In Review June 15-26, 2020

I continued painting gardens in gouache (without any underdrawing or lines over the painting - for 30x30directwatercolor challenge). I used photos by 

annisland love

plantsnjungle
ginniehsu

hiltoncarter

And I've been mixing greens a lot. I keep some notes but they are not organized. I think it would be a good idea to make them into a small workshop/handout thing for future classes. Greens are hard in any medium but some simple ideas help with the overall strategy for making them work for you. 

I went on a virtual sketch trip with Suhita Shirodkar to India and Ukraine and then we actually met in real life and visited Gay Kraeger in her magical garden. It was our first outing since the beginning of isolation and felt wonderful to be with friends and painting outdoors.

 

I went for a few bike rides and drew on the way too. 

And more agapanthuses made it to my sketchbook, together with sketches of everyday life, family members, and video chats. 

Week in review (June 8-14, 2020)

Last week I virtually traveled to Toronto, Canada (from my friend's photo); Kharkiv, Ukraine (from my own photo); Sheffield, UK (from the photo by hilaryandflo via indoorplantsdecor); Baltimore, USA (from a photo from an amazing garden feed of of Hilton Carter) and painted all these places without any underdrawing to plan and without any lines to add details or fix things. 

 

 

Also - I went to a real location - in the hills not too far from my home and painted this after I got home. 

This all continues to be a part of June experiment of 30x30DirectWatercolor - I just do it with gouache.

I also drew myself,  my family and friends in person and over the video calls and even got out to paint agapanthuses in my yard - - and here is what I shared:

On my table and a new solution for the old problem

I took this picture this afternoon to tell you that I am almost done with the LARGE sketchbook (the one I keep promising to write about). I rushed to finish it but now I am stretching the last couple of pages. Is it because I will have to scan or photograph it all and this seems like a lot of work? Or did I finally made peace with this paper? I will think about it a bit more this weekend. In any case - I went to paint outside today and it was amazing! Of course, I painted on separate pieces of paper as carrying this monster around is impossible.

But there is one interesting thing that I added to my table this week. It's a cloth rag that now hangs on the side of the table - like a towel. I use a lot of rags and usually, there is a whole lot of mess around them: finding clean one is impossible, there is never one close by when you need it and there is a dozen of them taking space on the table surface if you need to do something or take a photo. 

Last week I was admiring a new series of works amazing Luis Mendo is making: The Home Stayer covers. And I saw this idea and it became my solution. Do you see it here? 

(I had to make a screenshot to share the image here and the link to the instagram post is:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CAptIZknp8S/)

Week in Review

This week I went on to paint my morning cup of tea and people around me going about their lives. And I went on drawing news and protests, hands and faces. 

I worked on making images without putting any lines, on seeing shapes and painting whole picture - filling the page with. I painted more than I shared online but here is what I did share:

Flowers that I found on my walk - I made theese for my friends and family:

Book that I read:

Places around the world where I've been and where other people took me with their stories and photos. 

I went for a first real walk in the woods in over three month and came home filled with colors that I saw:

Celery

I enjoy growing things. It brings me a lot of pleasure to see how they change. I've been thinking a lot about the idea of a garden as an artwork and as a way to make art and a way of looking at life in general. 

I planted a lot of things recently - one of them was a stalk of celery that I put in a jar of water. And watched it grow from a pale clamp into a miniature lush green forest. I drew it in the morning before emails and news and it was great! Here are some of the images:

I gave it a new life and moved it into a real pot with other herbs. 

Somehow I stopped drawing it then, but at least I am watering it.