Sketching, Illustration, Design and Everyday Life.
Copyright by © Nina Khashchina except where noted.
Showing posts with label mixed media sketchbook. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mixed media sketchbook. Show all posts
Thoughts on Dahlias
I've been thinking about adding dahlias to my little garden, though I hear they are hard to grow - mostly because you have to remember to take the tubers out of the ground and then put them back in, and it has to happen at a certain time. It does not sound too complicated by itself, but the way my garden works (so far) is that as soon as I take something out, I put something else in. So there might be no place for them by the time I should stick them back in - some other lovely plant might be happily growing in their spot. And it feels a little unfair. Dahlias are also maddening for me to draw - but I love trying :) Perhaps I will get a plant too and see if it can survive without leaving the soil for the winter? 
Let's Draw Google Bikes!
On a day with some amazing clouds I had a little drawing adventure / art materials testing session at the Google Visitor Experience Center. I enjoyed Etchr Hot Pressed sketchbook for the first two sketches and Strathmore Drawing Paper for the last sketch. Lots of different materials were used here and there, but my freshly cleaned flex nib fountain pen was my main drawing joy for this outing.
Drawing Pottery Made By Others and Making Holes in My Sketchbook
I've been sharing my own pottery experiments, but here are some sketches that I made with a very lovely shaped vase and a perfect little bowl - they have a similar color scheme, and I've been enjoying putting them into my still lifes when there is space on my table. I gift all pieces that I make - but these stay with me :) Both of these are sketchbook paintings created mainly with gouache, but also with many little experimental materials - so much that there were some holes in the paper, and I was repairing pages with tape.
I Mave a Vase
A few months ago, I went to a wheel-throwing class, and little by little, I got hooked :) I've been trying to write this post forever because of how much there is to say about this activity by itself and how it fits into my practice. But since the big overview is taking forever, I decided to start by drawing some of my clay experiments and sharing them here :)
The first vase appeared on my blog in the post with the bouquet of roses.And here is a second vase:
For those affected with pottery bug: this vase was thrown on a wheel with speckled buff clay, I used green underglaze (UG38 - Key Lime) and then after first firing applied some wax resist and had satin white glaze inside and light blue outside.
Virtual Traveling (with Street View World Tour) - Underwater!
Images below are from the demo I did: three takes with three different material sets to illustrate how my sketching might go underwater, and we did a warm-up sketch before and two longer sessions after - all the time chatting about different materials, challenges, and adventures that one might encounter while scuba diving and drawing!
My previous participations include a trip to Kharkiv, Ukraine where I was the guest artist, Drawing Sky Holes, Kenya, Boats, Night Life, Hawaiian Foliage, Light and Shadow, and Japan, Ohio, Arizona and Taipei, Convenience Stores Around the World, Castles, Urban Gardens, and People at Work, Carts and Kiosks.
Virtual Traveling (with Street View World Tour) - Carts & Kiosks!
I traveled around the world (virtually) to draw food carts and kiosks! I did my traveling via online gathering of #streetviewworldtour organized by Jenny Adam and Eleanor Doughty - they have a new website for this project streetviewworldtour.com
This months visiting artist was Sibylle Lienhard @sibyllelienhard and I learned a lot about watering holes in Germany (we visited Frankfurt and Offenbach), about elotes and esquites in Oaxaca, Mexico, and drew a gorgeous city square in Montevideo, Uruguay.
My previous participations include a trip to Kharkiv, Ukraine where I was the guest artist, Drawing Sky Holes, Kenya, Boats, Night Life, Hawaiian Foliage, Light and Shadow, and Japan, Ohio, Arizona and Taipei, Convenience Stores Around the World, Castles, Urban Gardens, and People at Work.
Yellow Chrysanthemums Part 2
I made a series of sketches of this beautiful plant of yellow chrysanthemums before it became my Mom's flower (she enjoys it very much!). First installment is here, some little drawings I shared here, and below are a couple more traditional and I am still thinking about how to finish experimental ones to share :)
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.
Virtual Traveling (with Street View World Tour) - People at Work
I traveled (virtually) all over the world this week to draw people at work! I joined monthly online gathering of #streetviewworldtour - and had lots of fun drawing with a nice group of people. This month a guest artist was none other than Eleanor Doughty - she and he co-host Jenny Adam (who was a guest artist last month but that being the first of January I missed) organized A Street View World Tour some time ago and now they have a website streetviewworldtour.com!
It is a monthly fun, no-pressure gathering where we travel via google maps, draw from the street view as a group - online. I had a set of tools prepared for a specific technique to try in this session but at the last minute had to switch my drawing space and glad I had a chance to make some mess with different tools!
My previous participations include a trip to Kharkiv, Ukraine where I was the guest artist, Drawing Sky Holes, Kenya, Boats, Night Life, Hawaiian Foliage, Light and Shadow, and Japan, Ohio, Arizona and Taipei, Convenience Stores Around the World, Castles, Urban Gardens, (I am quite sure that I participated in a few more but I am not sure I ever posted about them - will try to find and add to this collection!)
Early Bloom: January in California
Everything is blooming a little earlier this year - and these decorative pear trees are first in my collection of California blossoms this year. It was a gorgeously sunny day. I used my printmaking kit and gouache - you can see process photos below - click on the image to see it larger.
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