SCORE!

O-M-G . . . Kahala Whole Foods has my favorite oranges on sale now. 



I bought this many, but I'm wondering if I should go back and buy more. 

Black Ink

I've been watching and watching and watching James Burke's Inktober videos. Inktober is an event where artists produce a pen and ink drawing everyday for the month of October, and I think that James' work is just amazing.



Feeling inspired, I went and bought a bottle of calligraphy ink from the stationery store in Shirokiya. It was $5.


I also busted out this calligraphy brush that one of my sisters gave me.


The strength and blackness of the ink startled me at first, but I quickly learned that diluting the ink with water adjusts the tones. The softness of the brush also takes a bit of getting used to, but I like how you can get different effects by adjusting the strokes and wetness of the brush. 

All in all, it was good fun experimenting. I think that mastering this technique will probably take me a long time, but we'll see how it goes.

Disappointing

I usually order saimin when I go to Sekiya's, but the other night I decided to try the Vegetable Tempura. It was pretty bad.

These are photos of what I left behind.  


I think the pictures speak for themselves. 


As we were getting up to leave, the wait-help guy asked if I didn't wanna pack up my leftovers. I said, "Nah". He nodded and almost in agreement said, "Yah". 

Don't Buy This

This is almost brand new. I barely used it, and it was giving me trouble yesterday. 

The tape wouldn't wind back into the dispenser as I was using it, so I used the screw thing in the back to manually wind it in. Then the tape twisted so that it was upside down. I had to yank it out to turn it back to the right side out. Then the white stuff wouldn't come off the tape and instead bunched up at the tip.



It was at this point that I forcibly tossed the d@^^n thing into the trash. 

Apology

Funny . . . because sometimes I just feel like this.

Portrait

This is from our last watercolor class.  I learned that I need to be bolder with the shadows.  I also learned that fingers are hard. Hahahaha.

Sumo Orange

Sweet and juicy, and on sale at Whole Foods right now for $3.99/pound.



It's the one with the knob on top.

Prismacolor Alcohol Marker

I drew this girl a few weeks ago, and had lightly painted her face with watercolor . . . as usual. She looked like all the other faces that I've been doing, and feeling uninspired, I set her aside. 

Tonight, I decided to cover her watercolored face with alcohol markers, and since I was being bold I also grabbed a calligraphy brush pen to do the outlining.

Whoa! That's what I said.



I got the Prismacolor markers in a set from the swap meet a long time ago. I was glad that it hadn't dried out. The Tombow brush pen I got on Amazon. I wrote about it here.

Neocolor II

These are wax pastels that are water soluble. How can yah? Wax that's water soluble? So amazing, da Swiss. I'd been wanting to get this for a long time, and finally decided to click the buy button. I paid about $15.

Do you see the dime? That's how small the tin is.


Here's the swatch that I made. Very, very cool how the wax dissolves with water and retains the vibrant color.


I have a 100-sheet pad of 98-pound mixed media paper that I got on Lightening Deal for around $12. It totally warps with water, but I like it a lot to practice on. 






I love the transformation. If you decide to get the crayons for yourself, make sure you get II, not I. II is the water-soluble version.

Light Box

I made a greeting card for my sister Didi who likes unicorns and owls. And you know me . . . I like to make a bunch, not just one. But drawing each individually seemed too daunting so I got the idea to trace the original. 

I tried using the light from my computer monitor, but my arms got tired. I decided to invest in a light box. It came yesterday!!!

I turned off the lights in the house to show you how bright it is. 


It's also dimmable if for some reason it's too bright for you.


This is my first tracing. I plan to use this to trace over. 


Here is 110-pound weight cardstock over the drawing. It shows through nicely.


This is thicker 140-pound watercolor paper with a coating of gesso on it. Hooo hooo . . . still can see good.


Here's what's most amazing. Look how thin it is. 


I paid $22.58, but the price seems to fluctuate, and it's now $24.58. You can check it out on Amazon here. 

Still Life Painting

Here's my still life painting from the last class.  I totally cheated and did most of my sketching ahead of time at home. I didn't want to waste valuable class time drawing . . . takes me forever to draw. This way I could take my time painting . . . and getting instruction . . . which is where I need the most help anyway. 

Swatch Dolls

Most artists create swatch samples whenever they get new paints so that they can see (and remember) how the color looks. Artist James Burke, however, thinks that this is boring and instead creates Swatch Dolls.  

I think that they're so cute, and they're easy to draw . . . a circle head attached to a triangle body. 

Here's his YouTube tutorial:




Here are my dolls. Fun to draw and paint. Go try.

Paint by Number

Here's the top half of a paint-by-number canvas that I'm currently working on. I got it on a Lightening Deal on Amazon for $10.99 . . . so totally worth it for the hours of enjoyment I'm getting. 

It comes with acrylic paints and 3 good brushes. You can check it out here. 



You can't tell right now, but this is what it's supposed to look like when it's finished. 

Watercolor Class

Class is intimidating. Very talented, seasoned students take up over half of the class. The rest of us . . . me, Honolulu Aunty, aunty's friend Wanda-ful, my pals Erick the Photog and Fran . . . make up the rest of the class, and we're beginners. 

At the end of each class, we hang our painting up on the wall and are critiqued . . . gulp. 

For our class last week, we went outside to sketch and paint. Well . . . everybody else did. Me? I took a picture and went back into the comfort of the air-conditioned room. 

Here's my painting. It's not finished, but I'm pau working on it. I inked the outlines at home . . . not sure if outlining is allowed. Maybe I'll go back to finishing it up someday. 

Leftover Paint

I don't like to waste paint, so before I rinse my brush off between colors, I dab it onto a page in a little notebook. After the page is filled with color I draw over it. 

I got the notebook at the swap meet. The pages were actually a bit too thin so I glued three pages together.

I saw a commercial while watching the Olympics where people struggle to do what they can't . . . until they finally can. So inspiring.












These are called Paint Over Pens. I use them a lot on these pages because they really do "paint over". You can get them on Amazon for $10.75.  Jane recently came out with a new color line, and I really want them, but they're hard to get right now.

Mermaid

This is what I did with the right side of the two acrylic pages.

President William Henry Harrison

I learned something interesting yesterday from a Trivia session at the Day Care where I volunteer.

Our 9th President was William Henry Harrison. He delivered the longest inaugural address in history on a bitterly cold March morning. It clocked in at 1 hour and 45 minutes. 

He caught a cold on that day which eventually turned into pneumonia. He passed away 32 days later, the shortest term ever served.

Air Plant

There are a bunch of air plants in my yard that somehow do well. I do absolutely nothing to take care of them. 

Normally they are just green pokey-looking balls that hang from a fence. But when they are flowering . . . they become glorious.

Fingerpainting

Here's my finished Flowers in Vase. It was fun working with acrylic paints. 



The best part was the cleanup . . . wash one finger.


Inspiration came from Marta at Maremi Small Art.

Workdesk Wednesday

I stumbled upon a site called Stamping Ground. Wednesdays' posts are called What's On Your Workdesk? Wednesday. People share photos of their workdesks. I think it's so interesting to check out what other people are working on. You can see today's post here. 

Here's a picture from this morning of my for-real, left-as-is desk. 


This is what I did last night. I used a set of Liquitex Heavy Body Acrylic paints that I recently got with a 40% off coupon from Ben Franklin. I might turn the left side into a vase with flowers. Not sure about the right side.


I squeezed the paint directly onto the pages and used my fingers (and an old gift card) to spread it around. Two reasons:  (1) less wasted paint and (2) minimal cleanup.