Did Somebody Say Collage?

The prompt for today's daily watercolor challenge from #fireflywatercolorchallenge is "paper collage." Say no more! I have a few drawers full of exotic papers and panels on which I've already collaged with "rice paper" and painted with abstract watercolor washes. (At one time, I was the president of the National Collage Society.)

A few of my watercolor and Asian paper collage panels from the studio hoard.

Serendipity! The daily prompt from Doodlewash for #worldwatercolormonth is "nature hike". I am still reminiscing about my recent Watercolor Nature Journal Workshop last month. I tore out a few pages of my little sketches from our nature hike on Saturday and collaged them into a mountain scene. I scored and two for one this time!

Nature Hike. A collage of memories and sketches.

Catching up with Posting Inktober, Days 10-14

Inktober Day 10-Gigantic (See my Instagram for caption)

Inktober Day 11-Run, that's what you do if you see this! My parents had a pair of geese that terrified our 4 year old son.

Day 12 - Shattered  (Condition of the cell phone and the owner who just realized the damage)
Day 13 - Teeming (The coral reef is teeming with life. May it ever be so.)
Day 14 - Fierce (Fang toothed Moray eels are truly fierce...the way they look, their fangs and the fact that they anchor themselves in the reef, latch on to their victim and don't let go!)

For high resolution photos of these and other work not shown here, please visit my Flickr photostream.

Underwater x3

Above is my classroom demonstration of a wave crashing against a rock, depicting the concept of how much strength there is in ocean waves. Over time this action helps turn these rocks into the sand on the shoreline.

My demonstration for the beginners in the class.

Day 4 of  Inktober--the prompt is "Underwater"

I hated to leave my Cosmos #10 round kolinsky sable watercolor brush underwater in the jar for even the few minutes it took to draw this ink wash response to the day's prompt for Inktober.

Tomorrow it's Inktober! Are you in?

Want to get better at drawing? Want to have fun with other artists all over the world, drawing every day for the month of October? Jake Parker has just the thing for you!

See how it all started here on Jake's YouTube. Suggested materials are listed in the video itself and the video description.

If you can't think what to draw, here's the official prompt list from Jake Parker himself!
Scroll down some of my examples from previous years here.

Inktober Day 9-Broken

A tree fell across the rocks and was carried down the waterfall, broken

Summer Workshop Photos

It's been the busiest summer I've had in a long time! I'm finally able to begin catching up on correspondence and share a few of my art adventures with you.

Here's an overview of a day at one of my Urban Sketching Workshops at Skagit Valley College this summer. What a great day we had, sketching out there together! 

Class Schedule: Day 1, Saturday 

Intro, handouts

2 take home sketchbooks, fold and cut

Practice sketching indoors, outside on campus

11:05 bus to Skagit Station-sketching on bus

Walk to Tri-Dee (use mid-day break to pick up any materials you might need)

Group Photo taken next to the mural at Tri-Dee

Farmers Market Lunch and Demo 12:00-1:30

Class paint until 2:30

Share sketchbooks

Ink wash demo 

Return bus sketching 

Share sketchbooks

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).

All 31 of my Inktober 2015 sketches

After enduring a rough nine days with the cough, cold, fever yuck that's been going around, I finally feel like scanning all my Inktober 2015 sketches and posting the collection. (Tap or click to zoom)

Bee Super Deluxe 6x12"sketchbook, Lamy pen, watersoluble ink & Aquash water brush.

My faithful Lamy fountain pen lasted until the very end. In fact, I think I could possibly do one more sketch with what's left in the cartridge. Wouldn't want to waste any ink now, would we?

Windows, Looking from the Inside Out

At the beginning of the month, the weather was as lovely as fall can get and I drew windows from the outside looking in. Now at the end of October, it is windy and raining in earnest. I decided to draw the last three days of Inktober from the inside looking out of windows.

One day to go for my Inktober challenge!

I drew this one from inside the gallery where I teach my Thursday watercolor classes. Then I went out to get a photo from the street side. Mark A. Ellinger's blown glass is too beautiful to leave in black and white.

Looks like a Teapot

This is one in a series of three teapots that I drew for Inktober and posted on my Instagram.

Although the first two subjects were real teapots, this one is one of my favorite clay pieces. It's made to look like a teapot but only functions as an art piece. All drawn from life.

I used my Lamy pen with Noodlers black ink and a Niji waterbrush.

But wait, there's more!

I know I was planning to go back to Vintage Violet today, but it was too hard to resist getting in on a challenge to join "Inktober". It's an online challenge to make an ink drawing a day for the month of October. The rules are simple:

1. Make an ink drawing each day of October.

2. Post it each day on Instagram, Facebook, Tumbler, your blog, etc. 

3. Hashtag it #Inktober.

1 down, 30 to go. 

Making Water Portable for Sketching

Recently, I posted the first sketches of my equipment for small, portable water containers, etc.

My Portable Water System

Here's the page after I finished it today. These are the solutions I've come up with for minimal but effective ways of transporting the water you need for on location watercolor sketching.

Brushes: As you can see, some brushes come with water in a handle/reservoir, which can be squeezed out as needed to wet the paints or onto your palette or paper. Other brushes are made to fit down inside their own handle to protect the Kolinsky sable tuft. I like that the travel brushes extend to make a normal sized handle when taken out and screwed back onto the end. (Short handles make me clumsy!)

Sponges: I find that I need a synthetic sponge to regulate the water on my brush, as well as for cleanup after using my smallest travel paintboxes. The natural sponge is nonabrasive for pre-wetting the sky area, making it more receptive to soft, blended washes. (Sponges are better than tissues or paper towels because they can be rinsed clean, squeezed nearly dry, and there's no disposal problem. It's no fun trying to figure out what to do with a handful of soaking wet paper towels or tissues!)

Water Containers/Sprayers/Misters: The tiny Mister Atomizer is quite powerful and will wet down my whole palette in just one or two spritzes. With that and the water brush, I usually don't need to carry any more water for ink and wash sketches. (I use the sponge to clean off my brush between colors.)
The larger spray bottle and cap can hold enough extra water for an 8x10 or 11x15 sketch. (I pour half the water from the sprayer into the larger cap to rinse my brush.) Most times, you can refill as needed from your bottle of drinking water or a restroom faucet.

This page will be for my 2015 Sketchbook Project.

Indian Corn

Indian Corn by Michele Cooper
Micron Pen
Size: 9x12   (click image to zoom)

Well, now I have a problem. I drew this on location at Gordon's Skagit Farm, froze my fingers off and decided to wait to paint the watercolor wash later. I'm not so sure I should.
What's your opinion? See my inspiration here.

"Pink Tulip and Shadows"

My goldfish kept me company in the studio today as I began with a contour drawing in ink. I'm keeping it light and using a very fine tip.

I'll work on balancing delicacy with fresh, "fragrant" color.



I plan to use much more color than line in this line and wash watercolor.
So the line cannot dominate.

Fresh!

"Pink Tulip & Shadows" by Michele Cooper
Original watercolor (5x7)  Price: $60

Sketchbook page with Value Study and Ink Sketch

Here's a page out of one of my sketchbooks. I have two sketches, room for one more and a haiku that I wrote about the experience of being in the high mountain atmosphere of Colorado.

The value study is done with 3 pens, a 30% warm grey, a 60% cool grey and a black Micron pen. The same Micron pen was used for the ink sketch.

There was no opportunity to do this on location as I took this photo from the bus on the way to Silverton. We rode the old mining train back.

Seattle Sketches, Fold-Out

Accordion style fold out from my sketcbook
7"Hx24"W

One of our favorite things to do on a weekend day is to go to Seattle and prowl around the Pike Place Market. It's always really busy then, so if you want to have a little elbow room to do a few sketches, it's best to go on a weekday morning.

My pen and ink & pen and wash drawings are done without preliminary pencil work, just a micron pen on Fabriano Artistico 140#CP watercolor paper. The pencil sketch is usually done with minimum eraser, if any, to work out the general composition. Then I can have fun and do the rest with my #8 round watercolor brush.

Two of these sketches were done earlier this year while visiting the Gaugin Exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum on a Monday in April. It was nice (read: not raining) but very windy.....and just in time to meet the deadline for the Sketchbook Project, Limited Edition.