New Prompts for EDiM

For those who wanted to know, here are this year’s daily prompts for EDiM 

Why not try out daily sketching for a week? Join the EDiM Facebook group and post your daily art!

Have fun with this!

Michele

A Nature walk may include lightning!

It started out under the freeway by the sewage treatment plant and right across the river from the railroad yard. A dream come true, you say? But wait! There's more! Meanwhile, here are my results from our nature walk this afternoon. Catching up with Day 28 in my EDIM Sketchbook.

We went on a nature walk to Spencer Island today. The clouds grew darker, the wind came up. We stopped at Langus park nearby, where I laid out my collection on the picnic table to sketch. The wind blew them off the table twice. As we retreated to the car, we saw lightning strike in the sky behind the bridge. Sketches finished on the counter at home!

Finally did a new Periscope today!

My goal this week is to fill in all the blank sketchbook pages that I missed in the Every Day in May challenge. Yes, I do realize that we are halfway through June already.  The time/space continuum cracked and I fell through......but I'm back!

My finished sketch from the live demo today. 

So in a huge multitasking effort I
1. did a new Periscope broadcast (see replay if you missed it)
2. while showing a DIY pen hack
3. while drawing an EDM sketch that I missed on 5-18-16
4. while chatting a bit and catching up with art friends.

All during lunch hour today!

So if I stay in this dimension/universe, I will be doing more live art scopes, more often but shorter ones, while catching up with my sketchbook.

Thank you so much everyone who watched live! I missed you, too! Thank you for watching the replay if you missed it live.

Let me know here or on Instagram what time works for you and I will try to plug in some of those extra Periscopes just for you.

EDM - Day 8

Boots

Micron pen, Tombow dual brush pen, black ink waterbrush, watercolor

I'm smiling to myself as I sketch these boots. I wore them to my watercolor class recently, because I needed something comfortable to patrol the room during an intensive and active series of timed drills that I assigned to my students. One student said, "From now on, if I see you wearing those boots I'm going to run the other way!" I'm happy to report that everyone survived and actually outdid themselves.

EDM - Day 7

A Gadget Used for Cleaning

iRobot-My little sweeper roams around the hardwood floors, vacuuming up dust and crumbs, bumping gently into chairs and doorways. Undismayed, he nonchalantly backs up and simply pirouettes to continue in another direction. Invisible rays emanate from the two white towers, fooling him into thinking a wall is there. He makes a quarter turn and on he goes until he reaches my area rug with a dark border. He thinks it's a cliff and stops dead in his tracks. I let him think it over for a few moments and then send him back to recharge at his battery dock. 

EDM -Day 4

A Game

So let's start with a guessing game. Can you guess the game I illustrated here for the Every Day in May Challenge?

Tip: Mine is related to the truly "old school" version of the game that actually goes back to the Han dynasty. The new version of the game is the subject of an episode of the American sitcom The Big Bang Theory in 2008 (as rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock).

Still Catching Up with EDIM

Barely a moment to catch my breath, much less find time to really get into sketching mode today. Lots of family staying with us and obligations to fulfill all over the county. All this required a few trips to our backup pantry for supplies. On one such foray I was reminded of a blank spot in my sketchbook for Day 22 of the (long past) Every Day in May 2015 challenge.

EDIM #22-- something hanging on your wall.

I thought that walnut ink and a steel nib were appropriately brown and pointy for my very quick sketch of the daddy longlegs spider, hanging on the back wall of the pantry.

EDIM 22--something hanging on your wall

EDiM 20 - Your Wallet/Billfold

After I started sketching in more urban areas, I decided to get a compact wallet. It's one that has a shield for cards that have RFID. It holds my credit cards, ORCA pass, and a few bills, but not so good for change.
I picked the one that looks like Vincent Van Gogh's painting of the Irises. Good choice for an artist, eh?

EDiM 19 - A Cupcake

What can I say? Strawberry whipped cream frosting on a chocolate cupcake with chocolate shavings and a fresh strawberry on top.

EDiM 18 - Lipstick/lip gloss

"Pour yourself a drink, put on some lipstick, and pull yourself together," - Elizabeth Taylor
I think Liz and the Red Queen would have either got along famously....or would have gone down in flames together.

EDiM 16 - Ingredients for a Favorite Recipe

My take on Mom's Waldorf Salad

Ingredients for a Favorite Recipe
About this time of year, my family would have a family picnic in the park near where my grandparents lived. Grandma would make potato salad with homemade mayonnaise and my mother would make her Waldorf Salad.

I made my own version of Mom's Waldorf salad today and reminisced.

EDiM 15-Something you could throw/give away

"Throw" pillows, literally!

These pillows are probably the softest, most comfortable ones in our family room. On each occasion of serious TV watching, however, the tassels have been coming apart, losing their threads a little at a time. A few more adjustments, plumping, and scrunching of these pillows, and the last two tassels will look as threadbare as the rest.  Time to get some new pillows. (Not to mention a change of decor being long overdue!)

EdiM 14 - Something You Use Every Day

I simply couldn't choose just one, so I sketched both my iPad and my sketch kit. I use them both every day to make and publish my artwork. Actually there are three things that I carry with me and use daily. My phone is the third in this trio of essentials.

Note: I have been so busy this past week and upcoming schedule is just as jammed; so even if I sketch each day, I may not be able to post until my calendar clears up a bit. At this very moment, I am prepping for a two day workshop I am teaching at Kirkland Arts Center this coming weekend.

EDiM 12 - Some stairs or steps

Watercolor Landscape-Step by Step

 

 

 

 

Nearly every day of the week, I teach watercolor. Part of the lesson often entails a demonstration of how to paint the subject, step by step.

I am a contributing author in two books, "The Ultimate Guide to Painting from Photographs" and Gary Greene's "Artists' Photo Reference: Buildings and Barns",  both published by North Light Books. My portion of each book includes step by step watercolor instruction.

EDiM 11 - A hat, cap or other headgear

Quinn has a pink fluffy owl hat.

This winter, Quinn got all bundled up and went out for a walk with her family. It's one of the rare times that she didn't have her hat off in a matter of minutes.

When it comes to portraits of toddlers, I have to use a photo. Even if the hat stays on, the face is turning in every direction, coming and going, and changing into all manner of expressions. Wish I could capture it all!

EDIM 10 - Something you can turn on and off

I have been turning this knob on and off for approximately 35 years. My husband installed this wall heater in my studio when we converted the garage.

It's one of the few analog things we have left around here.

EDIM 9 - Something with an interesting label

I already sketched some interesting labels while making pancakes one Saturday morning. But, here we are on Day 9 of the Every Day in May sketching, drawing, painting challenge and I need to find an interesting label again.

This bottle has been in the back of my refrigerator for longer than I can remember. I just can't bring myself to open it, because the label is so unique.

EDiM 8 - something with a handle

Before Twitter, there was CB (Citizen's Band) Radio. Citizens band channels are shared by many users. Only one station may transmit at a time; other stations must listen and wait for the shared channel to be available. That's when you said, "Breaker, breaker!"

CB operators had handles before Twitter.

After the 1973 oil crisis the U.S. government imposed a nationwide 55 MPH speed limit, and fuel shortages and rationing were widespread. CB radio was used (especially by truckers) to locate service stations with better supplies of fuel, to notify other drivers of speed traps, and to organize blockades and convoys in a 1974 strike protesting the new speed limit and other trucking regulations. That's when people invented their own nicknames, or "handles". Betty Ford, the former First Lady of the United States, used the CB handle "First Mama"

Yes, children. And this # used to be called the lb. sign, as in 140# Cold Press Watercolor Paper.

EDiM 7 - An Envelope

You can subscribe to receive a monthly letter for 6 months or a year.

I have a packet of 6 "letters from Paris" by Carol Gillott of the fabulous blog "Paris Breakfasts". This one had a copy of her hand painted letter for May, with a scent paper from a lovely parfum enclosed and a beautiful business card from a Paris restaurant. All around the lower edge of the letter were lily of the valley watercolor florals .

When I first started following her blog, she was in love with macarons and made the most wonderful watercolors of them. Naturally, she had intense research to do. You really should paint what you know. Presently, she is having a whirl with caviar!

EDiM - 5 & 6

Day 5 - Something hot

My hairdryer, with the hot pink stripe, is so hot after I use it that it goes "tic, tic, tic" even after it's turned off.

Day 6 - Something with bristles

My boar bristle hair brush. Boaring, I know. Get it? Hehe. 

Seriously, though, I would have liked to draw the muzzle of a walrus with his bristles, but I have no access to walruses. 

I'm catching up after a very busy week. So I hope I get extra credit for posting two sketches for day five. :)