Day 13 - Popsicles

These are all my favorite flavors. It was a special treat to buy Popsicles when we were little. With 6 children in the family and very hot summers in Eastern Washington, you would have had to own  a franchise to keep up with the rate of consumption we would have achieved. 

My Mom kept the sticks from store bought Popsicles, washed them in hot soapy water, then used them in homemade "popsicles". No fancy popsicle freezer forms for us! We made them in squares from Kool Aid in aluminum ice cube trays. At the time, my favorite flavor was grape.

20 People at the Outlet Mall on Wednesday

Here's 20 more people for the #oneweek100people2017 drawing challenge. That makes a total of 61 for the week so far.

I found a great spot at the window counter looking out onto the central square at the Seattle Premium Outlet Mall today. I had a tall bar stool to sit on, a long table for my stuff and a nice hot latte' to sip in the warm Starbucks coffee shop. Now that's what I call luxury sketching. I trust you can tell how cold it was out there by the hunched over posture and puffy jackets and gloves most people were wearing.

This store is usually packed with a line out the door, but the cold damp winter weather on a Wednesday made it difficult for all but the hardiest of shoppers to be out and about....and sketchers like me with a goal!

I enjoyed combining fine tip waterproof pens with brush pens loaded with water soluble ink, adding color with watercolor pencils and a waterbrush at the end. These seem the most appropriate for my new Stillman & Birn Zeta sketchbook with its smooth thick paper. What a fun challenge! I am constantly amazed at the variety of characters one encounters and it makes me wonder about their stories.

March Momentcatchers and Multitasking

In my usual multitasking approach, I am combining two online drawing challenges today; Candace Rardon's Momentcatchers (a watercolor every first Saturday of the month) and "One week 100 people" a global challenge starting up on Monday. (I'll post more about the 100 people challenge here tomorrow)

I took a moment or two to set out a bunch of sketching supplies to see what I might use for the the upcoming week's drawing challenge. Bing! THAT'S what I'll draw and paint this weekend for my contribution to the Momentcatcher's  Challenge---the pile of sketching stuff I'm using! This will be my third post for the year on this challenge. I plan to add one a month on the first Saturday of each month.
See more about the Momentcatchers Project at http://www.candaceroserardon.com/2017/01/moment-catchers-project/

In another spate of multitasking, I took some photos at each stage of today's sketch.

1. Drawing with my Sharpie Stylo Fine tip black waterproof pen in my new Stillman & Birn Zeta Sketchbook.
I chose this sketchbook because its thick, smooth paper is particularly pen-friendly yet allows for wet media, should I have enough time to add watercolor washes.

 2. I wanted to try out both the smooth paper of the S&B Zeta and my new very pointed tip travel brush. It's a #6 round Voyage by Silver Black Velvet

So I mixed up a semi neutral grey with my DIY Altoids mini travel tin and washed in the shadows over the pen drawing.

What do you think? Does it make that much of a difference from the simple line sketch?

3. Finally, I added watercolor washes over the previous two stages and used Picasa to superimpose a little text list of my choice of supplies for the challenge. I do that sometimes to see what it would look like if I add narrative to my sketches. I think if I do decide to add text by hand, it will be slanted to fit the angle of the drawing of the sketchbook page. You can see what it looks like without the text added on my Flickr photostream here.

I hope this qualifies for my Momentcatchers entry. There IS watercolor in it. :)

Oh, and here's a shot of my work in progress.

PS. My cappuccino got cold. I got carried away yet again and that part of my multi-multi-multi tasking failed.

SKOL2016 at Roozengaard

Although I shared this series of sketches live on Periscope after a morning at Roozengaard, a tulip display garden, it's always nice to see the work in progress. Scroll down to view my accordion book sketches in reverse order, from end back to beginning.

The finished sketches of the day. 4.7.16.  Individual sketches shown in more detail on the replay at the 57min mark. Here on Katch.

I want to engage in the Sketch Out Loud Project along with other artists around the world. The goal of SKO/L is to help celebrate Landscape Architecture and World Landscape Architecture Month with a wide audience of sketchers to promote on location sketching as a way to observe and document the landscape. Learn more about SKOL2016 here.

Final sketch of the windmill and a trophy shot on a warm, sunny bench nearby.

As I sat on a bench sketching in the northwest corner of the display garden, a bee came to view my progress. It hovered for a few moments, so close that I could see it pivot in flight left and right from page to  page.  After it buzzed away, I sketched it in place exactly where it had been, took this photo and continued my work in progress. 4.7.16
Roozengaard

Attacked by Squirrels!

I'm working out my anger issues against the wild gang of squirrels in our back yard. Sketching the crime victims seems to help. This was an impromptu Periscope broadcast just now, so you can catch it on replay until it expires tomorrow.  periscope.tv/michelecoopart

After signing off air, I finished up the crocus sketch by adding the bedraggled, wilted flower, a crucial part of the post mortem evidence!

My DYI Sketchcrawl Along the King Kam Hwy-Part 1

With two little granddaughters to enjoy and lots of shopping trips the past week or two, my correspondence with painting friends at home near Seattle and here on Oahu has been sadly neglected. Aloha, guys, I know the holidays are a busy time for you as well. Hope we get a chance to sketch together in Hawaii before I return to the freezing weather back home.

Meanwhile, my son who does not claim to be an artist, took me on our own independent South Pacific Sketchcrawl yesterday. ( Is it a crawl if you drive from spot to spot?) I'll post more pages tomorrow, but for now:

I sketched in my Stillman and Birn Beta while Matt used a stylus and an app on his smart phone. 

The wind farms and shrimp farm aquaculture exist along the same stretch of the King Kamehameha Highway along the North Shore of Oahu. The wind farms are on hilltops and the shrimp stands sell their garlicky, buttery wares on the right hand roadside on your way to the famous North Shore surfing beaches. 

We caught our first sketch at Kahuku Wind Farm. A wide turnout with an unused approach to another facility provided us with plenty of parking room to get the right angle and sketch from the cool air conditioned leather seats in the car. Luxury! Zoom to read more notes on my journal page. 

We have always pulled over at Giovanni's, unable to resist the promise of the intense flavor of fresh hot shrimp swimming in garlic and butter, piled on top of "two scoop rice". This time we parked on the shoulder about 500 yards ahead of the parking lot at Fumi's. Their shrimp are cooked whole, heads and all and don't seem to have as much garlic as other stands. Each stand has a covered area with picnic tables where customers can enjoy their hot, fresh shrimp. We were there for the sketching this time, however. The scene was a colorist's dream, with a powder blue shack next to a bright yellow van, overlapping an orange tour bus. Then cosmic forces somehow took over and the two vehicles drove off before I could sketch them. Whyyyyyyy! It never fails.....look at something long enough and it will move! Just for that I recorded the flat tire on the pickup/road sign.

Part Two coming up tomorrow!

Winter in Kailua

These two pages describe winter in Kailua this past week.

A glass float with light coming in through a window while it rained outside, a sunset walk on the beach and a marshmallow snowman who sat in a big cup of hot chocolate. 

It was a Yummy Day!

I sketched at Skagit River Produce today with the Anacortes Sketchers. We had some new ones from all over the countryside, Anacortes, Marysville, Mt. Vernon, Whidbey Island, Camano Island, Snohomish, and more! We even met a Canadian art teacher who was on his way home from the marathon in Portland.
Back in the bakery, Lauren baked fresh pies and the air smelled like peaches, rhubarb and butter all the way in from the parking lot. The pies were still hot when we ate them for lunch. Yummmmm!

My sketches (zoom)

I think Sylvia and I were the last to leave.....we just kept finding things to add to our sketchbooks....and the light just kept getting "yummier"!

Kids and Animals

Once I finished sketching in the sun, I retired to the shady porch for homemade soup.

You know what they say about working with, or sketching, kids and animals...... not the easiest thing in the world!! Today, at Skagit River Produce barn, it was a battle between kids and animals. These two guys invented PVC extensions to herd the last few renegade chickens back into the pen. I helped a little bit by triangulating with them and gracefully waving my sketchbook back-and-forth.

People and chickens like picking through the corn.

I stayed there in the back of the barn for a while, trying to figure out why the rooster was trying to sabotage my sketching session. He knew I needed contrast, so insisted on calling the hens into the shade. Once they were out of the sun, he promptly tucked his head under his wing and took a nap. No rooster portrait for you! Apparently, free range encourages lack of art appreciation. Never mind, I got three of them anyway.

Next, I turned my back on the chickens and did a sketch of Gary, one of the owners, and a friend, while they sorted out the flatbed full of fresh, ripe corn. 5 for $1 and we are having some for dinner tonight!