Halloween postage stamp

Happy Halloween!  Creepy art on this little Hungarian stamp, eh?

Actually, it's not Halloween-themed at all, but I really like this stamp. The word in gray at the top, környezetvédelem, means "Environment".

Medieval lure and illuminated manuscript art

Have you noticed the interest in the Medieval Period?  Everything from knights to Tudors to queens and kings, even mystical wizardry and old maps.  Below is my attempt at an illuminated manuscript illumination.  I added some gold gilding, but it doesn't show in the scan.  The Getty Center in west Los Angeles has a running exhibit of manuscript pages, changing the manuscripts and pages displayed every three months or so.  Just don't think about taking a photograph -- I made that mistake and  the guard wasn't just peeved, he acted personally insulted!  What did I know? CLICK ON ART FOR FULL IMAGE

Have an Artful Halloween!

This is one of my 5" mandalas, colored for Halloween... and below is a Halloween card I got from my brother Dennis last year -- it's remarkable because everything on this card is hand cut paper, which is such a popular and difficult art form this year. Happy Halloween everybody.

Paper cutting is the hot new art form. Last year one of my brothers gave me this cut-paper Halloween card, before I heard of the new trend.

Isle of Mull

Tobermory is a little Scottish town on the Isle of Mull. I sketched it a few years ago then today I added color using Photoshop.

Mourning the End of Battlestar Galactica

I'm a new but rabid fan of "Battlestar Galactica," a Sci-Fi channel tv series which aired its finale on Friday night. This morning I'm holding my own private wake by slipping Disk One Season One into my DVD player, and watching Episode One (so far...). I paused the player as Gaius Baltar and Six were kissing (one of thousands maybe?), inspiring a sketch in my sketchbook.

I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas in L.A.

My Christmas Mandala, drawn a couple years ago.

Yes-- I am dreaming of a white Christmas here in Los Angeles. Why not? I've already let three plants die by failing to cover them in time for overnight freezes this week. So... Freezing temperatures + a little moisture = snow. (I got an A in meteorology.) I definitely like to dream.

Joe and I are going to my side of the family's home this year and I'm very excited to spend time with my parents and most of my five brothers and their families. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and yours!

Janet

Drawing of Emma, early morning on lake porch

Emma on Lake Lodge porch
Originally uploaded by flickring

Another drawing of Emma, apparently my little muse!

Charcoal, graphite, and soft pastel on toned pastel paper
12" x 9"

Emma

Emma - graphite sketch - 12x9
Originally uploaded by flickring

Emma strikes the loveliest poses without awareness or self-consciousness, and has a fascinating face. This is drawn mostly in the sfumato style -- hazy, with few hard edges.

Graphite, 12" x 9"

Wire Man

In my life drawing class, our teacher assigned this as homework to us: create a wire figure of a drawing we did in class. "Wire Man" is about 16" tall.

I've posted two close-ups below. By the way, if you try this, I recommend using soft wire, or even floral wire, because very firm, stiff wire is so difficult to work with that half way through you just might give up!

Speaking of life drawing class, I've got to go get ready for it! Happy Friday and weekend!

Wire Man

Wire Man full
Originally uploaded by flickring

"Wire Man"
In my life drawing class, our teacher assigned this as homework to us: create a wire figure of a drawing we did in class. "Wire Man" is about 16" tall.

Paint pots

One event at the Old Town Newhall Street Fair a few weeks ago allowed kids to paint posters. I snapped a photo of the paint pots, using my crummy phone camera. Sometimes it takes more interesting pictures than my good camera.

A recent trend I've seen is to use the cheapest, worst cameras possible to photograph and post grainy, distorted photos. It's like effortless abstract art!

I've finally been tagged...

<<these are some of the bloggers I've listed below!

Remember being afraid you'd be the last kid picked for the school team? Well, I've been feeling that way for months because I haven't been tagged to participate in this cyber game. It's a little "social networking game" among blog-owners. I know I shouldn't care when I was tagged, but -- but -- well, you know how that goes. I wanted to be one of the first.

So here are the rules, followed by my list of seven fascinating, titillating, and illuminating facts about myself, and believe me all you Exceedingly Popular Already-Tagged Bloggers out there, y'all be sorry it took you soooooo long to tag me! heehee

I've been tagged by Phyllis M. of "Personal Treasures," a blog about creativity and those who create, at http://personaltreasures.blogspot.com/. Playing tag is a social networking game and a fun way to explore new blogs. The rules of the game are simple:

• Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog.
• Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
• Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blog.
• Don't forget to let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

About me:

1. I have five brothers and no sisters.

2. My best friend died on the school playground when we were nine (she fell and hit her head)and I still have an orchid from her casket that her mother gave me.

3. I think I have a touch of ESP -- often people come to my mind seconds before the phone rings when they're calling me. Yea, seriously. ("We're All One....")

4. When I was 20 an airlines hired me as a flight attendant to be based in Minnesota, and even though I desperately wanted to be a flight attendant, I turned down the job to get married and stay in L.A.

5. I got a law degree without first getting a college degree. (Ever heard the lyrics, "I didn't go to college but I could have!"? My husband loves to taunt me with it.)

6. I was Miss Westchester and Senior Class President in high school.

7. I have boxes crammed full with diaries, scrapbooks, and paraphernalia going back to early childhood years -- boxes and boxes of stuff (unfortunately some are old enough to be "retro").
_________________________________________________

I am tagging (don't hate me - it's free publicity!):

Dennis Walker Graphics - http://denniswalkergraphics.com/ - Dennis builds websites such as online family photo albums, and is a graphic artist and designer.

Peacay at BibliOdyssey - http://www.bibliodyssey.com/ - Books~~Illustrations~~Science~ ~History~~Visual Materia Obscura~~Eclectic Bookart. Check it out - I love diving deep into this site!

Belinda Del Pesco - http://belindadelpesco.blogspot.com/ - fine (in more ways than one) watercolor artist.

Nancy Eckels - http://nancyeckels.blogspot.com/ - artist of larger abstract oil paintings, bright and beautiful.

Laura Wambsgans - http://laurawambsgans.blogspot.com/ - daily oil paintings, mostly landscapes of Southern California, that will blow you away.

Butterfly photographer Dennis Walker: http://socalbutterflies.com/ - Fantastic up-close-and-personal butterfly photographs.

Lorelle Miller: http://lorellemiller.blogspot.com/ - Remarkable street painter, oil painter, pastelist, teacher, and more.

In Honor of Halloween -- part 2

I find it only a little bit troubling that my best Halloween images to post are those from my Life Drawing class. Oh well....

This is a study of a head with the skin unfortunately peeled back to expose the skull in certain places.

Drawn in charcoal and graphite.

Life Drawing in Honor of Halloween

In honor of Halloween, I'm posting my homework from this week. It's the right hand as seen from a dog's point of view. The thumb is on the left; the large four bones are in the palm of the hand.

A while back I started taking a Figure Drawing class (aka Life Drawing) to help improve my drawing skills. It's so much fun! Mostly we use charcoal on large paper pads (18x24"), but also graphite, ink & brush, and other tools. It really loosens up the hand and arm to draw large.

Stabilo Carb-Othello pencils (brown, navy, white) on Strathmore Artists' Papers Charcoal Sheets (25" x 19") in Velvet Gray.

Verus Farnsworth, entertainer & grandmother

This is a graphite drawing of Verus Farnsworth, my husband's grandmother, in a promotional photograph for an upcoming show. Her family were actors, musicians and entertainers, traveling from theatre or tent to the next nearly a century ago.

Verus Farnsworth

14" x 11" (cropped)

Graphite

Besides acting, Verus played the marimbas -- I've posted a photo below.

Isn't that a great pose?

Brian Williams and tonight's news

Watching the evening news tonight, I got the urge to sketch the host Brian Williams with my new conte pencils -- in three Old Masters colors, plus the tan color of the paper. Brian has such an interesting face, very fun to sketch. While he and some members of the press appear to be interpreting Obama's lipsticked-pig comment in line with their political affiliations (biz as usual), I don't care what Obama subjectively meant. I think he should have chosen a different metaphor so people wouldn't have to decide whether it was a reference to Sarah Palin because of her lipstick riddle or a reference to change, as he now says. Sarah Palin was an obvious and natural connection to make and importantly, a mean-spirited reference, and he should have seen that. He should have seen that.

Glacier vacation

Glacier vacation Days 6-7 004
Originally uploaded by flickring

One of these days I may write a bit about our vacation to Glacier and Waterton National Parks in northern Montana and Alberta, Canada. At the moment I'm feeling overwhelmed by the number of photos I just uploaded to Flickr and tried to add descriptive captions to mountains and lakes whose names I have already forgotten.

The point is, the vacation photographs are up on Flickr for your perusal, or so you can say you did. Either way is fine. Once you're in Flickr.com (no "e"), my username is Flickring (no "e").
or
www.flickr.com/photos/-janet/, then go to the set called "Glacier National Park") .

Bogus Rough Sketch Paper and Blue Conte Crayons

12" x 9", Conte crayons on toned paper, in process

I've found two new art tools I wanted to share, both of which I used in this sketch:

First is the paper. It's a new pad of paper called Bogus Rough Sketch by Aquabee, a 70 weight (almost three times as thick as writing paper) medium brown, and it has a pretty rough texture so it can hold several layers of pastels, charcoal, conte crayons, etc. The brown color can serve as the midtone or skin color for portrait work, as I've done above. It's 100% recycled paper which is great; but it's not acid-free, so if you want it to last longer than you do, you'll need to spray it with that new-fangled magic acid-free-making spray stuff.

>>>>>>>>As an aside: the strangest thing happened when I added the pupils and iris colors -- the brown paper, which is part of the eye color, looked green! If you look closely at the eyes (enlarge it by clicking on the image), between the blue outer ring of the iris and the sepia inner ring around the pupil, you'll see a tiny bit of plain brown paper that will appear green. I love the strange tricks our brain does with color!

Anyway, the SECOND new item: I'm using blue instead of black in the above portrait which is drawn with Conte crayons, a centuries-old medium for drawing. But the traditional drawing colors are black, sepia, sanguine, and white -- rarely is blue substituted for black. The store had no black, so I got the blue. Since blue is the complimentary color of orange, which is a lot like the sepia and sanguine colors, it makes sense that they set each other off so well. I like the blue -- serendipity strikes again!

Peacock Grouper stippled pen & ink

Peacock Grouper, 4x6", pen and ink

I stippled a bunch of fish eight years ago. That was the first time I tried to make art seriously as an adult. Dot by tiny freaking dot. I don't stipple anymore. I guess you could say I'm an ex-stippler.

I sure do appreciate a well-stippled fish, though.

(In the interest of total disclosure, the tan background of this image isn't stippled.)

This is a sketch on 18" x 24" newsprint that I drew with charcoal in my new figure drawing course. I like to have an art class going at all times, and this summer I'm taking figure drawing, a full semester class crammed into 7 weeks.

We are learning "artistic anatomy" with a lecture one day, followed by three days of sketching from a live model. Last week we studied feet; this week it's hands. I am absolutely loving it!

I liked this model -- he's a guitar player, very slender, with long, curly black Italian hair. This pose was 10 minutes and we were to focus on hands and feet.