Journey Through My Sketchbooks~Part one

Whenever I have the opportunity, I love to look at other artist's sketchbooks.  I think I thought that I'd find the secret~of what it took to paint well.
I'd like to share my sketchbooks.  But I will tell you right now, there are no secrets to be found!

When I decided to write on this particular topic and started looking back through my sketchbooks, I immediately found a faux pas~ not dating the sketches!  I was so mad at myself.  How I would have loved to know "when did I do that?"   Maybe this qualifies as a "secret"~

DATE YOUR SKETCHES

Right now I have about 8 sketch books of various sizes on the book shelf.  Some are journals; from trips to Italy, Paris and Spain.

I know which is the first even though hardly anything is dated~so this is where I'll start....about 1993.

When I first started painting in watercolor my primary subject was flowers.  After a few unrewarding paintings, I decided I needed to study my subjects a little closer.  So I took lots of photos and made many trips to Denver Botanic Gardens.

This value drawing is the result of all my sketches and photos of irises.  I learned that the closer you study the individual flowers, the easier it is to see the form, structure and detailed nuances.  What surprised me was that I was willing to take so much time doing all the drawings and value study.  But by doing those sketches, I was no longer intimidated by the intricacy of the flower.

STUDY YOUR SUBJECT

This is the finished painting.  It was done on crinkled masa paper.

  The crinkles brought out the veins in the petals.

 (the actual painting is more purple than magenta)

This was a sketch of a bouquet of daffodils from my garden.  I don't have a photo of the finished painting.  I remember the daffodils turned out quite well but then I added a very dramatic purple background (I was thinking complimentary colors) and it just looked gaudy.

I was very "into" waterlilies...still am.

This is a study of lotus blossoms, leaves and pods.  Lotus are just incredible.  The Denver Botanic Garden has a large beautiful water garden and I have a very large collection of reference photos for waterlilies.

I liked the dragonfly sitting on the unopened lily.

This was a very small painting done on YUPO.

Some lotus and other large lily pads at McKee Gardens, Vero Beach.

Then I became enamored with buffalo.  Outside Denver, in the foothills, there is a herd of buffalo that you can view from the road.  And, the times visiting Yellowstone were always memorable because of how close they would be and how many there were.  It always made me think of "Dances with Wolves".

Tatanka

I've kept this painting.

 It's not very Florida-ish but it reminds me of Colorado & the Buffalo Overlook. 

This beach scene is called "Beachgypsy Dune".  I use this photo as a logo for Beachgypsy Art.

This is also the spot where I met and married Woody.

The DiSimo Cafe is located in Lucca, Italy.  When I saw this window, I knew it had to be a painting.

I had to tackle folded cloth, glass and figures; all rather foreign to me.

It's a very small painting and one of my favorites~it's a souvenir of the Tuscany vacation. 

 

This value painting was done from the on-site

sketch.  The scene is an adobe house on the side of the road when we were on our travel through Northern New Mexico villages (A Ghost Ranch Watercolor Workshop).

We learned alot about making color and value notes on-site by referring to the color & value swatches made in class.

These notations really helped when painting the final version of the scene.

One last sketch.  This was the one and only time I have ever sketched using a live model.

  It was the subject of an Art Guild meeting demonstration.

This was probably the most difficult activity I've ever tried.  This was the last of the sketches; the only reason you can actually tell that it is a young dancer is because she sat for 10 minutes.

I think I'll just stick with landscapes and birds.

PAINT WHAT YOU LOVE