Laurelines

My studio, before and after

It certainly was a mess, wasn't it, before I got shamed into updoing it after seeing Ronell's and Casey's studios in France in November? I'd painted in oils in there for years, and then acrylics, and made mosiac art with ceramic and cement, and all manner of sloppy mediums. Or perhaps I'm the sloppiness? Ever thought of that?
It was clean, but those stains on the floors and walls were there for the duration.
This small room is one of three studio spaces I have. It's the first one and still the chief one. I'm rededicating it to acrylic painting after using it as an all-purpose (and messy, yes) space for making watercolors and paintings and drawings and blogging over the past couple of years. Now that I'm going back to bigger paintings, I need a separate space for watercolor and drawing, so the papers don't get spoiled and splattered and stained. More about that in a minute.
So here are the befores and afters.

The second studio-ish space I have is the room that used to be our breakfast room and homework/project room for the children.  I'll use it now for watercolor and drawing until I can reclaim a bigger room upstairs permanently for those functions. I'll continue to use it for short-termed projects. The armoire you see is full of art supplies. When I finish reclaiming the room upstairs from various children's uses, I'll post photos of it, too.

Now, I'm all set and ready for a new year of painting, drawing, blogging.  I'll do a year-end summary, as I always do, and talk about my plans for 2008, tomorrow.

Assassinated

Benazir Bhutto. Shot to death, at close range, Rawalpindi, Pakistan, December 27, 2007.

December morning, in the kitchen

To those of you who celebrate Christmas, I hope this is one of your most festive and holy. And to those of you who don't, I wish you all good things, a warm and quiet place to be, tranquil thoughts, loving hearts nearby. And while we're at it, let's throw in some homemade cookies. It couldn't hurt.
My kitchen window, early in this morning:
Brown sugar refrigerator cookie ingredients, atop waxed paper, waiting for action:

Two cats and Katherine

It's really only one cat, my kitty Pearl, drawn with a bamboo pen and Higgins indigo ink and Higgins brown ink on Stonehenge paper. Operating on the theory that smaller equals quicker (I still have barely begun my Christmas shopping) I used small paper, 5" x 7". With such small paper, your marks are smaller and less muscular and perhaps more precise. Compare these marks to those used in the drawing of Abby below. I like the loose approach better with this type of pen, but these drawings showed me how versatile bamboo and reed pens can be. That's worth knowing.

My friend Katherine Tyrrell of Making a Mark, has asked me to spread the word about a very interesting competition she has going, for the best blogged paintings and drawings of 2007. Please go read about it and nominate your favorite in each medium by midnight tomorrow!! You will then be able to vote among those works nominated and the results will be published on the last day of the year---what fun! I haven't yet participated but I WILL by the deadline tomorrow, Katherine, I promise!

And now, off to do that shopping.

Schmincke, incke, and nod.

Oh man, I am in heaven with this ink and these paints! I've been shirking everything else I should be doing. I have also been relaxing---which is where the 'nod' comes in. This has been a year of intense activity and I'm just decompressing.  I had to. This afternoon, I'm starting my Christmas shopping. And not a moment to lose!
Here are two sketches. The red and white camellias in a glass vase are from my garden. I used a dip pen with green Higgins drawing ink and my fabulous, lovely Schmincke paints on Arches hot pressed watercolor paper. I've added Daniel Smith Verditer blue to the mix. It's a winner.

Yesterday, I used a bamboo pen and Higgins india ink to draw a vignette from my kitchen. This medium is as close as you can get to painting, while still drawing.

While the children are nestled all snug in their beds, MY vision of sugarplums will be Schmincke and inky pens. Santa baby, are you there?

I'm bi.

Yes, sometimes I go with pencils and sometimes I go with pens. Call me ecumenical, ambidextrous, bipedal....I'm guilty as charged.
So, while I'm infatuated with pen and ink right now and want to take this relationship as far as it will go, I'll still keep my pencils on the side. We got a thing goin' on.
Here are some pencil drawings dating from week before last and here are some more recent pen ones. I'm including sketches of two of my precious nephews and our darling new baby, my stepdaughter's tiny boy!  Babies don't have much architecture, you know, but I'm so excited about drawing and painting him over the next weeks, months, years.

I've been trying reed pens, quill pens, and other dip pens and I really, really, LOVE them! The next drawings are no great shakes, but they were such fun to make---those sweeping, rustic reedy lines---yay!    (Abby was next to  me  on the sofa, so  it was hard to get a long view of her snoozing torso.)

I used a small- nibbed crow quill pen for the insect drawing. I went to our local science museum on Saturday and drew butterflies and bugs--- and why not? 

 

Playing with pens, collecting French sketchbooks!

Even before I saw the great work in pen at the biennale des carnets de voyage, I'd decided to pick up this medium again and give it another go. I'd been drawing mostly in 8b pencil for the past couple of years. Much as I love the sensual, dusky quality of the soft graphite line, though, I'd begun to get tired of how smudgy it gets, especially when traveling and without recourse to spray fixative. I was even more determined, as I say, after seeing gorgeous ink and wash drawings in many of the sketchbooks on exhibit. On the train back to Paris, I couldn't wait to make some ink sketches---there's something about using a pen that encourages doodling and playfulness and the inclusion of text, too, don't you find?
In the scant day and a half I had in Paris after the exhibit, I  used my micron pens and a  vertical spread in my  watercolor block, to make a couple of sketches.

 

Using the micron pens, I missed the ability to make swoopy, curly lines the way you can with a pencil, so I've resuscitated my dip pens and brush pens and am looking forward to limbering up with them. Yesterday, I made a first re-foray into the curving, dip penned line with a couple of sketches of my husband reading.   A  word  to you readers of a Freudian disposition---sometimes a lamp is just a  lamp. I can't wait to add some  Schmincke  hijinks to  this playing around with pens!

 

A really fun and synchronistic occurrence is my friend Ronell's current obsession with the pen. Click on her name to see what she's up to!

Finally, some readers have asked for the list of sketchbooks I bought at the carnet de voyages show, or ordered later when I ran out of room in my suitcase. Here they are:

Faravelli, Stefano. Mali Secret. Nouveaux Loisirs, February 14, 2006. Have not received this one yet, but remember it as being stunning. I'm a fan of his work.
Flores, Enrique . India.  Blur Ediciones. Fascimile edition of his small book of bold, lively watercolor sketches of India.
Flores, Enrique. Cnadernos de viaje. Escuela de Arte de Mérida, Abril 2007. Unbound sturdy sheets of paper on which are printed both black and white and colored reproductions of his sketchbook pages, nicely packaged in portfolio format.
Ladame, Sophie. Carnets d'Eole, vers les CaraÏbes. Éditions Cacimbo, 2002.  Chronicles of a sailing trip in the Caribbean. Beautiful mixed-medium sketches in a large book.
Marot, Geneviève. La France à Vivre; portraits de régions. Édition la Poste, 2007. A sketchbook commissioned and  issued by the  French Post Office, with sketches relating to stamps illustrating the regions of France. Charming, intimate,  and fun. It would make a nice souvenir.
Montigné, Michel. Carnet de Guyane. Éditions Sépia, 2003.
Montigné, Michel.  Carnets de voyages; Maurianie, Maroc, Brésil. ɉditions Sépia, 2006. Robust and loose, lovely watercolor and pencil sketches in a large format. You can see his style becoming stronger in the three years since the Carnet de Guyane, listed above.
Renault, Emilie. Chroniques de Montelly. Lausanne: Éditions de
l'Eclosoir, 2007. Indecipherable typefont but nice drawings! Small accordion book with reproductions of black and white sketches of a domestic interior.
Studler, Elodie. Carnet de Voyage. Éditions Normandie Terre des Arts, 2007. A selection of pages from various of her sketchbooks. Watercolor, graphite, pen and ink---there are numerous examples of all three mediums. Nicely drawn.