Earthshine

Best seen during Crescent Moon phases (the one to five day period before or after a New Moon), Earthshine is caused by direct sunlight on the earth that reflects onto the Moon which creates the smoky glow of the shadowed portion of the moon.

After sunset tonight, take a peek at the sky to see Venus, the Crescent Moon and Earthshine for your very own. Venus will be to the lower left tonight.  Happy viewing and hopefully journaling!!

Journal Box - Playing with Watercolor Ground

I've been wanting to try Daniel Smith's Watercolor Ground (DSWG) since it first came out.  My subject.... a cigar box :) 





It's all about repurposing, and now that the smell from the little devil's finally faded, I'm quite excited about the possibilities. Tip: if you have a cigar store in your town, check them out. They sell their boxes for very, very little... Our local store asked $1.00 for the cardboard boxes and $2.00 for the wood boxes!

I decided I liked the red cover on this box and chose to tape off the foil stamped illustration and used this area for application of the DSWG. 

Once applied, the DSWG has to cure for 24 to 72 hours before applying watercolor or acrylic.  It can also be thinned up to 10% with water.  You can see in my second image that the ground looks thin in some spots. My intuition was telling me to add a bit more to even out the first coat, but my adventurous side wanted to see if the uneven coating really mattered.  I had several cigar boxes that I applied the DSWG to.  My studio was filled with the essence of gesso..... it was a bit too strong from my nose.

 You can see in the upper and lower left corners where the ground was applied too thinly.  Could I make this work?

Well, yes and no. The lower left corner was a bit too thin and when you view the box in person you can tell.

Painting on the DSWG was similar to the feel of  painting on watercolor canvas. It was necessary to dry each application of paint with a hairdryer. Lifting paint is easy and I didn't see any wear on the surface.  Truth be told, my lifting was more like scrubbing.....

Almost done! I'll let this sit for a couple of days and no doubt tweak the image a bit more. The last step will be to spray it with Golden's MSA Archival Spray Varnish to seal the surface.

This will be home for my Garden Journal - a collection of single watercolor paper sheets... but more on that later :)

October 2011: Enhancing my Watercolor Kit

October 2011: Enhancing my Watercolor Kit, a photo by apple-pine on Flickr.

I love this small watercolor set from Winsor & Newton. I get much done with it - somehow it's not intimidating me - or people around me. But I was spoiled by some additional colors I got to play with recently. Carry another box? Too much...

I recently learned about sugru - which is basically a play-dough for lasting inventions. It's as easy to use as play-dough, sticks to almost anything and when dry is waterproof, ready for cold or hot, flexible, strong - basically you can make your custom whatever from silicone. And you can remove it with a knife and some rubbing when you want to change things :) Their motto is "hack things better" %)

So - looked at my watercolor box and notices this wonderful place for brush that came with the set (original brush is long since drowned in some river and the space is too small for any brush I like ;) And I made some partitions :) That's it - now I have some colors I use rarely but enjoy having for a special mix or accent. I might play with the sizes of the wells at some point - but this is what I have today.

It's Time For A Visit To Autumn's Garden!

 

Autumn has arrived and there's a chill in the air!!

Well, actually, I think maybe the humidity has just dropped as the high for today is suppose to reach 92º in Florida! Still, you can see and feel the changes....you just really have to be paying attention. Of course, many of you have really begun to feel the chill and see the changes.

And all this means it's time to start preparing for An Imaginary Visit to Autumn's Garden! This class is scheduled to begin on November 18th and run through December 16th. There will be one assignment each week.

For more information and to register for the class, please click here. If you're interested in registering, I suggest you not wait as this is one of the really popular classes over at Imaginary Trips!

Sheer Heaven Travel Palette - Watercolor

Back in 2004, I ran an article in the online magazine I published then, about the "perfect" travel palette, made from my signature art paper, Sheer Heaven. Sheer Heaven has unique qualities that make this idea work flawlessly, and the palette is infinitely refillable and impervious to moisture. I know there are some renditions of the idea out there these days using watercolor paper, but there is no comparison.

Cathy and several other folks have asked me recently to bring that article back around - because the idea is so useful, and ideal for journaling artists.

So, I put the whole thing on my blog, and won't take up the real estate here to repeat it. Here is the link to the full description - mixing colors and all:

http://wisdomwoman.com/whatever

New Fall Low Country Journaling Workshops

Autumn in the low country of South Carolina.... kiss the humidity goodbye and say hello to perfect Carolina blue skies and temperatures that will sooth your soul. Plan an Artful Autumn Get-Away and visit the delightful destination of Beaufort South, Carolina.

A Garden Journal Workshop with Pam Johnson Brickell

October 25, 26 and 27, 2011 • Beaufort, South Carolina

In conjunction with Coastal Art Supply and The Beaufort Inn

 

Pam is excited to join forces with Beaufort County's own Laura Lee Rose, a Clemson Extension horticulture agent and one of the area's foremost advocates of horticulture. She teaches the Master Gardener curriculum, oversees county-wide horticulture projects, speaks to schools and community groups, and has been active in organizing and promoting Beaufort's downtown community garden.

Learn sketching, page design, watercolor, lettering and artful journaling techniques from Pam and valuable plant identification/information and other horticultural goodies from Laura Lee.  

By the end of the workshop you'll experience the joys of keeping a garden journal and discover first hand how it can be utilized to plan your garden and serves as a record of your gardening trials and triumphs.

Oh yes..... lunch is provided by Southern Graces - the ultimate treat!

For information and registration call Coastal Art Supply at 843-524-2787

And.............

Pam just can't contain herself and must share the fun :)

Being offered at 

Coastal Art Supply in Beaufort, South Carolina

843-524-2787

Painting NightScapes Plein Air - The Hunter's Moon

November 8 − 10, 2011
Tues: 1 − 4 pm
Wed and Thurs 4:30 − 7:30 pm

For the workshop description, please click here

The Beaufort, SC link above has hotel and vacation rental options under the 'lodging' link.  


No matter which part of the these wonderful United States you want to head off to for an Artful Autumn Get-Away.... or if you would like to try an online workshop, there are plenty to choose from. Check out the complete listings on this blog here.

New Fall Classes Starting At ImaginaryTrips.com!

Gosh, it seems odd to be writing Fall when it's still hotter than blazes outside! All the same, the new classes start next week over at ImaginaryTrips.com!

An Imaginary Trip to Paris will begin on Tuesday, September 6th. You can find more information by clicking here.

An Imaginary Trip to New Orleans will start on Monday, September 12th! It will be a whole lot of fun in that great city. Please click here for info on this trip!

Also starting on Monday, September 12th, is Artful Journaling: Foundations class! For more information on getting started with watercolor journaling, please click here!

Please let me know of any questions you may have.

Thanks!

Laure

Lighten up!

We've talked a fair amount about lightweight supplies for journal work, particularly when traveling.  This is about my lightest "practical" kit, in a white plastic Sucrets cough drop box.  That gives me a small white mixing area as well as plenty of colors.

These were left over from my rehab of my ancient Winsor & Newton travel box...I'm not wild about half pans, as I've said, but I didn't want to throw then out, either, so this little kit rides in the glove box of my Jeep.

It weighs 1.6 ounces!

More about it HERE in my Flickr album.

An evolving journal page--insects and friends...

Planning ahead isn't really necessary unless you're planning on publishing your journal pages!  I wasn't, I was just delighted to find such a wide variety of insect life all on the door frame of my shed/studio.  So this is an evolving sketch that I played with over days--I started over a week ago!  I did the rough sketch below with a Prismacolor Verithin black colored pencil--almost little more than quick gesture sketches--then took photos to refine them later.

I worked fast...I was standing up, the butterfly might move at any time, and the katydid, DID!  Sort of a slow-motion sloth effect...and of course added more details and more creatures as I went along!

 

slow-moving but definitely MOVING bush katydid...the leaf-like designs on his back were much more visible in this macro shot--I couldn't really see them with the naked eye.

My reference photos were really helpful in getting at the details I'd missed, although I never COULD get my camera to focus properly on the walking stick. 

I used my magnifying glass to get the details of the chrysalis--it was thin as tissue paper, delicate and almost translucent.  I thought I was done when I did the version below, with a headline, border, and color...

I waited a few days to add the color, until my new open-stock Verithin pencils arrived from Dick Blick--and then decided to add some watercolor after all! 

A day or so later still, I went back in and strengthened the darks and added a bit of tone to make the chrysalis at upper left stand out...

I couldn't resist adding the daddy longlegs or harvestman, which strolled up later...and before you say "ick, I hate spiders," these aren't spiders at all!  They have their own order, they are non-poisonous, and they eat other small insects.  They're very beautiful, up close, like a jeweled mosaic box.

A wonderful new book really points up the value of field sketches over more mechanical means of nature study.  It's Field Notes on Science and Nature. 


Edited by Michael Canfield and published by Harvard University Press--if you're interested in nature study with your journal, you'll love it too. 

Colored pencil and watercolor.

Watercolor in the Super Deluxe Sketchbook . . .

Still testing media in this very nice sketchbook by Bee Paper Company. Using pan watercolors for this sketch that takes up about a third of the page, I had no warping problems even at the page edge. I am finding some interesting things about using permanent inks in this book, though, and will report when my experimenting is done.

Also want to let everyone know that I have launched a Back to School Sale on all my Whenever Workshops (you download them and do them at your own pace). They are all 25% Off for the rest of August.

This is a season of learning and of a worrisome economy also, so I figure less expensive workshops might be just the key. There are five of them - on Journaling, Macintosh, Photography, Drawing, and Photoshop Elements.

Get lost in art and forget about worrying!

More details here:

http://www.wisdomwoman.com/whatever

Watercolor or Watercolor Pencils?

Are you in a hurry? Here's something to consider...



Of course this is not a slow, careful and controlled buildup of color, as you can do so well with watercolor pencils, but it is something to think about, depending on how you like to work...

This was done for my upcoming mini-class on watercolor pencils, but since it's on Joseph's YouTube, I thought I'd make it more widely available here!

Let us know what you think, and how YOU like to work!

A Secrt Garden Gate?

Secrt [Sic] Garden Door
M. Graham Watercolors
and Ink
3.5 x 8.5 inches

As we walked to the trolley each day in New Orleans, we passed this really cool doorway. It led to someone's backyard. There was a house, a garage and other structures back behind the doorway, but for my purposes, I chose to edited them out.

I've always been enchanted by the idea of a secret garden. Maybe it has something to do with Alice In Wonderland or Harry Potter's adventures.  Whatever it is, I seemed to be drawn to unusual doors and gates—they are a portal for my imagination.

The title "Secrt Garden Door" is a typo. My right brain was writing creating and it doesn't know how to spell. So I've decided you have to know the "proper" spelling of secret to gain into into my "secrt" garden! Who needs that extra "e" anyway?!

(And as a wise woman once shared with me...if you can't fix it, feature it!)

This was completed with M. Graham watercolors and ink in my NOLA sketchbook. If you're interested in joining me for a real adventure in New Orleans, please click HERE for information about NOLA Live!

For those of you who are interested in learning more about creating journal pages and using watercolors, Artful Journaling: Foundations and Explorations has been added back to the schedule over on ImaginaryTrips.com. Click HERE for more info on the journaling classes.

Happy Weekend, Y'all!

Rocks and New Watercolors

July 2011: Rocks, a photo by apple-pine on Flickr.

I recently started playing with two Lunar pigments from Daniel Smith - Lunar Blue and Lunar Black. They create magnificent granulation - and I am trying all sorts of color combinations with them. This is my first black on the palette in a really long time and it brings me a lot of surprises :)

Lake of Fire on Conesus Lake

Lake of Fire 2011 , a photo by PJBee on Flickr.

In Western NY on Conesus Lake, the 3rd of July is very special. The law turns it's head and the lake property owners have a huge celebration. At 10 pm everyone lights flares that have been placed along the shore line and the whole lake lights up. Fireworks all around, people everywhere. Fun!!

Stawberry Moon Eve and Full Moon

Stawberry Moon Eve and Full Moon, a photo by PJBee on Flickr.

You know I can't let a full moon pass me by :)

One more painting at Sketching in Nature blog. And, the full story on my blog.

Quick Sketch with my Lamy Joy pen

We went to see our godchild Molly Hammer in Sister Robert Anne's Cabaret Class in Amana, Iowa, over the weekend, and stayed, happily, at Rose's B & B again.  I had more time to sketch this time--by design--and even to the last minute, as J. was checking out and packing the car, I was squeezing in one more quick sketch!

I loved this tiny shed, and knew I didn't have time for color, so I whipped out my Lamy Joy pen with the 1.1 calligraphy nib and jumped right in there.  I added a few details with my regular Lamy with the EF nib, which is somewhat more controllable.  Loved the morning shadows here...as J. was putting the last of our stuff in the Jeep, I took a quick reference photo...

As I noted before, I would REALLY like a fountain pen with a good flex so I get a variation in my lines, but so far only the antique ones really fill that bill, and they're temperamental and sometimes want to leak. So if I turn the calligraphy pen in different directions, as Laure suggested in her wonderful little video, I get some thick and thin!

I've got the Lamy joy with a 1.1 nib and also a couple of regular Lamys with the EF nib. Again, the charcoal seems to be smoother than the silver nib. (My Lamys are both Vista--that's the same as the Safari only transparent--I can see when I need to think about refilling, instead of just running out of ink.)

Earlier Monday morning, I had taken time to do a longer watercolor...I'd imagined doing sketches all over town, Amana is so picturesque and the old homes and businesses just beg to be recorded, but there just isn't time for everything...

Because I knew how quickly the long, raking shadows of the morning would change,  I sketched in their shapes FIRST, with a pencil, then sat on my folding stool to add the details.  I used my beloved retrofitted Prang box, a 1/2" flat and a #8 round brush.

The sun was strong on my white paper, and my paint dried REALLY quickly, both on the paper and on my palette, so I worked very fast...

And again, shot a quick photo to freeze those shadows!  If I wanted, I could do a more formal painting of the garage/shed at Rose's...

Journaling Spring

Sometimes you just want to do a fast and loose page, when things are changing as fast as they do in the spring!

This was my view a few weeks ago...it was a lovely warm day, and I sat out on the deck to sketch!

Love my handy little sprayers to wet the page or pre-wet my paints!  I just did a very loose pencil sketch...

And then sprayed right over it...

And added a wet-in-wet wash in spring colors...

Here are my current favorite working tools for on the spot work...my repurposed Prang box, a small bristle brush with the end sharpened, my little sprayer, and a waterbrush or two...

I added a few touches of quin red and mauve for shadows and redbud trees, then I let that dry and began adding a few touches of ink...

Here's my Lamy Vista pen with Lexington Gray ink, a favorite Loew-Cornell Ultra brush, and my "Prangs"....and finally added notes and the date, below.

Journaling at a Favorite Golf Tournament

Golf courses are one of my favorite places to sketch. Every year that we can, my husband and I attend The Heritage, a PGA tournament that takes place at the Harbour Town Golf Links in Sea Pines Plantation on Hilton Head Island, SC.

On practice days, I will make a quick watercolor sketch and then have the tour players autograph the page. The most 'artsy' signatures that decorated my pages this year were Jesper Parnevik's and Ian Poulter's. They really got into it :)

Once the tournament officially begins, I park myself in one spot and pick a view that sparks my interest.  Most of the time, Rob and I like to sit at the intersections of holes 2,3,6 and 7. It gives Rob two green and two tee boxes to watch close up action.  Day one and two sketches are here.

Day three, we set up our chairs near the green of #14. The view between holes 13 and 14 is one of the prettiest around. The landscape is lush and every year I fall in love with the three Live Oaks that separate the golf holes.

After about an hour at this location we decided it would be better if we moved back to our favorite spot on the front nine so we could see the last half of the players come through.  One very large challenge..... I only had the basics of this scene laid in.  Luckily, I had my iPod with me. In between groups of players, I photographed my piece and took a shot of the view.  I so love that with a flick of your fingers you can enlarge the image on the screen.  Between this image and my memory, I was able to almost finish this piece.  I had to wait to get home to add the people on the bleachers.... I got a bit carried away with the green paint and forgot to leave white paper at the top of the bleachers. Thank goodness for gouache :) Nothing like opaque paint to save the day!

For My Eye Doctor

After going through a "rough bit" along the road of life my vision is still improving. I've been trying to visually document my progress for my opthaneurologist as I go along. It's one thing to tell someone how I see things and another to show them an illustration. So. . . I did two illustrations --both views of my bedroom, the first how I think it would look with normal vision, and the second one trying to show how the graininess that I see actually looks when I see things. Please note that, joyously, the view out my window into the natural light is almost normal. I can see the branches against the sky and the bark on the trees. I'm wrestling with artificial light, but, slowly, that is improving also. It's been three years since I went nearly blind from bilateral optic nerve atrophy, and I'm grateful every day for the progress I've made. I hope somehow my illustrations will help someone or their families or doctors through a nightmarish time.

Full Pollen Moon

Full Pollen Moon, a photo by PJBee on Flickr.

I gave March's full moon a new name but can't help but think the long ago Native American tribes of this area probably called it Full Pollen Moon too :)

My nose has been so close to the grindstone lately I didn't hear about this moon being so special and called, by some, the 'supermoon' - I'm going to have to figure out how to add a note about this on an already full page!