Five Minute Sketches

Five minutes is not a lot - but sometimes you get two 5-minutes in a row - or even three - like I did while waiting for friends in San Francisco recently (I did black line of a super narrow building during the first 5 minutes, then added gray to the same sketch, and then added another tree on the opposite page). 

Waiting at the Hair Salon:

Little sketches of my glorious yellow chrysanthemum:

Glorious Magnolias Day: Three Trees

I had a blast painting three different magnolia trees while catching up with Suhita Shirodkar on all the things that we did not get to discuss while she was teaching in India (if you ever wanted to travel and sketch that part of the world, I definitely would recommend Suhita's workshop - she will be announcing 2027 dates soon!).

I had two intentions: to see if I can soften some of the lines that I usually start my drawing with, and to do a view of a magnolia tree with a creek. I also wanted to start drawing the moment I see the object because I've been stalling on choosing the "right" point of view lately - it resulted in two first sketches being from basically the same spot - but use of different colors made them slightly different.

How I took Apart Posca Brush Pen and Made a Custom Color Marker

(This is a page from my sketchbook with my notes on the process)

I have a love-hate relationship with Posca markers: I want to use them because of the portability of opaque paint, but colors are often not suitable for my taste, and the flow of these markers is a question of endless negotiations. I always wanted to see if I would like them with a brush tip, and when I saw the very first one, I got two colors on sale: very artificial-looking pink and green. Neither is exactly the first color I reach for, but I knew already that I could mix a very cool purplish gray with them. 

Originally, brush tip markers worked ok - the pump would make them juicy, and I could work these colors into my sketches. But quite quickly the flow got worse and then stopped altogether. That is when I decided to take them apart, and this is a video about that story:

Blooming Trees: Magnolias

This year magnolia trees are blooming earlier than before. I took a bunch of my sketchbooks off the shelves and looked through the months of February and March. Based on my sketchbooks, my main hunt for blooming magnolia trees only begins at this time (mid-February); however, a few trees that I visited this week were already dropping petals faster than I could sketch them!
Never fear - there are still a few trees that I plan to visit - they were usually late bloomers - I like those :)

Yellow Chrysanthemums

I believe this was a potted flower destined to celebrate the Chinese New Year (Happy New Lunar Year of a Flaming Horse to all who celebrate!), but when I got it, it became a bright reminder to experiment with my art supplies! I have a whole bunch of small and large sketches of it already - and here is a first batch I wanted to share: