July31Art

What a day... the A/C FINALLY got fixed about 5:30pm tonight... it's 10pm and feels good in here now... good news, it didn't cost us anything, the entire repair bill was covered by warranty.
Had some issues at work that kept me at my computer working until after 8pm... 
To add to my trials and tribulations, a customer service person at the Social Security Administration... HUNG UP on me today.... well that REALLY toasted my cheese... I'm going to have my Congressman's office handle my request for SERVICE and see if that helps.
Really low turn out in Texas, but Ted Cruz appears to be the Republican nominee for the open Texas Senate seat, previously held by Kay Bailey Hutchison... Ted Cruz is a great guy and I hope he wins in November.

July30Art

Doing some test value studies, I have a monochrome challenge painting to do, that will require 7 values, with the white of the paper being one, and 6 others needed. Everyone so far has used blue, I was hoping to use Transparent orange just to be different, and because it is one of my favorite colors. The best value range appears to be either the blue or the ivory black. 
Testing some new markers to see what they'll do.
Update:  Still no A/C... parts needed to be ordered, hopefully will be here tomorrow... that's the bad news.  Good news, it is going to be covered under warranty... so NO CHARGE!  Yippee.

July29Art

Hot, hot, hot... thunderstorm last night knocked out our A/C, repairman can't come until tomorrow.  We spent the hot part of the day browsing thru Michaels and a Hobby Town USA store, didn't buy much, but stayed cool in the stores.  Rain dropped the temps into the 80s so I'm thankful for that... hope the repairman comes in the morning tomorrow.

July28Art

We went to a Salute to WWII veterans this morning, after lunch we went to the gun range and let Joseph shoot my 22 pistol, then we went to see the Ice Age movie... I don't know about the guys but Granny is pooped. 

Congressman Tim Scott held a salute to WWII veterans today.  Ron and I both submitted our fathers names to be recognized as deceased veterans were also recognized.  It was really great seeing so many living veterans attend and being able to sit with them and chat with them was an honor. 

July27Art

Junk food Friday... love the burgers and fries at Five Guys, Joseph liked it too. Thunderstorms rolled thru the area, but we didn't get much rain at our house. Big weekend ahead, gotta take the grandson to to beach.

July26Art

I got this new phone... and did something incredibly bad (stoopid) yesterday. I found this app on there called a 'gallery' and it had somehow I thought loaded 300+ pictures from my computer onto the telephone.... so I deleted them... BIG MISTAKE... the pictures were not from my computer they were from BLOGGER... over 3 years worth of pictures on my blog are GONE!... I've reloaded July and part of June, but I don't know how many more months I'm going to store there. I'm thinking it'll be easier to link the photos from Flickr. So let this be a lesson to you all... beware of smart phones, they'll make you do stupid things.

July25Art

This church reminds me of the church I attended as a child, I even looked it up on the internet and found it. Collins Memorial Methodist on Bolton Rd... looks just like I remember it from way back when. 
Painting a place of worship was the challenge for week 30 for the Rural Sketchers.

July24Art

I ordered a tube of Ivory black today, the color Tony swears by... I have a tube of Viridian somewhere, but couldn't find it this afternoon.  The whole week during the workshop he never used the tube green at all.  He mixed his green using the Yellow orange or Quin Gold and either blue/green, black...  He consistently used his 'blue with green' name instead of the manufacturer's name (Thalo Blue or Prussian blue)... he did give us a chart of color names for his basics.
Yellow with Green - Winsor Lemon, Cad Yell Lt,  Aureolin, or Hansa Yellow
Yellow with orange - New Gamboge, Hansa Deep
Brown with Yellow - Yellow Ochre, Raw Sienna or Quin Gold
Brown with Red - Burnt Sienna or Quin Burnt Orange
Red with Orange -  Scarlett Lake, Vermillion, or Cad Red Med.
Red with purple - Quin. Red, Alizarin Crimson, Carmine
Black - IVORY BLACK
Blue with purple - Indanthrone Blue or French Ultramarine Blue
Blue with Green - Thalo Blue, Prussian Blue, Antwerp Blue
Green with blue Viridian, or Thalo Green

July23Art

Joseph went with us to the Sea Island Meeting tonight... the program was about a flag program our club is doing in the local schools... so he was able to relate to some of what was being talked about. Including the reading buddy program, which he told me he was part of in his school, helping 1st graders by reading to them.

July22Art

Grocery shopping, unloaded my art supplies from the car and settled them into their usual places. Went to wild wings for lunch, and a trip to the book store to get some books for the grandson to read while he's here. Tried my hand at a naked tree... lots of practice needed.... as you can see.

July21Art

Picked up my grandson this morning, and we drove to Charleston and got here in time for lunch with grandpa.  I unpacked a few things, loads of laundry to do tomorrow... tonight just chilling.  I'll be catching up on blogs and email over the next few days.

July20Art

Sketched another of Carol's stuffed animals... she had a peek at my sketchbook tonight and saw her teddy bear and liked his portrait :-) We went to Hobby Lobby and I got a few art supplies, then to a place called Tuesday Morning where I snagged a bind-it-all REALLY cheap, less than $30. along with extra wires... so I'll be making a few sketchbooks for myself very soon. I had been looking at these for a while but couldn't bring myself to place the order on their website... we were wandering thru this 'junk store' and the zutter label on the wires jumped out at me, then I noticed under the table... one bind-it-all starter kit... could not believe the price.
I'm picking up the grandson in the morning, and headed back to Charleston... where I'll pore over my notes... and watch the DVD's I bought... and maybe, I'll start to process all that I learned this week.

This is the value sketch Tony used to do his demo painting today... he has a large sketch book with sketches done with markers and/or pencil from those large sketches, he does a value sketch... and then paints from his value sketch. He does not do sketches in color at all, and does not paint on location... he prefers to decide on colors after the fact and relies more on VALUE rather than hue... he often said, paint it any color that people normally expect to see and it will be fine, no need to exactly match... the value pattern is more important than the color.

This is the painting Tony did this morning, picture taken with my iPad, which doesn't take that great a picture, in part due to my inability to hold it absolutely still. I'll be home tomorrow and hopefully some of the shots I took with my camera will be better.

July19Art

Another amazing day, I hope I'll be able to actually read all these notes I've taken. He gave us tons of tips on drawing this afternoon. Maybe he felt sorry for us trying to draw for our paintings LOL I did get something drawn, but didn't have time to paint it. Maybe tomorrow... last day should be jam packed.

For this painting, Tony demonstrated doing a colorful under painting. You can see some of the colors here... note that he's adding his dark areas to the painting first... hum?

July18Art

Be bold, make the first mark count because it WILL be the best one. Use a BIG brush, the bigger the better. Control the water in the brush and you will control what happens on the paper. He did some great demos, of foggy trees, clouds, how to do those lovely cumulus summer clouds, and rainy looking clouds. Spend no more than 60 seconds on the sky, wet n wet then LEAVE it alone and left it do it's thing... do not try to 'fix' it until it is completely DRY.

July17Art

Artists must be symbol collectors... the good news is once you learn a symbol for a tree, rock, cow, horse, you can use that same symbol in LOTS of paintings.. going thru the stack of Tony's paintings, you can see he paints the same tree shape, over and over.. and the same 'dude' fishing in a stream... so now I know the secret, just gotta learn how to do it... practice, practice, practice.

He said we should study painters we admire, and study how they paint a tree, or rock etc... and copy not the painting, but the symbol for a rock or tree... and use that in our own painting.  He likes doing BIG sketches outdoors, then smaller value sketch that he uses to do a painting from indoors.  He says... if possible paint standing up, or as far away as possible from your painting, so that you can see the whole painting as a unit.

He did not like this at all, fussed at me for copying the photo too closely, and again not enough darks, the bottom part he said looked like a worm... I guess I have my worm symbol nailed down now...

Trying to remember the critique on this one... not enough dark... looks too much like a worm or fingers dark area should be at least 25% of the painting. Beach paintings should follow the same value patterns as 'snow' paintings. Symbols, I need a better 'sea oats' symbol, and more variation in size on my Palmetto trees.. Mama, Papa, baby... to show depth.

July16Art

Day 1 of the Tony Couch seminar, Tony spent the whole day, teaching us about the Principals of design, elements of design, color theory and value patterns... my head is spinning... but FINALLY some of this is making sense to me OMG He did a great demo painting today... and promises we'll get to paint tomorrow afternoon. He had DVD's for sale today and I got them so in case I forget all this I can watch it again.  He is a really dynamic teacher, and a fun person... used to be a cartoonist so he's got a sense of humor.
Carol's spare room is loaded with stuffed animals, and one huge Gund bear... he was such a nice model for one tired lady.  Took this picture with my iPad and emailed it to myself... I have my camera but forgot to bring cables, so I can't load photos onto my computer... so the iPad will have to do for now.

July15Art

First pages in my new journal, the colors across the top are the colors in my Schmincke palette. I still carry my little Bijou box everywhere... so I had to include it on my tools page.
Doing some final packing before heading to Atlanta. Need to throw this computer in the bag too...

July14Art

First page in a new journal, I copied Liz Steel's banner on her blog and put the colors in my palette across the top of the page. Drew a few of my favorite tools, Micron Pens, my Isabey travel mop brush and a small bit of sea sponge.
Finishing up packing and getting ready for my trip to Atlanta for the Tony Couch Workshop next week. Doing last minute laundry of my husband's work clothes. Tonight we're going out to dinner with friends, which is why I'm posting this page so early. I won't have access to a scanner next week, but I will have internet access... I'll post when I can and hopefully take great notes during the workshop.

Journal number 17.... this is the Stillman&Birn Epsilon series Heavy weight paper for Pen & Ink... it's 100 lbs paper... the shadows on the right hand page... is the first page in the journal... it did not 'bleed' thru but it is visible on the scan and in person.

July13Art

This week's Rural Sketchers challenge, was to paint the landscape outside your door. I cheated a little, because I live in a boring neighborhood, of brick houses all alike... so I went to Sullivans Island and painted the marsh and the lighthouse off in the distance.

July12Art

Tonight was the final showing of Milton Friedman's "Free to Choose" at the Citadel hosted by Dr. Freer. I really enjoyed not only the videos, but the discussions afterwards. These videos were made in the 1980's so much has changed since then, and yet we face the exact same problems and issues. Back then it was the last year of Jimmy Carter's Presidency. What kept us going back week after week, for all ten weeks was the delightful discussions after the videos with Dr. Freer.

So today I tried my hand at drawing Milton Friedman... it sorta looks like him.

July11Art

Actually was able to turn the A/C off this afternoon, thunderstorms rolled thru and brought a little rain, and really cooled the temperatures down... it was a blessing.
Got laundry done and my suitcase packed for my week in Atlanta.  Getting my totebags of art supplies loaded up too.. I really must learn to pack lighter.

July10Art

Cooled off a little tonight and we actually had a little rain.. just enough to wash the dust off the leaves. This is one of the posts and chains surrounding the statue of the blue herron that I drew last week. I like these posts too because they match the statue. 
All the sketchers in the world are headed to Santa Domingo this week, I wish I could have gone... maybe someday, if I win the lottery I'll get to go to one. In the mean time I pour over the blogs of the attendees... and enjoy all their sketches.

July09Art

Executive committee meeting tonight...so not much time to draw. My back is screaming at me probably for all the driving I did this weekend... put a fork in me I'm done for today.

July07-08Art

Drove to Atlanta yesterday to attend my baby brother's wedding. He and Marla knew each other in high school and low these many years later, got together again... and yesterday they got married. It was a lovely sunset service, I hope they are very happy together. Today we drove back to Charleston, the heat wave in the South continues, but at least we are blessed to have electric power... my heart goes out to the folks STILL without power... I can't even IMAGINE how they are coping with this heat.

July06Art

I modified my Schmincke paint box, I removed the tray that was supposed to hold the 12 half pans, I also removed the extra flap, with all the dimples in it, it's usefulness as a mixing area wasn't that great. It was however needed for a tight closing lid... I solved that with a pony tail hair band. I added 4 full size pans, and added Daniel Smith's New Gamboge and Cobalt Teal, Holbein's Marine Blue and Schmincke Translucent Orange. This sketchbook is almost full, only a couple of pages left. I have a new Birn's & Stillman Epsilon Series Sketchbook to try. It has 100 lbs paper, so a bit heavier than this hand book's 90 lbs. I think the paper is whiter than the handbook paper.. I'm looking for a new sketchbook, I think the paper quality in the hand books has been going down hill since I first started using them. They are still hands down the cheapest still, even though they've gone up several dollars.

July05Art

I bought this HUGE watermelon, from a farmer selling out of the back of his truck. You get the BEST, sweetest melons that way. Problem is it is too big for even our biggest cooler, and no WAY it'll fit in the refrigerator... so.. I've GOTTA eat it. Good thing I LOVE watermelon. 
The heat wave continues, the only flowers I have that seem to like the heat are the Hibiscus, my impatiens have curled up and died, my roses have stopped producing buds, and even the lantana is too distressed to flower. This is the worst it's been in the 15 years I've lived in this house.

July04Art

Happy Independence Day ... hope everyone had lots of BBQ and parades and flew their flags, and read the declaration of independence to your children and talked about our great county today... that's what I did today :-)

July03Art

Got a new printer a couple of days ago, but finally took it out of the box and spent 3 or 4 hours trying to get it working... but I FINALLY got it working... all by myself. The first time I added a printer I had to take it to Atlanta and get my daughter the Apple wizard to get it set up for me. This new printer really prints nicely, my old one never really printed very well, but it scanned ok and that's what I use it for mostly.
Today's drawing is the Rural sketchers week 27 sketch of a statue of an animal. This fountain/statue is on the side entrance of an office building within walking distance of my house... I've drawn it on more than one occasion and from different angles... it is bronze and has that lovely patina of green/blue.

July02Art

Almost caught up with my weekly sketch challenges... an open cupboard... 
Another hazy, hot, humid day today, but at least we have electricity and the A/C is working. I feel for the folks with no power in this heat... 
Stay cool out there... drink lots of water, and stay out of the sun.

July01Art

The weather today was brutally hot, and now the sky is dark and the wind is blowing, but so far not a drop of rain has fallen... however, I think it may rain and that will be a welcome rain for sure.
I'm not supposed to drink beer, it aggravates my gout... but I LOVE beer and every once in a while I have one... today was one of those days and I indulged in a Blue Moon Summer Honey Wheat beer... heaven in a brown bottle.