.
Love you dad and thanks for the civic lessons. I still carry them in my heart. Wish I could do better.
Anyone who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eye are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light, which is true of the mind's eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye.
Quote from Plato's Republic and used to begin the book " Flowers for Algernon"
#Inktober2022 Prompt Scallop
Zoey is waving goodbye to her oversized dog who wears a gargoyle mask to help scare away her oppressors. She says goodbye as she has a gargoyle of her own now. And this one can use nature to nurture her growing garden.
#inktober2022 Day 1 Gargoyle
This is what my bad place looks like. Where the words no longer make sense. When the flow stops and fluids stagnate. When talking about it doesn’t help because I can’t tone down the deafening vibration of my quivering heart. What to do next and where to step are questions for others because all I could do was stare at the wall or the sky and not really see anything
A letter to my husband on the occasion of our 42 year anniversary
My beloved,
Words will fail me, yet it is in the attempt that perhaps you will see a bit of truth.
I have spent the better part of this year with the explicit intention of developing a close attachment to nature. Afterall, if I am to profess a belief in God, then should I not start with an appreciation of this incredible planet we inhabit?
I began by looking at the great views, the mountain and water scenes, the clouds, even the rain. Ahhhh, beauty is real and it can feed me, I thought. Later I felt drawn to explore trees and flowers. Such majesty in the variety and detail. Taking a second and third look has only fueled my curiosity and sense of purpose. How have I allowed for my problems to overtake this heavenly backdrop? Why haven’t I really felt the depth of this amazing place before?
Even water droplets have taken on a new depth for meaning for me. I have begun to wonder about the water I drink… from where did it spring and where will it go after passing through me?... GOD has been right here all along. Under my nose and on my lips this whole time.
My own self is part of nature, part of this planet and indeed a creation of GOD. Well that is the ultimate attachment. It is the simplest, least complicated way to see the world, and yet without becoming aware, keeping the eyes open it is so easy to miss.
And so my beloved when I look at you. I see more than a date that worked out. Or a guy who can tell a really good joke, I see you as a gift. An exquisite man who has taken billions of years of steady sunshine to evolve into who stood before me 42 years ago to become my husband.
We have moved one another, opened each other’s hearts, experienced joy and tragedy, witnessed our times change beyond imagining. As my man, you are the best sample of nature I experience. You have provided not only material things but more importantly your attention and care. How in the world can I say that in words, in a card or even in a smile?
Happy Anniversary,
Yours truly,
Sandra
The Giraffe, our fist love. As children we marveled over that long neck and those long gangly legs. After all, those features, hold the secret to evolution. Both theirs and ours.
This was from a lesson of Ashley Prejoles. She is a real master. I learn a lot trying to blend the sky colors. It was way harder than it looked. You have to work really fast and put an orange buffer between the yellow and blue unless you want green skies. I might have to try this one again.
Going bright and colorful today! I'm making room for all the feelings and holding space for so many perspectives. I need to listen to your colorful life story inorder to understand my own. You color my world and it makes me stronger.
This piece was part of a lesson my Shauna Russell. A great colorful water color painter.
