Paper and Threads

I enjoy recycling old books as watercolor journals, but took a workshop in June so I could also make cased-in journals of a standard size.  The journal we made in the workshop is bigger than the ones I like for my daily sketchbook.  I currently use a large Moleskine watercolor book, but really don't like the landscape format.  However, I like the size and wanted to see if I could make a similar size journal in a portrait format.

 I used 140 lb Fabriano Artistico extra-bright soft press watercolor paper.  Each book contains 6 signatures - 2 folios per signature.  The finished books are 5.5 inches by 7.5 inches.  Here are photos of the covers, the end papers of one of the books, and the watercolor paper. 

Posted by Shirley at 7:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

We moved to San Antonio Texas from LaJolla California and while my husband worked at the Army Institute for Surgical Research, I joined the faculty at the University of Texas Health Science Center.  We initially intended to move on at the end of 3 years, but instead my husband joined me on the faculty and we raised all 3 children there before returning to New York City.  We had a Texas ranch house built in the 1950s, with wonderful shade trees and lots of space for our family.  This sketch was made from a photo taken during the winter - and our live oak tree still has leaves.  When we moved to Texas I learned for the first time that live oak trees drop their leaves in the spring instead of the fall.  We lived in this house for 18 happy years. 

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I still try to draw figures regularly, while regularly avoiding my 2008 Goal to draw more faces.  Here is a quick soluble graphite drawing that I did this week.  I was attracted to this magazine photo by the opportunity to also draw a horse.

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My son and his wife in Washington DC have two cats - his and hers from before they were married.  So this sketch was made from a photo of Sammy meeting baby Annabelle and her stuffed Jellycat Bella shortly after she was born.   

Posted by Shirley at 7:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (15)

I loved searching for shells on the empty beach on our morning walk.  We usually arrived about one hour after high tide and on our walk one morning we found 3 very clean parts of a fish skeleton at the water line - a head, one large vertebra, and one small vertebra.  My daughter and grandchildren were equally interested in examining the backbone and asked us to look for more for a collection.  But none were found.

Another morning a Monarch butterfly accompanied us on our entire walk.  Just before we left, I was able to take a photo while the butterfly landed briefly on the sand.

We loved having morning coffee after our beach walk on the back deck under the umbrella.  My sketch is missing the bottoms of the 3 chairs across the table - it just got too complicated for me spatially.

Our final day - my masking fluid and tool for putting the mask on the paper, a beach rose, one of the seagulls immediately before flight, and my youngest grandson's sippy cup which was sitting in front of me while I was sketching.

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