art

Imagination Landscape Watercolor

I am quite pleased with this watercolor. It reminds me a bit of a drawing by Leonardo da Vinci of a copse of birches. And that drawing I remembered in my subconscious mind from years ago from a book called The Art of Drawing by Bernard Chaet. The influence is the composition – note the placement of the birch copse. There is plenty of so-called “white space” on the drawing. One doesn’t have to stick the subject front and center with little room on the edges.

Do you have any artists, drawings or paintings, authors or books who enter your subconscious while you are creating?

Flowers Watercolor Exercise – Nasturtium

Note that the idea is not to get a botanical depiction of a nasturtium – for that, I probably would have done several pencil sketches first and concentrating on one flower. For me, it was to get lose and easy with watercolor yet still display the subject with some amount of realism and observation.

I am hoping I can continue doing watercolors and watercolor exercises – maybe if I aim for at least once a month, I’ll be successful at production!

Have a G’mar Chatimah Tova to all of those who observe Yom Kippur (Friday night to Saturday), and have a great weekend to everyone. The following week is the holiday of Sukkot, so I will be putting my creativity into decorating our Sukkah (and maybe some creativity into cooking as well).

Raspberry Watercolor, Raspberry Photo

I did the watercolor as a response to an exercise to paint something you observe in nature in the One Watercolor a Day book. The last time I posted a watercolor was my Sage Watercolor way back in April. I guess I’ve gotten distracted by both spring and summer gardening! More attractive to dig in the dirt than take out the paints, observe and record? Seems to be gardening won out this year.

The raspberries are not as sweet as the strawberries we get in the spring. But their season is longer. We get a few ones on the old cane in July; in August we start getting the bunches of raspberries on the new cane. Have you ever eaten raspberries fresh from the garden?

If you live in Highland Park or Edison, I can dig up a plant or two to give to you.

Blue House with Illustrated Bushes

Today I worked on some bushes. Not bushes outside my house (although those can certainly use trimming). No, I added two illustrated bushes to the front of the blue illustrated house I started last week.

Next step will probably be working on clouds. My plan is to add text to the inside of the clouds, so the illustration will “talk to you.”

I only found one tutorial on how to make the illustrated bushes. Maybe I will write my own? Unfortunately, I found the technique I used rather cumbersome, so I can’t say I would recommend it. So, no, probably no post on how to create illustrated bushes. But I would happy to read one written by someone else.

Blue House Illustration

This is third house illustration I have created. You can see one house illustration here and another house illustration here. I left out many details from this one. Is there a door? Do you see one in your head? In front of the “real” house, there are many bushes. I might add a few when I make the composite illustration. This house also has black outlines – the others do not. Oh, decisions, decisions.

And now comes the hard part – putting all three houses together in one mural. Will it work? I don’t know. Wish me luck. Maybe the tree illustrations, clouds and illustrative text will help.

Updated illustration:

I toned down all that black outline by adding some dark blue trim. I like the illustration a little better. Still not convinced all those lines work … ah, the problem with too many choices. I’m sure I’ll be fussing with this more.

Here is a third version:

Let’s play a game: How is this third house different than the other two?

Three Yellow Ribbons Round Tree Illustration

What! She’s making yet another tree illustration! Again? What this time …

Here’s the back story … Tony Orlando, who popularized the song Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree, visited Israel. He was encouraged to do something in support of families of the three kidnapped teens. He visited the families, and he asked the people of America to tie three yellow ribbons in support of the teens.

A friend in our area has started a little campaign selling yellow ribbons, with the money going back to Israel to support the families and soldiers searching for the teens. I confess I still haven’t gotten the ribbons, but I did write this post.

So what is the history of the yellow ribbon? There is a great article by Gerald E. Parsons on How the Yellow Ribbon Became a National Folk Symbol. It seems the yellow ribbons started getting used as a symbol in the early 1980’s in support of the hostages in Iran. Parsons writes: “Ultimately, the thing that makes the yellow ribbon a genuinely traditional symbol is neither its age nor its putative association with the American Civil War, but rather its capacity to take on new meanings, to fit new needs and, in a word, to evolve.”

On a related topic, the Twitter hashtag #BringBackOurBoys was inspired by #BringBackOurGirls. There are actually, unfortunately, similarities between those kidnappings.

The names of the boys are Eyal Yifrach, Gilad Shaar, and Naftali Frenkel. Hashtag: #EyalGiladNaftali
The boys are close in age to my own teenage sons.

Tree Illustration: Fruit, Stream, Shade

Checking into my blog to say hello to my readers. Above is a tree illustration, once again. This one comes with a story (paraphrased in my own words):

Once upon a time there was a traveler. He was quite weary, hungry and thirsty. He happened upon this beautiful tree. There was a stream flowing by the tree, so he helped himself to a refreshing drink of the water. There were fruits in the tree, so he ate of the fruit. He laid down under the tree and took a nap. When he awoke, he was refreshed and well-rested. Before leaving, he turned to the tree. Tree, oh, tree, how can I bless you? For you have so much already. So he blessed the tree with more of the same.

Source: Taanit 5B-6A

For those that read Hebrew, here is the original Hebrew of what the traveler says to the tree:

Have you ever been grateful to something in nature? Or perhaps grateful to someone in your life who has given you so much?

Flat Illustration Trees and Leaves

In a continuation of a banner that will have houses, trees, clouds and some text, I started working on trees. The one above is the one I like best, although I realized that I should get the tree trunk to be straighter if I want to use something similar in my banner. There are many details to construct, and getting everything to work together and not be too busy will be an interesting challenge.

This was my first set of “flat illustration trees.” These trees are made up of triangles and circles. One version of this had a grunge look added at the end (using Photoshop – the shapes where created in Illustrator). If you examine illustrations of flat design, you will often see trees depicted in a similar manner of only these basic shapes.

What makes an illustration “flat design”? How does it differ from other art? It’s missing the shadows. And it’s made up of simple shapes. It’s often vector art, so it can be made bigger or smaller without losing its look, unlike a photograph with pixels.

If you are interested in making tree illustrations yourself, check out my Pinterest board of Illustrator and Photoshop Tutorials.

Both these two illustrations use the same twirly tree trunk. The bends of the tree trunk add a certain look that might go well with a different illustration – I think I will go with a straighter trunk, as the houses are quite straight as well. On the other hand, maybe a twisty trunk would be welcome next to a stiff, geometric house.

Of these illustrations, do you have a favorite? Any parts that you like in particular? Have you noticed flat design on any sites that you visit?

Sage Leaves Watercolor

I participate in an online Facebook group called One Watercolor a Day, based on the book by Veronica Lawlor. There are many exercises in the book, and every few weeks I do an exercise and share it in the group. Recently, I’ve been sharing the watercolor exercises on this Sketching Out blog as well. The most recent exercise was Do a Study of Nature, and it was fun to sit outside and paint:

This particular painting is a sage leaves watercolor: I took a look at my sage plant that has come back year after year and did a little painting study. I once tried to plant more sage in the back of my yard, and those sage plants unfortunately died. This sage plant, however, that is close to my kitchen back door, has managed to re-emerge after many a winter. Happy that today was such a nice day, so I had an excuse to sit outside and paint in between cleaning my house for Passover.

I find sketching from nature a great way to learn – you really need to observe to come up with a little watercolor painting quickly. I did two others before I decided to limit my color palette and limit my subject to the sage leaves.

It has been a while since I’ve participated in a Nature Notes, one of my favorite online memes run by my friend Michelle over at Rambling Woods. Here is a cardinal shot I had in my stash but never got a chance to share until now:

Do you cook with sage? Do you have it in your yard? Have you ever painted outside?

For more Nature Notes:

Watercolor: Baby Dolls, Barbie Doll

Now it is “sandwich time” – a totally made up term by myself, meaning the time between Purim and Pesach (Passover) in which observant Jews get their homes ready for Pesach. I call it sandwich in that not only are we squeezed at this time to figure out how to get ready, we also aim to get rid of anything resembling a sandwich, such as cookies, crackers, cereals, pasta, pretzels and plenty of other other starchy items. You know all those gluten-filled items you own? We probably can’t own them on Pesach. One of the nice features is if we have unopened non-perishable goods, we can donate them to a local food pantry. I even learned I can donate my unopened box of chickenless nuggets to Elijah’s food kitchen in New Brunswick. Not sure if I will make it there for one box, but I love the idea of someone else using the food.

Do you do anything special at this time of year: clean your house, start your garden, get ready for a holiday or prepare for a trip? What were your favorite toys as a child?