"Red and Yellow Bouquet" (oil pastel; 9" x 9")

"Red and Yellow Bouquet"

Art making is fun, but can be fatiguing.  You paint all day; by the end of the day you feel pooped out.  The last thing you want to do in the evening is more art-making.  That is why so few professional artists I know of sketch daily.  I can come up with only two names!  After a hard day of painting, which is in many ways drawing with a brush, you don't feel like picking up a pen or pencil and draw for fun.  You'd rather watch TV or read a book.  Or go to bed early.  Quite a few artists create illustrated travel journals, but don't expect them to keep it up at home. 

I am embarrassed to admit that I was not an exception.  Until a few weeks ago, I used my home-made journals as scrapbooks for printouts of my blog entries and family photos.  All I can say for myself is that I have been keeping a pictorial journal for more than five years; the current book is Vol. 42! 

But my beautiful journal books with Fabriano 140 lb watercolor paper were meant to be more than the receptacles of photo printouts.  I was supposed to fill my journal pages with drawings, paintings, and insightful comments.  Perhaps, that was the problem.  I may have been intimidated by the high-quality material; how do I mess it up with insignificant sketches?  A terrible dilemma it was. 

One day, I was rereading Danny Gregory's Creative License.  He said something about how trees died for us and that's why we must "waste" our sketchbooks by drawing things inside.  A light bulb went off!  I have stacks of sketchbooks, pens, and other art supplies that haven't seen the daylight for ages.  What am I hoarding them for?  For afterlife?  It was time to use them up!

Here are some of my daily sketches--some done from life, others from photos--I want to share with my readers.  Several led to paintings.  You see, creativity thrives with practice. 

"Flowers from My Garden" (pen and wash)

"Smithsonian Castle Rose Garden" (pen and wash)

"Limes and Lemon" (pen and wash)

"Pink Hydrangea" (watercolor and water-soluble crayon)

"Snow White and the Huntsman" (water-soluble pencil)

"After Shirley Trevena's painting" (watercolor)

"General Stonewall Jackson's Equestrian Statue" (graphite)

"Ducks" (Micron pens)

"Clock Tower at Ellicott City, MD" (Micron pen)

"Cherubs at National Gallery of Arts" (watercolor)

"Limoncello Bottle" (pen and wash)

"Flute Concert" (Micron pen, 5.5 x 7")

The very last image was drawn during my daughter's end-of-the year flute concert at the Levine School of Music ten days ago. I noticed a boy who was playing with his flute while sitting out advanced pieces. He was bored out of his mind; I wasn't because I was occupied! You may notice that some sketches are on a page with my blog entry or photo. I tried to be imaginative to come up with an image that fit the odd shape and shared a theme.

Now the question is this: how long will I keep up with my daily sketching?  A month, six months, a year?  I hope forever!

The Fruits and Vegetables Journal (pen and watercolor; 9" x 4")

Today I am sharing the first page of my new journal--"Fruits and Vegetables."  A great thing about doing a journal on the produce is that I can eat my models after I am done with them.  I couldn't do that with flowers, although I once tried to eat a rose when I was a child.  It smelled so good, but tasted funny!

I took a picture of my simple supplies for the project--a watercolor box with gazillion colors, a brush, a Micron pen, a mechanical pencil, an eraser, plus a 9 x 4" piece of watercolor paper.  Do I need all those colors?  No.  I once bought and tried many unusual colors, whose names I don't even remember, so I might as well use them.  The brush comes with a reservoir that you can fill with water--quite handy when you are travelling.  I sometimes draw first with a pencil when the subject is complicated.  Pineapples qualifies as such, as anybody who had tried to draw them would testify.  I have never drawn a pineapple before; it was a fascinating exercise. 

After I inked over the pencil lines, they were erased.  Then I finished with several layers of watercolor wash to achieve the three-dimensionality of the fruit.  When I have a few more pages done as well as the cover designed, I will bring the whole thing (30 sheets altogether) to a local "Staples" for binding.

Now every time I go to a grocery store, I find myself lingering at the produce section.  Wow!  Look at the form of an artichoke!  Radishes!  Carrots with their delicate foliage!  Have you seen the Brussels sprout stalk?  There are so many wondrous things in Nature.  To really see something, one has to draw it. 

Garden Flower Journal (pen and watercolor, 9" x 4" ea)

As some of you may remember, I make my own journal books with good watercolor paper.  With a full sheet (22 x 30"), I come up with six 9 x 9" pages for my journals, plus three 4 x 9" cards.  I didn't know what to do with them until I came up with a brilliant idea of making slender journals for whatever projects I felt like.  Thus was born the "Garden Flower Journal," from which I am sharing some pages today.

The idea was to keep track of the flowers growing in my garden and a nearby park through the spring (2009).  I drew directly with a Micron pen, which is waterproof, then loosely added a watercolor wash.  With the same pen, I also did the lettering and jotted down notations.  The unusual format of the paper made me work hard on the design of each page.

As I was looking through the pages of this journal the other day, an inspiration came to me.  Why not start a "Fruits and Vegetables Journal"?  Many vegetables and fruits are elongated.  Think bananas, cucumbers, green onions, leeks, zucchinis, bokchoy, etc.  As for fruits, I can line up strawberries, cherries, and so on.  For large, globular fruits like watermelons, I can slice them up.  How fun!  I will keep you posted.

Art of Journaling

I want to share with my readers a secret.  Not really a secret, since quite a few of my friends know about it, but a habit of mine.  Three years ago, a dear friend of my husband died of illness.  He was only in his 50's, a good man, funny guy, brilliant economist, terrific friend, you name it.  It shocked and saddened everyone.  It also painfully reminded me of the brevity and uncertainty of life.  So I started keeping a visual journal to celebrate life.  This was even before I discovered Danny Gregory and his Everyday Matters philosophy.  A mundane everyday does matter; life is no more and no less than an accumulation of every days.

The above picture is the front and back covers of one of my typical journal books.  I use good heavy watercolor paper, cut it to size (9" x 9"), and recycle my old paintings on paper as covers.  After laminating the covers, I take the book to a Staples store to get it spiral-bound.  Then fun begins.  I used to sketch in the book everyday, but couldn't keep up because of everyday responsibilities.  Instead of giving it all up, I switched to photo-journaling.  When I am traveling and find myself visually stimulated, I draw, collage, paint, and write in the book.