Oak leaves and acorns

I spent a few days obsessively playing with all sorts of oak leaves and acorns. The more I looked at them and the more varieties I found on my walks the more colors and textures I wanted to add to my collection.

Youtube tricks

I use a "save" feature on youtube a lot - I keep playlists on many topics and not only go back to re-watch videos that I found useful but also just try to have a list of "to watch" and put new videos there to avoid binge-watching things when I am procrastinating - I add them there and watch later - during the special "youtube time" (things we do to trick ourselves! :) 

As I recently realized you cannot save videos that are marked that they were "made for kids". And I kept all my videos marked as "made for kids" - as I thought that watching as someone draws or flips through a sketchbook is an OK activity for kids :) But now I corrected this - and you can save the videos to your lists. 

Here is the one I uploaded today to test:

What is on my table? End of August 2021.

End of August found me fiddling with printing techniques in my sketchbook, drawing people and flowers over and over with liquid watercolors, drawing house portraits with gouache and adding more and more modifications to my new/old pochade box! (there is enough space there for a few thick Stabilo Woody Pencils (from Lyra) which are considered a kid's instrument but I find them an indispensable tool in so many experiments lately! 

Agapanthuses: a series of sketchbook pages

I've been enjoying drawing agapanthuses over and over again in my sketchbook lately.  I like working in series in general because looking is a process and by drawing objects/people/words/compositions repeatedly I can see them better. And with agapanthuses I also was trying all sorts of techniques that I am playing with at the moment: putting together printing, gouache, and crazy lines. 

 

Agapanthus galore

This week was filled with agapanthus drawings. The end of the agapanthus season is here (even though today on my walk I found a cluster of plants full of buds!). The other day I saw a pile of yard trimmings left by the neighboring gardeners and stopped my car to check if I might take some flowers home. These wonderful people had the flowers ready for me by the time I reached the pile :) 

I made a couple of time-lapse videos of painting these gifted flowers: