Horse and Groom - Greeting Card

5x7 water soluble graphite on watercolor paper
greeting card
$30 + $5 sh

And so Christmas is around the corner. I wish all my friends the happiest of tidings at this blessed season.

Runabout - Greeting Card

7x5 water soluble graphite on watercolor paper
greeting card
$30 + $5 sh

Happy Winter Solstice. The days will be getting longer now. More light to paint by!

Window Seat - Greeting Card

7x5 water soluble graphite on watercolor paper
greeting card
$30 + $5 sh

Barely have had time to paint, but am doing so in fits and spurts. The season is upon us, and I am finishing last gift shopping, wrapping and shipping and beginning baking. Lots of little parties for the kids and family. Its all holly jolly!
We've snapped out of our arctic blast here and are enjoying some lovely "winter" weather - 70 and sunny. :-)

Today are the class parties and in the afternoon the Girl Scouts are going caroling at a nursing home nearby. I hope that all my cyber friends out there are having as pleasant a time - remembering the reason for the season. I myself have been a little too stressed and am trying to take deep breaths. So much to do... best to remember WHY we do it.

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Check my ETSY store for more available art. I've shipped to Italy and Australia recently. So amazed at the reach my artwork can have. So very blessed too.

Sleepy Dogs

watercolor pencil sketches from my sketchbook

My dogs have done a lot of this during our long hot summer - well, there is the heat as well as their age. I did these sketches a few nights ago and have no idea why the date I put on was 10-10.

 

Central Park Sketch

I thought I wrote something about this when I sent it from my iPhone in Central Park. Its a little weird emailing a blog post. Apparently there were some glitches. I ended up not painting in the streets again. We kept busy exploring all day on Monday - walking and biking around the city, exploring Chinatown and Little Italy, enjoying Hudson River Park, and then had a great dinner with Phil Levine and Nancy Myers back in the West Village. I still can't believe I biked down Broadway midday!

Florida Backroads

Arrived on Saturday to a very nice rainstorm. Hadn't seen rain in quite some time. We lounged about yesterday and today took a trip over to Homossasa Springs and saw manatees and a bunch of other wildlife. I sat in the front sketching the gorgeous passing scenery. Lots of trees - such beautiful old oaks! All dripping that romantic looking spanish moss. Lots of horses and cows. Its all so lush and green. Very different from Austin! I am inspired by everything here. There is a great deal of "atmosphere" - a blue haze that makes the distance recede so beautifully.

Above are just a couple little vignettes from my sketchbook. The sunset here at home might be worth painting in oil tonight. Or maybe deep dusk over the pond. I'd better go get ready.

Beach Sketch

pencil with watercolor wash

What more enjoyable pastime could there be than playing in the beautiful white sands of a gulf coast beach? This time, the white of the paper is pretty darn close to the actual sand color.

Beach Sketch

pencil with watercolor wash

This was another little sketch trying to capture the masses of people on the beach. I think it was busier this year than last. More and more people are discovering the gorgeous white sands on Siesta Key. I think its owing to it appearing in more than one "best beaches" list.

I found the watercolor made it quite easy to "suggest" people. Just a dab of the brush. But what I'm really aiming for with this kind of sketching/journaling is like what I see on the Sketchcrawl site. "They" have organized worldwide sketching days and have lots of good suggestions about materials (I need to find the right pen and book/paper) and you go solo, or with others, to just go out and observe and sketch the community around you. I have yet to join an official day for this as I've had conflicts since I learned of it. But NEXT time! Though I "crawled" during my whole vacation and have pencil sketches from home, the airport, roadside views complete with billboards, seagulls and sandcrabs, and my brother-in-law building one of his very cool sand sculptures (he took that sketch home with him.)

I think that my increased sketching and observing have made me a better artist. I carry a sketchbook everywhere now. Its just small and fits in my purse. I was always a doodler; now I don't need napkins. One less thing to float around my studio.

Firelight sketch

Back from our trip to Bandera Texas - the cowboy capital of the world.
The Dixie Dude ranch was a wonderful experience. We really enjoyed the hospitality and friendliness of all the ranch staff.

The country is beautiful - but rugged. We rode, we hiked, we ate too much, we roasted marshmellows, we watched trick roping, listened to music and tall tales around the campfires. It was perfect really. I would highly recommend the experience to anyone who likes outdoorsy vacations. Like camping but with catering!

The above is a sketch I did from memory - I studied Brian at the campfire and then sketched real fast when I got back to our cabin. I carried my sketchbook with me the next night but it quite a few more families had come and we didn't get to repeat this scene.

Below is a photo of another cowboy, Ringo, on his horse... and a good look at the Bandera countryside.