It is term break here in the UK and my kids are home from school for two weeks. We enjoyed having their father around and abundant sunshine on Friday and going into London over the long weekend. Today he wS back to work and I took us to the local Oxford University Botanic Garden and the three of us sketched there for hours. So far so great with my creative nature loving kids. They never even asked to turn the TV on.
Botanic Studies. Happy Spring.
It may be rainy and grey in England, but there are still springlike moments to celebrate. Elements of spring are all over my daily art practice.
Mistakes, goals and challenges.
365 days of creativity for 2015, a month of daily blogging for March and April and 100 days of flowers on Instagram. It was only a matter of time before I missed a day of something. That would be blogging yesterday! Oops! Flat out forgot about it with everything going on and I am not going to waste my time feeling bad about it or using it as an excuse to quit. Instead I will think about sunshine filled playgrounds, spending time with my kids during the last day of spring vacation, scooters, butterflies, sketchbooks and drawing workshops. Mistakes happen.
Sketching Memories in Paris
Sketchbook keeping on vacation/holiday is one of my favorite activities. This morning I woke up and sketched a corner of the living room on our Parisian apartment. Memories of this trip kept forever in a precious book.
Paris bound!
Next time we are going to take the train to Paris! But it was a pretty uneventful flight and just long enough to start and finish a sketch.
Oxford Spring!
Is showing up more and more after a long spell of Oxford dull dreariness. Happy Friday!
Packing for France!
We are heading to Paris next week for the first week of our spring break and I am planning my sketchkit for the trip. I want to stay fairly minimal and not put too many choices on myself on what to use each day. Most days I will be with my family and sketching light therefor traveling light, but I have one lucky day in Paris by myself and can bring a more robust sketching kit on that day. What would you bring? My basics these days is a sketchbook that is big enough to comfortably use yet small enough to comfortably carry, a watercolor kit with a minimum of 14 mixing colors, a fountain pen with waterproof ink, a mechanical pencil, water brushes and a brush pen. We got a new camera for this trip and upcoming trips and I will be taking photos and using them as reference when I get back to my studio.
My maxed out sketching kit ready for Paris!
Etsy Feature : My own watercolors
I didn't have to go for for my Etsy feature today. My art is changing so much that I feel that I need to share it with my blog audience. For years all I did was print and I saw myself as a printmaker, specifically a woodcut printmaker with the occasional less than successful adventure in monotype or collage. But now I am drawing and painting daily and printing about once every week or two. Most of my drawings and paintings stay in my sketchbook, but the occasional one such as this one comes out on Etsy. Spring was in the air when I painted this abstract piece just last month. Now it is a gloomy rainy day but I am already feeling hints of summer coming.
Abstract watercolor.
Sketchbook Friday : Some of my favorite things from this week.
This week was better in nearly every way imaginable. Feeling positive about my new sketchbook and finally feeling comfortable to work in the large mixed-media sketchbook I picked up awhile back. Not letting the bad stuff get me down when there is so much good stuff in my life. I'm not even that sad about the lost sketchbook anymore because I know that my next one is going to be so much better. Highlights of the week were my super generous and thoughtful friends and other kind people, making a cool travel watercolor kit with stuff I had around the house and getting a new pencil case. The weather is lovely and I got to sketch a lot outside while my kids played after school. Starting to look forward to summer.
Big sketchbook page, DIY travel watercolor kit, new super awesome pencil case and the card and gift card from my thoughtful friends.
Coming Soon: Spring Studio Event
Loving all the buzz and interest in my blog and my new work. As a thank you come celebrate the coming of spring with my studio here in Jamaica Plain. I will be selling many pieces at a special rate, will be serving light refreshments and offering a printmaking demo. May is filling up super fast so Saturday June 7th is the planned date for this event. Sign up for my mailing list to receive an Evite for this event and others.
Welcome Spring!
Yesterday was the first day of spring. I love new beginnings. Longer days leading into summer. More time spent in local playgrounds with my young daughters. More bike riding. Less cold. More color in the city I live in to inspire fresh ideas in my art.
