Coordination

Trying to get my head, eye, and hand communicating with each other again. Not much time today, but every little bit helps.

Spirals

Can totally see where I rushed and got lost on the lower right.

Dem bones

And lots of them. Sketching at Science World while toddler rearranges my art pens and girl "home learns" in a big tree truck. Wish we had more days like this!

Finally back to the table

Got in more doodling at the open studio today after a month away. Did the classic join something and then not show up! Going to try and avoid missing any more. So nice to have a large clean space to work in and friendly welcoming people around!
So this was just a doodle to save paint while I mixed my watercolours for a colour study. Then started layering in with gesso and pen. Really fun technique!

Empty space

Had to drive over to PoCo for it, but how wonderful to have a clean open space to set up in and do some colour matching practice. Hope to be a regular at Leigh Square Open Studio Tuesdays!

Tabula rasa

Finally dug my way to my work table which is now cleared and ready to go. If I don't look behind me I can imagine a totally clean and setup studio...

Digging out

But took a few minutes to sketch my tiny disaster of a studio. Now sharing the space too!

Tiny steps

Small tests for little time - trying to get a decent small travel sketch set together. Tonight's test - conte and watercolor.

Wish it were

Mine! But someone else snapped it up. Saw an awesome demo by a very authentic and lovely artist, Suzanne Northcott, at the Harmony Arts Festival in West Van. Can't believe people can crank out decent paintings while talking about the process and answering questions at the same time! She certainly knows her stuff.

The ducks are not aligning for me to get into the studio, at least for painting. My little duckling is still not sleeping which leaves very little time or energy for much beyond survival. But this too shall pass, and I have some new ideas and techniques to try out.... Eventually!

Warming up

Exploring my travel set of watercolours. Figure I will have a wonderful chance to do some sketching in a beautiful garden next weekend!

Trapped

The advantage of being trapped on the bed with a sick baby during the day:

Museum of Anthropology

Quick sketch while small children destroyed my water brushes... Sigh...

Should call it "Pain Air" painting

This is all I could manage before the sun pelting my forehead got to be too much. Lovely bright sunshiny day in the mountains. Whistler Lost Lake yesterday.

Beaty Museum - I'm back... Almost

Almost back from "mat leave"... Still digging out the studio but at least I found my sketchbook!

Poof

it disappeared!

Didn't take many picture in progress, since it was so large (40 x 30") it was difficult to see the changes. The studio is empty, I'm worn out, and the work is up at Place des Arts in Coquitlam through Feb 5th. The opening was very well attended and the other artists were super nice and have very strong shows. Pretty good press, didn't get to plug the blog and misspelled my last name in one article, but I got a new pic in this weeks paper so that was cool! We did an artist talk for Family Day on Sunday which was fun and that was a good crowd as well, the photo is of the big beast with some kids in front doing the Venetian mask craft. Really happy with how everything came out, totally worth all of the work!

Monday morning

Sun morn

Sat morn

Finished!!!

Took much longer to do the white part - needed several layers of
glazing to develop the sheen / lighting to make it appear ceramic
instead of chalky. DD insists I'm not finished as there are fine
cracks apparent in the photo. Told her we could experiment with
crackle glaze _if_ this comes back from the show!

Now to move the back burner painting to the front!

Final day

for this one. So the sculpted gel media lace worked great, not as
quick as i hoped since I've never tried the technique, but did speed
up the paint application. It actually is like lighting an object at
that point, just fill the brush and drag it in the right direction.
Worked perfectly for adding tons of detail. Now off to finish the
feathers and readjust the nose.... Today! Liking my little
cheerleader popping her head in the studio with a "How awesome are you
painting, Mommy?"