Falcons and friends

Here are some falcon sketches and other birds from the Peabody.

The next sketch is of a peregrine falcon. I photographed my pencil sketch before painting it because I liked it.

Flowers and Peabody creatures

Here are more sketches of birds and animals I made this week at the Peabody:

Also, here is a watercolor of some roses. I tried to emulate Charles Reid's roses.

Baby quilt jamboree

I just finished a baby quilt for the daughter of my French penpal.

I used the last of my Lily & Will charm squares for it and made a striped binding cut on the bias for it.  Here's a close up of the binding.

This is my favorite square.

The pattern is inspired by Jenny Doan's Quilting Quickly class for Craftsy.  One down, three more to go this summer!

Quick angel sketch

Here is a quick sketch I made with ink and colored pencils.  It is from a photo of an angel statue I took in Guatemala.

Birds from the Peabody

Here are some sketches I made during my lunch break.  The puffin was drawn with a Pentel Pen Brush. I love the pen brush.

The blue jay looks a little pissed off, but in my defense that is how he looked from my vantage point!

Tulips

My watercolor teacher Ann Lindsay said one good thing about being an artist is you always have an excuse to buy flowers- you need subjects to paint.  Here is a quick study I did of tulips for a thank you note I am sending.

Sketches from Selden Island

This weekend I took a boat cruise to an uninhabited island with some birders.  I made a sketch of the Goodspeed Opera House while waiting for the boat to depart.

The island was farmed for many generations and has stone walls all over it. Here was my quick sketch of the foundation of one of the barns.

Animal sketches

During Sketchbook Skool, Roz Stendhal encouraged everyone to visit a local natural history museum and sketch the taxidermied animals.  Here are some pages I made during my lunch break:

Vintage watercolor boxes

Cathy Johnson buys vintage paint boxes and repurposes them as sketch kits.  This weekend my great aunt let me have these two beautiful old school watercolor palettes.

Inside, the paint was old and the wells were rusty.

I dumped the paints, painted white gesso over the mixing areas, and added implements I've seen Cathy put in her kits, such as paint pans, pens, mini sponges and erasers, pens and pencils.  Some of the paints featured are some Holbein pans I got as a gift in Japan.  I need to purchase some empty wells for the other palette.

Next to the kits is a small, perfectly sized screw topped water container I also got from my aunt.

Figures in church

One artist I met said he drew people in church as a way to keep interested during the service! Here are some people from my great aunt's church.

You can see where the choir moved and I didn't finish one person.

After taking Sketchbook Skool, courses from Cathy Johnson and now reading the wonderful Drawing from Within, I am carrying a sketchbook and drawing people surreptitiously.  It helps that I draw quickly and look innocent for the most part.

Life drawing class

Here are some photos of what I sketched during a life drawing session this evening.

I tried approaches from Charles Reid's book The Natural Way to Paint, which may be my favorite book on life drawing and painting.

Here is a portrait, my last painting of the evening.

A goat and a boat

I didn't realize I painted rhyming subjects until I titled this post.  Here is a goat I drew from an old photo.

I went to Storm King Art Center last weekend and loved the boat by Roy Lichenstein.  It was crewed by the New Zealand team in a race.  I liked it so much I included it in a letter to friends.

Storm King is great! You can also see the chop I had made with my name in Chinese.