Watch out for Quicksand!

 I must confess that I have been neglecting my art this past week. My schedule of teaching ballet 5 days a week is catching up to me and my body aches everyday now. Despite the pain, I love every minute I get to dance and I'm definitely not complaining!

This painting is now for sale in my Etsy shop!

 Frost was inspired by a portrait in my sketchbook of 64 faces. I used a combination of ink and watercolour and white acrylic paint. It developed slowly and I really enjoyed the process of layering with the colours and ink. 

This painting is a collaboration between my friend Sebastian and myself (SORAD.) He drew this funny little guy one summer night at the cabin and I made sure that it got packed into my sketchbook so I could paint it when I got home. 
"Watch out for the Quicksand" is the title I was given to work with. I mixed dirt from the garden with a clear glaze so that the sand is textured and real.

64 Faces 8 - 11

The dance season has started. This means I get to dance/teach ballet for 6 hours a day and then hobble around the rest of the time because my muscles are so sore! (seriously though, my calves are thoroughly useless right now!)

Despite my busy schedule I have managed to complete a few more portraits while sitting with my heating pad and popping advil.

 I'm not a huge fan of portraits 8 and 9...and I like the concept of 10 and 11 but the finished product is not as exciting as what I saw in my head. (Part of it might be the page crease smooshing their noses.) The whole point of this sketchbook is experimentation so these failures are just part of the process.

64 Faces Sketchbook - portraits 4-7

I can't believe it is September already!
Here are my 4 portraits for the week. This sketchbook has thick mixed media paper so I used ink and watercolours on these four faces.

64 Faces, A new sketchbook

I didn't walk into the store to purchase yet another sketchbook but when I found myself standing in front of the varying options I knew I had to get one. I carefully handled each book type, feeling the paper and reading specifications for media use. I finally decided that I needed to spend almost $40 on a striking Strathmore mixed media sketchbook containing 64 white pages. I clearly have no self control!

This sketchbook is going to be a project and challenge. I am going to draw/paint/sketch 64 different portraits, covering every page of this beautiful book; and I'm going to attempt to finish it by the end of the year! This gives me roughly 18 weeks to complete it which means I need to finish around 3.5 portraits per week. It doesn't sound like too much work but as of September I am back to being a full time ballet teacher so I will have to use my time wisely. 

These are the first 3 portraits. I used ink and coloured pencils and had the luxury of completing them while relaxing at my cabin! 
Special shout-out to Sebastian for rescuing my cream pencil from under the deck (it jumped out of the case and rolled through a crack just as I was packing up.) He skillfully lifted it out using an old fishing rod and medical tape....thanks for being a hero! ;)

Outdoor Ink

Summer really is my favorite time of year and I have spent a good portion of the last 2 months outside enjoying nature. I have trained the cabin squirrel (squeaker) and the lake gophers to eat from my hand, and made tentative friends with a neighborhood raccoon (not the ones in the painting) as well as a cute little vole.  
At the beginning of the summer I purchased a set of coloured Windsor Newton inks, and I love them! They are more vibrant than some of the watercolours I have been using and I am really pleased with the outcome. 

This painting is of a few curious raccoons that wandered into my friends garden; hence the title, "Raccoons in the Garden."
I was also kitten sitting this week....so it took me a little longer to finish this painting than maybe it should have. lol
This painting is also for sale in my shop!

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These little gophers live lakeside in Manning park and have become accustomed to eating blueberries. If I sit down on the grass I will have a small congregation of them sitting around me and sometimes on me while they munch their organic blueberries. They are rather picky and only eat the big ones! I seem to be good at making friends with rodents. :)

Hedgehog Week

Don't worry, Hedgehog week isn't a 'thing'...(at least I don't think it is) my art from this past week was unintentionally hedgehog themed.
Hedgehogs are really interesting creatures and fun easy pets to keep. I've written about my female hedgehog named Robert before and naturally these projects are based on her! She recently had a little episode that was either a stroke or the beginnings of wobbly hedgehog syndrome. Since then she has been leaning to the left a little and falling over intermittently although her wobbliness hasn't seemed to progress in the past weeks so I'm hoping she will still live out her full lifespan.

I've been playing with ink lately and I am really enjoying it. This painting is Windsor Newton coloured inks and then white acrylic paint on top for her quills and fur. I really like the vibrancy of these inks compared with watercolour and I intend to continue to experiment and combine the two.

This was my first time playing with sculpey. I was buying clay for another project and felt the urge to make a little critter out of something that would harden. I love sculpey. It is easy to use and doesn't leave your hands feeling gross. I baked her for an hour and fifteen minutes. My sister and I felt a little weird about it though as she was looking at us from inside the oven. lol

Art at the Cabin

My Cabin is my favorite place. It is a little log cabin next to a river that my family built over 60 years ago. It serves as a quiet place to escape the city and reconnect with nature. It really is my favorite place to visit. :)
We spend our mornings at the nearby lake, fishing and hanging out in the sun (taking dance photos) and then my afternoons are free to be lazy and art filled. (Especially on really hot days!)

In between feeding Squeeker (the incredibly tame and energetic cabin squirrel) I managed to paint a quick plein air  painting of the front yard overlooking the river. I don't often paint like this or finish a painting in a day but I was rather successful this weekend!

 It was about 35 degrees Celcius this weekend so we sat inside for a few hours in the afternoon. around 4 we went out on the deck to enjoy the hot breeze. I set up my inks and painted till about 8:30. By that time I was swatting more mosquitoes than actually painting so I headed inside. Using a really cool candle powered LED light I completed the painting inside by around 10:30pm.

As I was painting my friend was building a new bird feeder/squirrel perch. This exact scene looks very different right now...so I might paint a new one next weekend when I go back up!

 This painting is now available in my Etsy shop!