Pastel & Charcoal Heaven

I ordered a couple of more pan pastels when I placed my order for the Derwent XL Charcoal sticks.  I have two tints and maybe a half dozen shades to extra dark shades I want and my palette will be completed.

Two at Once Sketch

A five minute sketch of John's father with a charcoal pencil taped to a sepia conte pencil.

Bumble Bee

Black mark it all pencil and charcoal smudge bag on newsprint.

Black conte, oiled black charcoal, and charcoal smudge bag on sketch paper.  The stippling is due to my sketching this on my drawing table which has a rough surface.

white mark it all pencil, white conte, and white charcoal, on black sketch paper.

Drawing

I finally have my easel adjusted to a height that is comfortable for drawing, and this was no small feat because every adjustment required me to sketch to see if the height was correct or not.

I'm also using my drawing table for what I intended it to be used for, drawing.

Experimenting with a variety of charcoals and pastels.

I have a new affliction, it's called charcoal!

Portrait Time

Getting ready to create some 30 second and one minute portrait drawings for a class I'm taking.  I spent the better part of today scanning in images of dead relatives, mostly because the images were in black and white, for this assignment.

Inspiration

Turkey's Tail Fungus growing on an old pear stump in my back yard. It yields a gorgeous natural dye color onto wool and silk fabrics.

Bring the Bling

So far I've added washi tape and glitter glue and I named her Calliope! 

Next up some googlie eyes, rhinestones, bells, and more glitter! 

Color Inspiration Fall 2015

My neighbors maple tree is a brilliant orange color this year, last year it was a brilliant red.

New Easel

Really pleased with my new Soho H Frame Mahogany Easel.  It took us over two hours to assemble the silly thing, now to start painting again!

A Place to Perch

Ideal place to perch, because every sewing machine needs a cat as ornamentation.

Pepper sitting atop my Janome 6500S.

Totally Tomato

Color inspiration from my garden.

Love the distinct color bands.

Yes, joy really can be found from something as simple as a tri-colored tomato from my own garden.

On My Sewing Table Tonight

Not sure what Pepper was thinking but apparently felt the need to perch on my sewing machine.

Pumpkin Season has Arrived

Typically I buy quite a variety of pumpkins and squash each year, this year I decided to buy a bunch of fake pumpkins and squash.  I'm still looking for a really large fake pumpkin that looks "authentic".
Why would I buy fakes instead of real ones?

Simple.

I'm setting up a still life in my studio for painting, drawing, etc., and the real ones don't last into March, about the time when I'll be designing  collections for next Fall.

I have a ton of  photos for color and texture references (taken at a local pumpkin farm), but there's nothing as nice as working from a real 3D object.

And don't worry my designs won't look anything like these in the photos, they are just a starting point to work from.

Now to find a decent looking fake pomegranate and all will be well in the world of studio props.

Autumn is Coming!!!

Fall is my favorite time of the year, not just because tomorrow is my 49th birthday, but also because I love pumpkin, scary kitties, ghosts, goblins, and haunting apple orchards!  Enjoy!!!

Studio Purge Continues

Well the good news is I've made a lot of progress in the studio.  The bad news is now I'm cleaning, purging, and organizing about seven different things at once and it wasn't intentional but its a necessary evil.

I'm at the point where I moved my thread cabinets off of the big shelves and onto the cubbies, this is temporary until the place where I really want to live is freed up, but that space is currently occupied with stuff that either needed to go onto the big shelves or be given away.

I'm getting there, thank heavens!  When all is said and done the artwork right there in front of the cubbies, you know living on my studio floor, will soon have a home on the big shelves.  But first I must move my massive paint collection out of the blue dresser and onto the carts, and then the fabric living on the big shelves, well most of it anyway, can go live in the blue dresser.

Make sense?  Me neither.  I hope to have an update by this coming weekend.  The only thing standing in my way at the moment is the fact that the studio floor needs vacuuming before I can proceed any further.  And there is a huge dog sleeping in the middle of said floor.

Oliver, my faithful studio assistant who doubles as a paper weight.

Today's Studio Help

Pepper keeping my sketchbooks organized.

Oliver keeping my feet company.

And birds at the bird feeders this afternoon.

Cooler temps, fall has arrived.

Design Wall

The design wall has been hung, finally.  Studio is still a wreck but my design wall has been hung!

Just a  partial view of the disaster area known as my studio.  

The temps are supposed to drop  here, as is the humidity, I anticipate lots of cleaning, purging, and organizing happening before the next heat wave sets in.

The Drawing Table

The drawing table is finally in front of the coveted window!!!

Next up is repairing my drafting table chair, which should happen sometime tonight.  Calligraphy tools found, cart stocked with ink at the ready.  It's time to create!

In the meantime I'm still shoveling stuff out of my studio work space and will continue to sort, purge, and pitch stuff that no longer serves me.  I will be hosting a huge online sale here and soon, I thought that was going to happen last week and boy did I ever miss the mark on that one!

Where Have I Been Part 2

Yes there will be a design wall in this new space!

No more chicken coop wall, now it's a wall of cubbies pushed back a good eight feet for more space!

My drawing table is going in front of that big window there to the left, sewing table will be pushed at an angle further back once everything blocking it is gone.  The end of August cannot come soon enough!

I put it all into  well labeled boxes!!! I will be sorting and purging most of this through the month of August,  I'm hoping to have a huge artist yard sale towards the end of August when the students return.

Where Have I Been?

I have been in the middle of a studio redux, aka purging, pitching, and then setting the space up in a more organized manner.

I've posted photos of how my studio looked before, so there's no sense in belaboring that topic.  Since I've been asked before where I bought my studio furniture well John built all of the cubbies and shelf units you seen in these photos.

My self-imposed deadline to have the space vacated in front of that big picture window is tonight.  My self-imposed deadline to move my drawing table in front of said window is Sunday night, because there's a whole lotta cleaning, and further purging, that's going to happen between now and Sunday.