Surgery Over

Hi everyone. My husband came through his surgery just fine. No heart attack, no extra blood loss even though it was described as a difficult extraction. Too much info? That's okay 'cause that's all there is. Now we are on to healing and then me getting back to more of my art work!

This page was made with torn paper (and a bit of cutting) collage. I did it while waiting in the waiting room during the 5 hours of surgery. No, it didn't take 5 hours to make the page. That only took about 15 minutes - about the quickest ever. I had to take the photo with my cell phone so it's a bit blurry.

Tucson VA Hospital

My husband is having surgery soon at the Tucson VA hospital so we had to go down for some pre-ops which ended up including a stay overnight for a cardio-catheterization. I took the opportunity to do a couple of sketches from his 3rd floor room window. It is a beautiful old place and they are keeping it up quite well (the room wasn't so great and the food was inedible but the hospital is lovely).

One sketch is on watercolor paper using watercolor and the other is on some Canson MiTientes brown paper so I used gouache on that one.

Fake Journal Page Six

I have found out that a line drawn to show the shape is not really there on the object in reality. I actually knew this but hadn't seen it put into words really until I saw a blog post on Drawn2Life where Jennifer talks about why she draws as she does. Very interesting and I suggest you go take a look at the post if you haven't already. So anyhow, it led me to my current take on "fake".

I drew a continuous line drawing of my lamp I painted several years ago (it was a $5 lamp from a dollar store and I hated it till I painted it to match the furniture I'd painted). It was harder than I thought as I find I have to hold the Pitt pens so vertical to get them to draw that my hand started to hurt. I need to find a pen that will write at a slant which may better suit my left-handed curled grip. I colored it in this time with markers. Hope you enjoy it.

Fake Journal - Page Five

Today's fake thing is my plastic flower pot I got from Wal-Mart this year. It looks like ceramic but it isn't. I went for it because of the price and the hope that I could move it if necessary once it was full of dirt.

Hopefully my tomato plant will take hold. The first one didn't as the wind bent it in half. I'm going to get a tomato cage for this next time I go to town. I don't think they are fake yet but they have reduced the number of rings to 3 and I seem to remember 4 years ago.

This is ink and gouache. I like how the gouache covers the background mostly. I'm not using it so thick as to hide all the ink or background but it's not totally transparent either. If you haven't tried the gouache I would recommend it for your tool arsenal.

Fake Journal - Page Four

I have my fourth page done for my fake journal. This page has my fake flowers on it. I made french beaded flowers and put them in clay I had stuffed into this watering can. Then I sprinkled a little dirt over the clay to hide it. I love these bright flowers but of course, there is no real substitute for real ones.

I painted the watering can after a question was asked in the Oils class I am taking with Nel . What color do you paint a metal thimble was the (paraphrased) question. Nel said to paint it the colors reflecting off of it as the metal doesn't have it's own color exactly. Well tonight I needed to paint a metal watering can so I played by using blue, teal, red, orange, yellow and purple in this painting. Didn't it work great? Thanks Nel.

Day 3 of Fake Journal

Well I have a third page done for the idea of fake. What do you think? Is the milk we drink today real? I used Pitt pen and gouache to do this page.

I am working on my first lesson for the virtual trip to England I am taking with Laure Ferlita. I'll post it as soon as I get it done.

Fake Journal - Second page

It seems the theme of my fake journal is "fake" as in this is not the color of the original flower so therefore it is a fake. I have no idea what other fake things I am going to come up with so stay tuned.

Fake Journal - Day One

Well the first of April has come and gone but I am finally posting what I did. The first was a busy day as my husband was having a medical problem and my daughter and her kids were coming in to visit for Easter. After everyone settled down for the night and I still hadn't thought of what to put on my journal I did this as a first page. This is more real as in how I was feeling but let's face it, a fish that can deal with being out of water must be a fake one, right? I drew this with pencil as it was all I had at hand that late at night. Anyhow, I've started!