Laurelines

Journal as palate/palette cleanser

I use my journal for lots of things, one of which is as a sort of palate cleanser. Before or after a long session in my painting studio, I can grab my Stillman & Birn 8 1/2" x 11" Alpha journal and do a quick, fun drawing... it feels like having a mouthful of sorbet between heavy, rich courses. And it's a palette cleanser, too. My painting palette is heavy on the reds and oranges and dark neutrals right now. My watercolor palette lets me lighten up, in all ways.

 

These daffodils and pussy willows are my first bouquet of the season from our local farmers' market. 

 

 

Here's a Flickr slideshow, just for fun, of many of the quick floral and botanical sketches I've done over the past few years:

Happy spring, whenever it finally comes your way!

January! We're new again!

Because my birthday coincides with the new year, I'm always ready to get clear of the past and start again, with hope and gusto!

And so, here we are, starting again. My primary goal for the year is to get paintings painted for my show next fall. 

But, of course, I will always have drawing and sketching and writing in my journal and occasional illustrating to do. Once I have shared these images with you, two from my new Stillman and Birn Alpha  9 x 12 journal (this is my eighth!), two from a drawing session I had here yesterday with two friends, I'm going to finish tidying up my painting studio. And THEN I'm going to paint.

These drawings are of my young friend Meg, who is obviously quite beautiful. But there is a quality to her that has made me really want to draw her from the first time I met her. I can see the tiny child Meg still there in her features and I can also see the spare beauty of a Byzantine saint as well. Her soul is both old and new.

Finally, some palette cleansers, as I call them... today's sketches from my new journal. I make these images first thing in the morning in my studio, as a way to sweep away yesterday's struggles, to invoke new energy for the day. I love the natural calligraphy inherent in flowers, so when I have them, I draw them.

Iceland, interrupted.

I was on my way. I'd left my home airport and was at JFK, waiting to board my flight for Iceland. But wait, my passport.... it was gone. GONE. VERY gone.

I, a most meticulous and frequent traveler, obsessive about my passport, had lost it... and then someone must have picked it up and kept it.  I, along with my husband, airline, airport, and TSA employees at JFK AND my home airport looked everywhere. Gone.

SO. My husband and I drive to DC Monday for an appointment with the US Passport Agency where, I HOPE, they will give me a replacement one. Then we drive home.

Then, the very next day, we begin again our journey to Iceland. I have rebooked all hotels, flights, etc. exactly the way they were... just seven days later.

Cross your fingers all goes well this time!

This forced hiatus has allowed me to test drive some of the supplies I'd packed to take. I was very eager to try  a Strathmore sketchbook with toned gray paper, my new Stillman & Birns Delta sketchbook with heavy-duty cold pressed paper.. and to use again my old trusty favorite drawing tools from art school, Caran d'Ache watercolor crayons. I figure I'll be sketching fast and loose (even more than I usually do) and in inclement weather... so the crayons will be perfect for getting down tones, gestures, textures FAST. I'll use them with other drawing materials, too.

I made sketches from photographs and sketches from my last Iceland trip and from references I found on the internet...just to get the feel of Iceland again. Some of these remind me of my sketches of Norway, which makes complete sense.

Here are some I've done. It will be so interesting, don't you think, to see how the ones done on site will differ from these? These do have, of necessity, a slightly generic feel about them.

 

Loosening-up drawings

I'm working on some stuff for other people and that stuff is not finished yet. At times like this, when the images I need to work on may not be... shall we say... right up my alley, I procrastinate and I pout. I fidget and I cast about for the way to produce what I need to produce. Ugh.

 

But if I, first thing in the morning (pre-dawn, in my case,) pick up my pens, my brushes and just play in my journal, draw what's in front of me (mostly flowers right now), without thinking, I'm happy.

And by playing, by trying this line and that,
by picking randomly from among my vast collection of drawing tools and putting down marks, I find myself again. It's quite simple. You try it and see if I'm not right.

Okay, but then it's back to drawing pigs. 

Journal pages, June.

 

I'm coming to the end of volume two of my 2012 journal. I use, as you may remember, a Stillman&Birn Alpha series, 8"x12" hardbound book, because it is stoic, sturdy, hardworking, and loyal. 

This one, this April-June one, has been mostly written, with fewer images appearing.  I've been painting more in the studio, so that energy has gone to finished work, work to be hung, not work on pages in a book.

At the moment, I'm a bit stumped on how to proceed with some color illustrations I'm working on, so I did some warmup exercises in my journal. Early this morning, I picked some flowers from the garden and plunked them in a vase. I opened some ink bottles, picked up a brush, and let it flow! My work problem may not have been solved, but I sure feel better!

 

Earlier in the month, I was just starting to play around with ink and wash as a medium for illustrations. I want looseness, but more focus than the rough sketches here... and I want more color.

Dear Laura, get to work. Signed, Laura.