I Have Good News and…

Not long ago my daughter-in-law and I were lamenting the close of "our" Starbucks, the one where we both seemed to gravitate to when out running errands etc. – not that there aren't at least four others the same distance from my place. The good news is it didn't close it just moved two blocks north! The better news is in the evening they serve wine!

Can Spring Be Far Behind?

Urban Sketchers-Chicago met at the Garfield Park Conservatory today. I haven't been there since the Chihuly exhibit ten years ago! In the gray Chicago winter, sketching, sun and color made for a great day!  

"If winter comes, can spring be far behind?"  Percy Bysshe Shelley

Growing

The paperwhites have made great progress. The bulb on the right is still struggling but it's getting there. Me too.

Like my last post, these sketches are done directly without pencil lines. I've been using a Cheap Joe's American Journey watercolor sketchbook to try out some new things–experiments that are a little different (some not so little) than I normally work. In some cases I'm revisiting my roots and playing with abstracts. We'll see how it effects what I usually do. I'm enjoying expanding my horizons! 

50 Shades of Clear

Now that all our Christmas decorations are down everything looks so drab. The gray Chicago winter is no help. I was walking by a local florist shop, Christine Noelle Design, and couldn't resist the call to buy some bulbs to force.  I decided to try a no line-drawing approach to record them in the simple but lovely cellophane-bag packaging. In the end though I couldn't resist putting in the penciled frame to ground the watercolor on the page.

Marvel is the Word

Each year I choose a word as a theme for some daily trait I'd like to cultivate. This year MARVEL is the word. There are so many WOW moments that pass me by each day because I just wasn't paying attention. I think it came to me when I was browsing on Pinterest and saying to myself "Wow, great, gee" at so many things that people took the time to notice and post or pin. So, thank you to the people of Pinterest for the inspiration!

We went to see The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey at Navy Pier yesterday. This thumbnail records a Wow moment for me. The color, the light and the shadows looked just like the temperature felt…Brrr.

May your 2013 be a journey of marvelous moments!

Fa La La La La

La La La La!

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a New Year filled with blessings and love!

Spreading the News!

I'm excited to announce that I'll be teaching a class in  Sketchbook and Watercolor Journaling at the Oak Park Art League this winter! In the seven session class I'll share the techniques I use in my "out and about" sketchbooks. We'll cover different types of journals, materials, speed and memory drawing techniques, page layout and quick journal style formats and tricks. We'll also talk about combining the best of two worlds – the richness of your hand drawn journal pages and sharing those pages with the online artist community.

I hope if you live in the area you'll join us!