Spicing Up the Sketch Book

A Day in the Life - Sketchbook project page 25 color pencils 

The spice box has a place of honor in an Indian Kitchen and I treasure mine :) I knew from the beginning that I wanted to include it in my sketchbook project. 

I approached the subject with lots of anxiety but  really loved sketching my special shiny Indian Spice Box, its contents as well as the red peppers, tomatoes, lemons, chilies etc.  The different textures, colors, sizes and shapes were fun and a huge challenge to sketch.  The decision to just sketch the objects and not worry about background was freeing.  I learned that paying attention to  the mass of each variety of spice and hinting about the space between most individual mustard/cumin/coriander/dal gave the finished image more unified look. Spraying the finished sketch with Krylon Kamar varnish was a good idea too. Even though better  quality paper might have made a difference,  I am glad I put forth a lot of effort and time into this particular sketch :) 

Fleeting Patterns

 Fleeting Patterns  digital photography

I wonder if the little duckling was aware of distorted reflections, colors, and patterns around it as it swam about that particular morning  few months ago in San Antonio, Texas! Do ducks see color? depth? patterns? They must - because drakes - Mallards, Mandarin and Wood ducks are colorful and patterned. And I see duck hunters wearing camouflage and hide in covered boats.  Anyway, I am really grateful I was in the right place at the right time to capture a fleeting moment in time. 

Cheers to Potential and Possibilities!

Hofbrauhaus at Dusk  watermedia 12x9"

Sixty posts, twenty plus paintings, thirty some pages of color pencil 'sketches' and narrative to go with  them  for my sketchbook-fiction project  "A Day In The Life -In Blue Jeans with Gold Embroidery" and more on-the-go pencil sketches than any previous years makes me content with 2011 art-wise :)  This surely has been a year of experimenting for me with finishing an illustrated sketch/fiction book, yupo, deliberate washes and paint mixing, water brushes, field kits and working on patience! 

I am pleased to post this painting - done mostly with watercolors except the sky part where I used acrylics mixed with watercolor. The watercolor paper  was a 'test-paper' for colors by a young friend of mine who wanted to paint with me sometime ago. I pulled this paper out waiting for washes to dry on couple of Yupo paintings I was working on. I needed to keep my hands busy and away from the wet yupo. Using Masquepen Supernib I sketched free hand and then proceeded to play mostly with transparent watercolors in between the washes on Yupo. The reference was a photograph I took in Munich years ago.  The underpainting worked quite well, and I felt little stress since I was really  only 'playing' around. I am totally ignoring any problem areas in the painting and enjoying the smug feeling of rescuing a good paper :) 

 before

So, here is to a brand New Year full of potential and possibilities ! 

Shifting Perspective

A Day in the Life -sketchbook project page 24 color pencils 

All the good ideas I ever had came to me while I was milking a cow 

-Grant Wood, painter. 

From the book 'The Creative Spirit' by Daniel Goleman, Paul Kaufman and Michael Ray ( companion book to the PBS special from early 1990s with the same title) on the importance of being 'open to insights from the unconscious mind in moments of reverie, when we are not thinking of anything in particular' :  

News of the Creative Past: Well, the creative spirit has struck again, this time on a cool evening in 1865. The chemist Friedrich Kekule has just discovered the elusive structure of the benzene molecule, a major breakthrough in organic chemistry.  Kekule credits his breakthrough - and we will have to take his word on this- to a day dream.

Mr. Kekule reports that after a long day of thinking, he was relaxing in front of the fire, just watching embers fly up in a circular patterns. He says he then became transfixed and fell into a reverie, and as he half dozed, he began to see the sparks dance in a snakelike way. Suddenly, the sparks formed a whirling circle as if it were a snake biting its own tail. Kekule says he then awoke in a flash with a new, accurate picture of the structure of a benzene molecule: a ring! 

So, is there a better way to solve my problem than stretch on the sofa, put my feet up and daydream? 

A Magical Thing

Sunrise on the shortest day  digital photography 

Today is the first day of winter in the Northern hemisphere. But I like that today is the shortest day too :)  I shot this photograph through  the window pane with raindrops giving it a surreal feeling.  

Patience Is Not Passive

memories of a bloom  watercolor on yupo  7x5.5"

Patience is not passive; on the contrary, it is active; it is concentrated strength. 

~ Edward Bulwer-Lytton

I have to fully agree with that quote! The little painting on Yupo took a couple of days and lots of determined patience on my part as I layered paint and waited; used a tooth brush to splatter some paint and waited;  dabbed with a wet tissue and waited; added paint in one section and took away paint in another. And repeated the process a few times!  I think finally I see the little plant in the sunshine with dried twigs and memories of a lush little field around it. 

Incubation Of An Idea

A Day in the Life   page 23 Sketch Book Project color pencils

Another sketchbook page to the rescue for this post. Picking up on the text of that page - how do you solve problems?  When do you get your best ideas? 

I read today about 'Bed, Bath and Bus Theory'  -" ....it’s the notion that the best ideas come when you least expect it, such as in the bath/shower, lying in bed or waiting for a bus." The article further stated that "we need two characteristics in particular to make incubation successful: patience and belief. Both of these are necessary for you to walk away from a problem that means a lot to you, that you really want to solve or that has a deadline."   The author of that article  Lucretia Torva concludes "One last thing to do. Assign this project to your subconscious. Literally tell your mind to take care of, then let it go. " 

I am glad to know that my coping mechanism of moving away is in a way looked upon as 'incubation of an idea' :) 

The Mirror never Changes

Near Anish Kapoor's 'Cloud Gate' Chicago Millenium Park Digital Photography

The mirror never changes, but everybody who looks at it sees something different.

-Harold Kushner

Inadvertently Omitted...

A Day in the Life..... page 22 Sketchbook Project color pencils 

'not intentional, not on purpose, not conscious'  -- it is the definition 'not conscious' that stings! And it is not the first time this has happened - and not just in art either. I felt so very disheartened.  It truly represented a 'Day in The Life'.  I decided to  force  myself to consider this as a set up for a new twist in my Sketchbook Project ! This time my 'inadvertent omission' had created three empty pages right in the middle of a book with a planned narrative and a challenge for me to somehow resolve it and to incorporate  new ideas into the story line.  I did not want to just tear the pages - a self imposed constraint to be a bit creative to compensate for my slip; to be grateful that it is a small mistake in the scheme of things,  a way to assuage my guilt for not being mindful....

What do you do when mistakes 'happen' in your work? Do you despair and scrap the whole project? Do you change it? Do you cover it up? Do you start over? Do you call it divine intervention and move on?  

Fall Colors

Persimmon  watercolor sketch 3x5"

Persimmon another view watercolor sketch 3x5"

My neighbor has a persimmon tree that I can see from one of our windows.  Over the past few weeks, the persimmons turned deep juicy orange and now the leaves are gorgeous yellows and oranges.  She gave me four fruits last week and I really wanted to paint them.  I even took pictures to capture their fresh ripe colors. But before I realized, three disappeared as after dinner treats :) The leaves on last  remaining persimmon have dried and almost fallen off! So this morning I quickly sketched and painted the last remaining persimmon in my little sketch book with the  Aquaflow waterbrush pen and transparent colors (top) and a mix of transparent and opaque colors (bottom). 

I read that in Chinese culture when the persimmon appears as a symbol, it denotes an energy which would remove the obstacles and allow things to proceed smoothly.  I definitely need that energy now! I have not been painting much these past few weeks as we are getting the inside walls of our house painted (almost done!) We had to move furniture and other belongings from all the rooms, shifting them from one to another and back again. Now I am trying to wade through the 'stuff' we have accumulated over the years as I decide which ones should be put back. The plan is to cull clutter and give away as much as possible -- which I am finding out is a lot easier said than done. And I just added two more paintings to my stack!