PAINTINGS OF SPAIN

I returned from my trip to Spain last week.    Most of the time was spent with friends from Alaska at Las Orchideas , a lovely villa (read about it  by clicking here)  near Valencia in the small town of Beniganim.   Loli and her husband Harold were gracious hosts.   Also, I spent a few days in Barcelona and Arenys de Munt where I made new friends  through the Servas organization which you can read about here.

Here are some of the paintings and drawings I did while at Las Orchideas.  They were all done on folded pages which I have sewn into a book

I drew these glimpses  in pencil on the train ride from Barcelona and painted from memory later...

 

This is the outdoor kitchen where many delicious meals were prepared.

This view from Loli's studio...

a bowl of figs......

These were growing in great number over the gazebo along with grapes,....

The first of 3 paintings of this monastery, perched on a hillside....

This view from the villa.....

and this view from closer....

This is the doghouse and carob tree....

A view from the bungalow porch....

A house on the hill above the villa....
  

in Beniganim.....

  The gardens were full of flowers .  The datura and jasmine filled the nights with delightful smells.






Some morning light


The window in my room....

 

and a table under the carob tree.

 

SUMMER POSTCARDS

Considering how many days without rain this summer, I don't feel bad about not getting out and painting much.   Here are a few things I've done.

                                    

On one of my trips to Juneau on the ferry this summer,  I painted this while waiting for departure from Juneau Juneau.

I've stayed a few times on my Juneau visits  with my artist friend Sharron Lobaugh  and this is the view from her front porch in Auk Bay.  Sharron and I will be traveling to Spain next month and it will be inspiring to be painting with her there.

  In July, a Fairbanks artist, Vladimir Zhikhartsev, showed up at my doorsteps looking for another painter and really gave me a shot of inspiration.  He is an excellent plein aire painter and fun and congenial person to be around..  I took him to two of my favorite places to paint.  He painted beautiful half sheet watercolors both times while I painted 2 or 3 little ones each time.

This one was at the beach.....

and this another at Good River where I also painted some in June.

                                          
This I did in June on a rainy day from the car with the windshield wipers going on and off.  The sun had come out for awhile and off I went with my paints and stool, but then the clouds came.  This tree is next to out airport.  It is a freak of nature with part of the tree having no chlorophyll.  It was saved when the runway was extended a few years ago, but had in the last month had its lower branches trimmed.

 

 Out my back door is a trail to the beach where I use to walk a lot, usually about an hour round trip.  I kind of stopped going the last few years, leery of bear  but have walked out with friends a couple of times in the last few month (bear spray hanging on my pack) and sworn to go more.  This was done quickly, but a nice reminder of how beautiful it is there.

F/V KITTEN

I finally finished the gouache painting I've been working on for weeks.   And the sun came out and it was over 50 degrees so I went out on my bike with my paints.  It was still quite cold with wind, but I found some shelter in the slough at the boat harbor and did this of the F/V Kitten, an old troller that has been beached for years.

My month of drawing almost every day ended yesterday.   I missed a couple of days, but feel good that I did as well as I did.   My drawing  ability was getting pretty rusty.  At the beginning of the month, I was using my eraser a lot.  I'm much more confident in my lines now. 

LUPINE

After working on a painting for several hours that I've been working on for several weeks, it was enjoyable doing this much faster, in less than a half hour.   I drew it first with a red micron pen and then painted with watercolor.

The lupines are late this year.... most everything is. 

MAY FLOWERS

All the sketches and little paintings (5 in all) that I've done to put here in the last few days aren't fit to be seen.  It goes like that some times. This is part of a project I've been working on that is more presentable.  I drew and painted 5 of these 9 in the last couple of days.  All the flowers seem late this year with our cooler than average temperature and rain almost everyday this month... but there is something new outside everyday if I keep looking.

FUSCHIA AGAIN

Here's the same branch of the fuschia as yesterday done a lot faster, in about 10 minutes; this time with my Lamy Safari pen and a wet brush.

FUSCHIA

I got this fuschia from the local nursery this week.  It is hugh and just starting to bloom.   I drew with pencil, and then decided to paint with watercolor. 

TULIPS AGAIN

 

The tulips, still on my kitchen table this morning.  I decided to paint them without first drawing in.pencil. I added the pen lines later.

TWO TUPLIPS

I was going to paint these, but got carried away with the pencil.    

BERRY PLANTS

This will be a little accordion book someday.  I drew and painted the first three plants while at the retreat in Juneau weekend before last.  They are all wild berry plants in bloom.   Today I added the 4th and 5th.....strawberry and kinnikinick, both from my yard.

OLD CABIN

This old cabin is a short walk from our house.  The folks who lived there passed away years ago and the property is now our little town's first cemetery.  I spent over an hour drawing and its not finished...... the old car was a problem.   I'll go back and work on it some more and maybe add some watercolor.

NOT DAY 10

That didn't last very long, did it?.... my promise to draw and post everyday for a month.  I went to Juneau last week and intended to get my drawings posted when I got back.  I scanned them on Tuesday but couldn't size them for the web which I do on Photoshop Elements.  I'm sure there is some other way to get the files small which I don't know about, but I haven't figured it out yet.  After reinstalling PSE and another version 3 or 4 times, and trying another similar editing tool,  I went to my much older Mac and scanned them again but that computer is too old for any browser that I can find that will load images to blogger.  A few other goofy things have been happening  on this newer than the other Mac, so I  decided to back up everything and wipe my hard drive and that I did yesterday.  

 So now I'm back in business with PSE and other things are working better too.   I guess I could go get the scans that I backed up or do them again, but I have decided to just start over today with the scans.   Well, maybe I'll put  just one old one here.  I spent the weekend with a talented group of  Juneau painters  at a retreat in the Jubilee cabin at The Shrine of St. Therese over the weekend. I painted this on Sunday.

                                  ink and watercolor 6x6 inches

I've stopped using the challenges from Everyday Matters.  I'm finding more inspiration now that I'm able to get outside more and flowers are starting to bloom.... though it didn't even get up to 50 today.
I'm sure the list will come in handy as I continue.

                                 ink and watercolor  4x6 inches

I'm going to have to admit to skipping a couple of days drawing, one on the day I took the ferry to Juneau when I left my sketch book in the lower deck in my car and on one of the days I was going crazy trying to make my computer do right.  But several days I've done more than one drawing so don't feel too bad.

DAY 9

My coffee table, one of many places of organized chaos in my house .


I'll be going to Juneau tomorrow and away from the internet, but will keep drawing and post next week when I get home.

DAY 8

Today, my watch. 

DAY 6 AND 7

Sundays challenge was to draw your favorite well-loved object.  I have lots of them, but my Sailor Pen was handy.

                       
And today's challenge was to draw a bottle, jar or tin from the kitchen.

DAY 5

 

Today's challenge is to draw your bed.   Our bedroom is small and I had to get right next to it to draw it.  As you can see, I went off the page and the perspective is off despite lots of measuring and erasing.

DAY 4

Today's challenge is a cup or mug.  Of course I chose the most complicated in the kitchen.  I worked over it off and on a few times today, even did a second one that I didn't like any better.  I used pen and ink and watercolor.

I'm doing these in a book I bought in Juneau last month.  Its a Loew Cornell and has an interesting paper.... pretty thin but handles the watercolor OK.

Day 3

Todays challenge is "purses, wallets or bags."  I drew this with my Lamy Safari with Sailor ink that doesn't bleed as much as most inks, and added blue watercolor.

LAMPS

 

 

Day two's challenge is draw a lamp.  I did the floor lamp first, then the  Ottlite on the left.  Later in the day I drew the one  on top which is a magnifying lamp.

A NEW COMMITMENT

With a bit of deja vu, I have resolved to draw or paint something everyday this month and put on this blog  I copied a list of 327 challenges from Danny Gregory's Every Day Matters group which you can find by clicking here.

I will use these at least to get me started.  The first challenge on the list is "Draw a shoe"

I drew these with my Lamy Safari EF pen and used a brush with water to bleed the ink.  This is a technique I'd like to get better at.

These shoes have been around for a few years.  There are holes in the soles but I still wear them just about everyday.

SKETCHES FROM MY TRAVEL JOURNAL

I returned from a 5 week trip to the lower 48 last month.  I visited friends and relatives in Arizona, Texas, and Florida.  As usual, I took my journal/sketchbook.  Below are some of my sketches.  I included some brown pages in my handmade book to encourage me to use gouache.

The desert across from my friend Mary's home in Ajo, Arizona....

 

 I was fascinated with the plants in the desert.  Here are some listed that I saw on a hike in Tucson and the Jojoba I brought to the house and painted...

 

 this tiny lupine, almost like the lupines at home but much smaller, from the desert near Ajo....

 

The mission church in Ajo, now a museum.... 

An afternoon and Canyon Lake near San Antonio, Texas.  

 

 In Lake Wales, Florida visiting my  brother, I found a wildlife preserve a short walk away full of unknown trees that I tried to identify.  I painted this that I'm pretty sure is Pignut Hickory.

Almost home, in Juneau, I spent a Saturday morning with the Plein Rein Painters.   Instead of facing the elements, we painted from a studio on Douglas Island across from town.

YET ANOTHER...

Another painting of the view from my studio window.  I started this one on Monday at about noon, and a little bit of sun was peeking through the clouds just above the trees.  When I painted in the trees a couple of days later, I covered up the sun.  Today, our 1 and a half feet of snow is just about gone after lots of rain and wind.

                                         watercolor, about 5"x7"

I'm suppose to go to Juneau for a few days on the ferry.  It couldn't land at the dock because of the SW wind.  Hopefully they wait out the storm which already is waning.