Playing with Materials: New and Old.

I had a lovely invitation for an art date with friends and spent some time catching up, trying a new set of watercolors and new paint sticks and mixing it all with my favorite gouache and watercolor set and pentel pocket brush and stencils - a lot of mess and fun at the same time. Can you guess where is what? You can see some notes on the second page below.

Morning of experiments turned into plant portraits

I've been working out some problems in my sketchbook and ended up with these three portraits of the same plant that is a part of a garden on my work table. The problems require more work to get to a new place - but I can say for sure I am enjoying some interesting combinations of materials here. This is Spot - a Rattlesnake Calathea. 

Drawn reports in the form of the portraits - war in Ukraine. August 15-20, 2023.

August 15-20 2023. Days 538-542 of war.
Horrible attacks on Chernihiv this week. More attacks in the Kharkiv region. How little we used to know about some of the parts of the country and how much we are learning during this horrible war. An intense conversation about which book I should read next in Ukrainian. Some wonderful encounters with dogs on the streets from both parts of the world. Some hard questions (what is victory?) and some very mundane - (where to get medicine, how to organize help). 

Wrong Date and Other Mistakes in My Sketchbook.

Last week I posted a sketch on Instagram - and even made a little video composition about the process of making it. And I wrote the wrong date on it. Whether because I was thinking about a different date or because I just wanted to draw 7 more than to draw 6 :) Or for any other reason. I also smudged a page on the same spread. Luckily I had more ink on my sponge and used a stencil from the left side to make another impression of the stick. And then someone special found this praying mantis for me - sitting on a beige wall near the entrance to our home - and I added it to the spread - though in a different color from the original - I just grabbed the first color that I found on my desk. In real life it was beige. Another mistake - or not a mistake. But the Mantis sketch had a correct date on it - the one with the 7, the one I wanted to draw from the start :)

Bike and Sketch - Tree in a Garden

Gouache in my A3 sketchbook, some truth about my gouache palette in the photos below. I know I keep promising to fill a new palette with fresh gouache but somehow always end up with this old pencil box as a palette - and at this point, I think it is ok :)