Sketching Kitchen Leaves

Bay Leaves
Pencil sketch with Koi Watercolors

It's a cold February day and I don't feel like venturing out. So drawing bay leaves.

Loving daily sketching and feel like I've found a daily practice that makes

 me feel skillful and like I'm developing my drawing skills and also my power

 of observation.  

 This brings together so many of my interests and passions: 

1. The Plein Air art of the Impressionist and Post-Impressionists
2. Landscapes/drawing from nature
3. The sacred quality of Nature and the value of of closely observing Nature
4. The Denver Botanic Gardens and Botanical Illustration
5. Visual Journals

 All this also informs the classes I teach through Colorado Free University.

 I have my Impressions of the Gardens class which I have had the opportunity

 to teach for a couple of years and one I am going to start soon: Botanical Art Journal.

 Like Plein Air art with simple supplies and a sketchbook.  I've also just become

 aware of the  Urban Sketching movement. Feel blessed!  Now, if I could only

 figure out how any of these endeavors could pay the rent.

Botanical Themed Mini Journal

First three panel journal entry, Van Gogh quote

Tombo Markers, Sharpie Pen, Bienfang Watercolor Brush Markers, Gelly Roll Metallic Pens

2nd three panel journal entry, Emerson quote

Tombo Markers, Sharpie Pen, Bienfang Watercolor Brush Markers, Gelly Roll Metallic Pens



3rd three panel journal entry, Monet quote

Tombo Markers, Sharpie Pen, Bienfang Watercolor Brush Markers, Gelly Roll Metallic Pens



4th three panel journal entry, Roethke quote

Tombo Markers, Sharpie Pen, Bienfang Watercolor Brush Markers, Gelly Roll Metallic Pens

The mini-journal was an assignment in Joanne Sharpe's ColorLove 101 class.  I don't remember
making a small art journal before and this was so fun.  Background made with craft spray and stenciled, then gessoed.  Size of the journal doesn't matter, just needs to be about 7 times longer than it is high. I used a Strathmore muti-media paper.  Fold the strip in half and then in half again and fold like an accordian.  You could make this into a story about a specific event, a travel journal, a letter or greeting card.  I made it into a quote book.

I started making quote books with illustrations in high school.  I gave my first completed one to my sister. She loaned it to a friend who was tragically killed and the book was lost.  I've continued to illustrate quotes that speak to me, in my journals. 

For this one I found quotes by artists and others who talked about flowers.  I don't know what it is but love putting words and pictures together and get as much pleasure, later, from reading the quotes and seeing the pictures again.  The beauty that these words and pictures reflect lift my heart.



June Botanical Sketch a Day 1st through 15th

June Botanical Sketch a Day 1st through 15th

Prismacolor Pencils, Souffle Pens, Sharpie Pen, Derwent
Watercolor Pencils, Fireworks Spray Ink, Copic Markers,
Office Max Metallic Markers, Gelly Roll Pens.

I really have been enjoying a thumbnail sized sketch a day in my visual journal.  I must admit,
however, that I am two days behind.  Think I will use black gesso and metallic pens on the 17th,
not sure about the 16th.  One thing I have found is that this is a very useful way to try out new
art materials and techniques.  My fav, I think, is still Derwent Watercolor Pencils but also love
the copics and shiny pens.

I know you might be wondering what that purple thing is on the 12th--not sure, looks like a
thistle, but also maybe artichoke like?  Don't know.  Like my tomatoes on the 11th and the
artichoke I am sure about on the 8th.  I am sometimes looking at the actual flower or leaf for
reference, sometimes a botanical magazine like "Birds and Blooms".

Fun and good for me to make myself stick to a plan.  I tend to go off chasing that next shiny
thing in terms of ideas, art techniques and supplies.  The one thing I do know, however, is
that I continue to be taken with images of nature: flowers, leaves, birds, fruits, butterflies, bees.
Looking at the beauty of nature just makes me happy.

June Botanical Sketch A Day

June Botanical Sketch A Day Journal Page Left

Watercolor pencils, Office Max metallic markers, Copic markers, Sakura Souffle Pen,
Martha Stewart Craft Markers, Derwent Metallic Watersoluble Pencils

Fireworks Craft Spray, Sharpie Pen, Sakura Souffle Pens,
Copic Markers, Office Max Metallic Markers, watercolor pencils.

This is my first Art Journal calendar spread.  I was inspired by Effy Wild's "Book of Days" videos,
my own daily sketch books and all the artists online who seem to be doing monthly and yearly art
challenges.  I've seen, just for some examples, page a day, face a day, sketch a day, cloud photo
a day, artist trading card a day, oil sketch a day, collage a day, postcard a day, handmade card a day.
I do botanical sketches often but like the idea of a thumbnail sized sketch each day. 

My plan is to make some sort of botanical or nature related drawing a day in my homemade
calendar pages.  Taking one month, and especially, one day at a time with this!
Still have to do a sketch for today. 

See anything unusual about this calendar page?  The dates are on the right days of the week, but
after I had drawn this page I realized that my weeks started with Mondays instead of Sundays.
Think I am going to leave it this way, though, because that's how my life works---five "work" days
and the two weekend days outlined in gold.  Ever get that feeling?

My World Laughs in Flowers

My World Laughs in Flowers

Compass, Office Max Metallic Markers, Copic Markers, Recollections
Opaque Marker, GellyRoll Stardust Marker, Pelican Opaque Watercolors,

Art at the Center

Pelican Opaque Watercolors, Office Max Metallic Markers,
Pitt Pen, Copic Markers

I've been writing a lot, lately about what art means to me.  This spread is also about what botanical
art means to me in particular, and how I ended up being so attached to this subject matter. 
Feel like I've been working on this spread forever, and it has been a long process. 

The right page started as a stand along mandala "Letters in the Round" (Joanne Sharpe Lesson).
I wanted to integrate it into my larger journal.  I actually wanted to make this into a mind map with
the letters in a circle format, as the mind map components, but it has turned into decorated pages
that I still need to write in.

While I've made these pages I've been thinking about flowers and where I got connected to this
subject.  Here's what I think: I've had a special spot in my heart since I was a child.  Both my
mom and her mother had green thumbs.  One of my sisters is a Botanist and my other sister
has a lovely fence with climbing roses.  My grandmother lived on a farm and I remember her
bushes of lush peonies in the front yard, her row of Hollyhocks by the pump house, her brilliant
orange and black tiger lilies by her front door.  I associate my mom with blooming trees as well
as pansies and flowers of all kinds.  And the Lombard Lilac Festival, and, of course,
Georgia O'Keefe.

I remember my mother reading a beautifully illustrated book about flowers and fairies to me
when I was 4 or 5 and not wanting to return the book to the library.  What sealed it for me,
though, was a third grade teacher who showed us a slide show of flowers and vividly
communicated her love of botanical images.  I can't remember what she said about the
flowers she showed us but the beauty of those images is with me yet.

In art school I painted Matisse influenced portraits and then moved into Neo-Expressionist
canvases.  But while I worked in my work-study job in the media lab I drew pages and pages
of botanical drawings.  I used my trusty botanical field guide to make my drawings.
I never for a second considered this my "real art" but should have gotten a clue when someone
begged me to sell a page from my floral sketchbook to them.  Then I went off to get my
Masters in Art Therapy.  It's been an interesting and rewarding life.  For the last 20 years I
have either worked in private practice or as a college teacher.  But now, after all these years,
I've picked up my great love again.

It happened by accident when I stopped into the local free school to ask if I could teach an
artist trading cards class for them.  They told me it was too rarefied a topic (not true in my
world) but would I be available to teach a drawing class at the Denver Botanic Gardens?

Thank You Mother-Father God!  I've been doing it for two years now and it has been so great.
I don't care how girlie or sentimental some think flower paintings are.  They are my passion!

To me, as Ralph Waldo Emerson said "The Earth Laughs in Flowers".  My world too.

Below are the pages in their final form, with journal entries added.

Tiger Flowers Revisited

Original Collage (see Tiger Flowers post for how-to)

Tiger Flowers (sharpie pen drawing added)

Tiger Flowers, printed background, painted

Pelican opaque watercolors, Yasutomo iredescent watercolors, Sharpie Pen

As you can see, both of the images above are from the left side of the journal spread. 
I was nervous about painting on my colllage so printed out the Tiger Flowers Collage on textured
cardstock.  Much of the rich texture and subtle colors where lost in the print-out.  When I make a
copy I turn it into an original by continuing to alter it.  I wasn't sure if I wanted to lightly paint
(like right image) or add more saturated color.  If you saw the one on the right in person it looks
like an image from an oriental screen.  The one on the left is more full spectrum but the loss of
the background becomes more evident.  Tell me what you think.  I'm leaning towards the
folding screen colors.