Tag: ink

Barrel Cactus, Aloe, and A Plant Named Audrey

Living in Southern California, we don’t get winter like other parts of the world.  Plants are green and living, not in dormant states for the most part.  In a botanical garden, one of the real pleasures is seeing the sheer variety of plants!  Last Friday, besides trees, I also did a barrel cactus, some red aloe (I think they are aloe), and a huge succulent that I always call “Audrey” from that strange and lovely life form in “Little Shop of Horrors.”

Barrel Cactus . . . these look like a weird squash.

Red Aloe . . . no lines!

Fortunately, these Audreys do not require feeding!  Nor do they sing.

Under the Pines

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Yesterday morning I met up with a friend, to chat, drink coffee, and sketch in the local botanical gardens.  The day was warm and sunny, and before you knew it, 2.5 hours had passed.  She did some wonderful pictures of cacti and tree branches, using only colors from a very tiny paint box!  Me, I need pen and ink to feel confident enough – I am still trying to make watercolors look like watercolors, instead of ink with colors.  I do like the ink-and-color thing, but I know I want to master solid colors.  So, after inking on site, I went home and filled in some colors, and more ink, and more colors, until I hope I got what looks like dappled light on rocks and cacti beneath some pines.

Being curious as to whether or not there is decent light / dark, I thought I would convert it to black and white to see.  Results are below.  I may go in and paint the bushes behind the rocks a bit darker in the center an to the right.

Cliffs at Mesa Verde

I had a brainstorm the other day:  Why not use vacation photos for drawing and watercolor subjects?  I certainly do have a bucket load of photos.  And, last summer we went to a lot of historical and beautiful places as we wandered through parts of the western U.S.  Here, a view from a cliff in Mesa Verde National Park.

Colors include indanthrene blue, quinacridone yellow, organic vermilion, burnt sienna, cobalt blue, phthalo green and Carbon Ink in a Pentalic watercolor book.

Between Thanksgivings

Yesterday, here in the U.S., was Thanksgiving.  We celebrated it with a few members of our family out of town.  Tomorrow, members are coming here for the big family gathering, from east and south and west.  So, Wednesday we made pies, and today we set up the tabbouleh, tzatziki, zhuk, and marinating chicken for tomorrow’s feast.  Lots of chopping and such, along with a fun grocery trip to a market that sells all sorts of foods not seen in the ordinary middle class market . . . this one caters to Middle Eastern, Indian, Asian, and Mexican tastes, so there is a lot of fun and strange food to be had.  On top of it all, it’s so reasonably priced!  If you enjoy cooking, nothing like an exciting market and a family which loves good food.

So, did I spend my entire day prepping?  No, I didn’t.  I did some napping, had some coffee, edited some photos, and then had an epiphany:  I can use my photos for subject matter, whether sketching, ink-and-color, or pure watercolor.  I went through a few photos from our summer on the road throughout the Southwest and Western U.S., to places like Mesa Verde, Ft. Laramie, Yellowstone, and Teton National Forest.  Lots of wonderful things to see.  Now, a lot of wonderful things to recall with a drawing . . .

Photo from Fort Laramie in Wyoming:

A quick ink-and-color sketch of the same:

They don’t really look like each other, but what the heck.  I liked the roof and chimneys against the blue of the sky.