Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which I Had A Busy Day!

Today started a little weird - I woke up around 8AM and couldn't really fall back asleep. I got up around 9:30 and then started making my morning coffee and taking care of the little morning chores and such. Then I got distracted by the internet, as usual lol. By the time my mom got home for lunch, I was in the shower, and after I came out there were jalapeno poppers, which is always a welcome treat. When we finished eating, she took the cat out for her daily walkies and I started to load up my bag.

I filled a pencil pouch with 2 HB pencils, a sharpener, erasers, and a lineart pen and then tossed it into the cool geometric reflective bag/purse that Z gave me for my birthday. I also packed a small sketch book for drawing, and just in case, I packed my travel watercolor kit from Peter Pauper Press and one of my Arteza notebooks. Then I sauntered down to my local library and started scouting out locations to draw from.

"Lamp Sketch"; HB pencil on sketchpad; 2022

I sketched that while standing in front of the lamp in question. Pretty much as soon as I got situated and ready to draw, the wind picked up and the clouds began to gather. Since I'm on the coast, that can either mean it'll feel really nice for a bit.... or it's about to pour cats & dogs. I didn't want to get my art soaked, so I packed up and took a bunch of reference photos.

It's about quarter to 9PM now, and I'm pretty sure I'm hearing thunder, so even though it never rained wile I was out there, I'm glad I trotted home afterwards.

When I settled upstairs after my lovely jaunt, I noticed that I had taken another sketch a while back, but it had faded due to friction (as sometimes happens with graphite). I would like to paint this sketch, too, someday. It's pretty much the opposite of the lamp image above in real life, colorwise, being mostly reds and blues instead of greens and grays.

"Thai Tugboat"; graphite on sketchbook; 2022

As for the reference photos I shot, there were some of the Location (today's prompt, courtesy of Z), and some potential future botanical references if anyone puts their 3 bucks down on Vegetable in the next week ;)

Library Lamp Post with Ivy-Wrapped Window and Red Granite Column

Ivy Detail (plus I think the back of the microfiche machine...)

The plants nearby, plus the trashcan because oops

Really Cool Looking Tree!

Love how the flowers face Up but the leaves drip Down!

The Peonies are actually That Magenta in real life! Even more so!

I know it's a weed, but I love purple vetch

All in all, though, the town smelled incredible today. The Rugosa Rose are all in bloom, the cypress spurge have gone by so their stinkiness is no longer a factor, and no one was burning willow, so it was just roses and the occasional waft of fried food from Main Street lol. The walk was wonderful, too. I wore a bandana around my neck mostly to have something I could mop up colors with if I needed to, but also to protect my neck from the sun (more fool me, the sun vanished!), and I can't recommend linen pants (trousers, not underwear, guys) enough - kept me from overheating in the slightly humid 70℉/21,1℃ weather.

Do I recommend going for walks with art supplies? YES. If you have anywhere remotely walkable and peaceful nearby, grab something do draw on and with and go. One of these days, I'll get my energy up and I'll bring an actual chair with me down to the waterfront and chill out with my art supplies and a bottle of water (or two).

So from today til next Wednesday, if you buy me a coffee on my Ko-fi account and comment "Animal", "Vegetable", "Mineral", "Geometric", or "Location", I'll use that as my prompt for next Thursday's art!

That'll about do it from me for tonight - I'm gonna try to doodle with watercolors for a bit and then go to bed.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which Today Was Busy As Hecc!

Today I took a nice walk! Well, two actually... 

During the first walk, I went down to my local library because they have free books and also someone dropped off a few (read: SIX!) crates of veggies from their garden for anyone and everyone in town to enjoy. I showed up later in the afternoon, so I ended up with a smaller variety, but that just made me super happy that so many people wanted the veggies! I got a lovely summer squash that we ate for dinner (perfect flavor!), some tiny cucumbers that tasted like candy (I ate two of the three I picked up and tossed the third out for the crows, who loved it so much they hopped across the yard with their beaks full!), some beets? radishes? no one seemed to know but I picked up four of them, and a normal looking cucumber as big as my hand from middle finger to wrist.

I also found five Joyce Carol Oates books my partner didn't have yet and picked those up for them.

Now, before I hit up the library and its vegetal treasures, I swung by a local shop near my house that services most of the restaurants in town - they're a wholesaler, but the public can shop there, and they often have Jarritos and Mexican Cokes and also some local sodas and San Pellegrino. I picked up a can of Mtn Dew and a bottle of lime-flavored Jarritos along with a small bag of locally made potato chips! Those with my cucumbers made a fine, snackish lunch :)

With my jaunt complete, I headed home and checked on the cat, who was snoozing in my finished-project-box in my room. My partner swung by for the books just as Evie woke up and she tried to escape, so once the books were safely away (and I'd hugged my love a *lot*), I waddled back inside, threw on my shoes, and wrestled the cat into her harness. She hates that part. She loves being in the harness, but god help you trying to put it on her.

After wrestling a very wriggly kitty into her harness, I managed to clip the lead on her and we went outside to... sit mostly, to be honest. She doesn't move much once she's out there unless she's annoyed with the quality of the grass nearby.

Here are some pics from our "walkies":

A maple tree in my yard with one branch changing color

A flowering bush  my mom planted a couple years ago

The Shade Garden

She saw... a bug? I saw nothing.

That time she saw a bird, but it saw her first lol

Grass is delicious. Apparently.

After the nomnom grassfest concluded, I went inside and started sketching up a landscape on that new hot press paper I bought last week!

Base Colors Only

I'm gonna see how well this paper really handles the layers of color and the different pen elements I'll add later. I'll also see how well it handles the tape I bought - initial positioning indicates it'll be just fine!

Here's hoping that I can get this image completed (it's super blurry in that pic because I could not get the lighting right...), because I love the photo it's taken from, which is a view of Cerro Gordo, CA.

Also, please someone stop me from buying things because I bought more paints tonight. One is a stick of Buff Titanium so I can do better sand colors, and the others are... it's another paint set. I have a problem.

lol

Speaking of problems... I'll probably be helping my grandmother pick up an organ tomorrow. That's several hours in a vehicle with her crazy dog. Love my grandma. Love my mom who'll be helping pick up the organ. Don't love heavy lifting or neurotic dogs as big as me..

Anyway, that'll do it from me today! I just wanted to give you a peek at the painting I just started!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC