another iPAD sketch

I wasn't happy with this "Oil Painter" app because I don't like the color choices, they're all too bright, and not happy with the tools.  They're too childish, and I think that was the original intent of the app, made for kids.  So now I've tried something more serious with it.  I think I can make it work with more practice to learn to pull more detail out and mix the colors I want from what they offer.   There isn't much choice for oil painting, this probably the only "free" app.  I've tried ArtRage free for a PC, not free for iPAD. Parrot from this week's WDE reference.

iPAD sketches

These are made in Paper by Fifty-Three, references from a book I've been meaning to use for 3 years.  I upgraded to get the watercolor tool, which acts like the thin, unsized paper I use for Chinese Brush painting.  Didn't get the color mixer because you can layer the watercolor.  Didn't seem that useful.  It's the only app I've paid for to date, the only one I've been 100% satisfied with (does everything I want it to do.)  Oh no, what will become of my sketchbook goals?

Productive weekend

Cold, rainy weekend.  Plans were to be elsewhere but weather cancelled those plans.  I baked!  The pot pie came out great as did the bread pudding.  I was too busy with the art to do biscotti today.

I knew I had alot of sketchbooks started and I knew I had alot of acrylic paint. I have alot of paper, too. After taking that Color & Design class in 2008, I went a bit crazy with the paint purchases.  They're getting a bit old now.  The earth colors/browns just aren't holding up.  I was taking stock.  OMG, that's alot of paint tubes. Half are the small, skinny tubes but I recently bought a color I thought I was out of--whoops.

So I filed away another sketchbook, #15.  I started the day with the three film canisters of left over paint from that 2008 class.  I get to end the day with just one--blue.  I made two new sketchbooks, actually they're reused/repurposed old notebooks.  I'm going to need more Mod Podge, hehe.

My art goals in the past few years was to (2009) use up paper, (2011) to use up sketchbooks, and to use up paints.  Okay, two goals for 2013:
  1.  To use up all the skinny paint tubes plus Galeria.  The Galerias were my starter paints.  I guess I have to learn to paint thick.
  2.  To use up all the sketchbooks that were on my 2011 list plus "Julie Sketches 2013."  They're the ones with the checks and list how many pages I have left to go.

Sketchbook #15 put away

This is the end of my first homemade sketchbook.  Mixed media.  I've been wanting to do orange & blue, I've been wanting to do circles.  I've been wanting to finish this sketchbook and put it away.  This also makes half of my 2011 goals list of 10 sketchbooks, I finished off five in the last two years.  Unfortunately, I'm such an addict I seem to start two for every one I finish.  What's up with that?

Just this morning, I've started making another home-made.  I had an idea while I slept to take one of my wire notebooks which is going nowhere and glue pages together with Mod Podge.  Then I glue drawing paper on top of that from a pad I don't like.  It's going to be my next "smash" book.

Grumpy Cat

I'm a new fan.  Acrylic in the Smash journal.  The other is a study in colored pencils in the 6x8 inch sketchbook.

Rainy, boring weekend

Something "soft" for this week's scavenger hunt.  Acrylics on 4x6 inch cardboard.  A little birthday present I got this year, first chance I've had to sketch it.

More Mola

This week's WDE references were from Panama.  I wish I could explore a country more in-depth but a superficial peek is getting to be more than my "travel companion" can handle.  I interpreted a couple WDE references to the Mola style.  The long weekend was exhausting, so these were relaxing.  Acrylic paints in the 9x12 inch wetmedia sketchbook.

How I spent my Thanksgiving Day

I didn't have to cook or serve or host.  Just hung around to help with honey-do's and I got some painting done.  Feels good!

Acrylic sketches on 4x6 inch cardboard for scavenger hunt 292.  There was more!  I also did a wooden elephant and a panda.

Weekend art

 Donkey & Friend - or maybe it's a mule, I can't tell the difference.  From this week's WDE invitation.  Acrylics in the Smash.

The Smash journal has really fired up my creativity.  Since I got the journal, I've been painting/sketching again in my other sketchbooks.  I had three other paintings this weekend!  I don't show them all, that's not the point.  I feel good when the art flows, good or not.  Oh, this is conte pastels in the 6x8 inch drawing sketchbook (one of the 2011 goals)

Abstract

Struggled all Sunday put paint down, any paint.  Then an hour before I go to bed it comes out in a rush.  Felt good, now I can sleep.  This is acrylic paint in the wet media sketchbook 9x12 inch.  I think this could develop into something.  I find it too dark but I was playing with balance & colors in GIMP and surprised me it's pretty well balanced.

Then had a bad Monday.   First I found these paint colors on the arms of my computer chair.  No biggie, it's an old chair and actually tonight I was able to clean it up with just alcohol.  But I get to work and I see a spot of white gesso on my green jacket.  I'll just scrape it off.  Then one spot leads to another and on the bottom side of the arm, ARRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!  I'm stuck with it.  I was able to get in to see the dentist today because I was eating mini tacos for dinner and there must have been a stone in the taco shell.  One of my porcelain crowns broke, AAARRRRGGGGGHHH!!!!  The tooth was still good, it's just cosmetic.  Whew, dodged a bullet and a huge dental bill. That would have made it the worst Monday I ever had.  Traffic was bad for a Monday and a federal holiday. 

Above my monitors at work I have my 2007 Oil Pastel copy of The Scream.  Whenever I want to scream I just look up and it makes me smile.  When I first hung it, one of my coworkers commented that it was wierd & creepy to him.  Soon after, one of the originals sold for $120 million.  One of the foreign girls told her husband, "Hey that's Julie's painting!"  He had a laugh.

Carabao

This was last week's WDE, acrylics in the 6x8 inch sketchbook.  I struggled with it and the elephant reference.  It shows. 

I went to the Philippines in 1987 and my uncle arranged a side trip to see the Banaui rice terraces.  Incredible manmade feat!  The brightest green I'd ever seen, even greener than Ireland.  So I was hiking down one of the mountains to see the terraces up close and there was a tribal village down at the bottom of the valley.  Halfway down as I was coming down to another terrace, I smelled this awful stench that wasn't toilet but definately fertilizer.  I turned around and it was a huge water buffalo staring at me.  It was knee deep in the water-filled rice paddy and munching on a mouth full of long grass.  They say smell is one of the greatest memories we have.  Just seeing this reference brought back that stinky memory.

DandyLion Roars

Acrylic in the self-made sketchbook.  I'm really happy with my acrylics lately.  Only 3 pages left.  Reference from this week's WDE.  I tried to upload there but WC login seems to be disabled.  Ahhh, that explains why nobody else has uploaded their WDE and why there's no new list in the Scavenger Hunt.