Rambling Warps

3 Watercolors

Pink Lemon

I did this in the restaurant last Tuesday while waiting for others to finish their food:

What, you thought they use yellow lemons & food coloring for lemonade?? THIS is where it's at, folks PINK lemons!!

And nope...not a pink grapefruit... I would have taken a photo of the lemon except 1: I forgot to and 2: a week later, the thing is moldy & I had to throw it out...was WONDERING what smelled in my bag...ugh..

Seriously, I didn't have enough of a selection of yellow watercolor pencils, and the pinks looked good, so I went with that!

Waterscapes on Weather Underground

These next two pieces are watercolors that I did from photos on Weather Underground... I've been fascinated by water reflections & glass & these two seemed look good subjects to start with... I was able to contact the photographer of the 2nd photo at this link but there was no info on the page about the 1st photographer. Caren does take some awesome photos! She said she paints in oils...maybe she'll do a painting of Tern Lake!

This is based on a photo was taken in Maine at a lakefront:

This is based on a photo taken in Alaska at a mountainous lakefront:

Since I wasn't sure whether it would be okay to host or link the reference photos, I'm holding off until I contact the webmaster of the website I saw them at...

Watercolor & sketch journals

I'll try to do a photo demo of a watercolor/sketch journal after my stuff from Jerrys Artsarama gets here... I ordered some Arches paper... I already have some, but only got one or two sheets. I also am going to be getting 12 inktense watercolor pencils and a Raffine Sketchbook, which looks to me to be similar to the Aquabee Deluxe sketchbooks...

An awesome book on how to make and keep journals... it has instructions for how to do the binding stitching... haven't had a chance to sit down with it yet.

Knitting & Fiber

So I don't get kicked off any of the knitting blog rings, here is a progress picture of my socks and a quick study of a (possibly pregnant?) llama that one of my neighbors owns:

Eventually I will get these done. The white yarn that you see is my place marker for my afterthought heel... I decided I wanted to give that style of heel a try!

The weird line in the middle of the llama's back was when we were at the zoo and I was going to do a drawing of a lion, but the lion moved... if I decide to do much more with this drawing, I'll white it out or something!

Feline Bath Fest

A few days ago, Liberty & Dumbledore were having a bath fest:

Until next time!

Oooooooooops! Watercolor book steps (no pix yet)

If anyone saw the entry about how to make a watercolor book, that posted publicly by mistake... I was just typing out the steps while the idea was still fresh in my head... that entry still needs pictures, which have not yet been taken... sorry about that!

But since I already posted the steps, here they are in case anyone wants them... pics to come later... I picked up some muslin and also some vinyl fabric which I probably will use for the binder... also need to figure out what to use for the board cover... perhaps a cheap used hardcover book that no one'll want to read...or the back of a sketchbook... or? (suggestions anyone?)

Steps for how to make a watercolor sketchbook without pictures & without a cover/binding:

I had several sheets of watercolor paper already divided in half by the tearing method, and only needed 1/8 of a sheet from each paper for the watercolor book... so I tore in half again and then tore that in half (the long way) and with several 5-1/2 by 15 sheets, was able to make a 7-1/2 by 5-1/2" watercolor paper book...

I folded each 1/8 sheet into 7-1/2 by 5-1/2 sections and then put 2 folios together to make a signature. I did that 7 times, to make a 28 sheet book.

Then I made the dots to indicate where to make the holes.

Then I drew the lines to line the impending holes up nicely

Then I punched the holes with a T-pin that came in my bookbinding kit

Then I took a length of waxed linen thread (which you can get from the bead section of various stores like Walmart, Michaels, JoAnn, etc) and threaded it into a tapestry needle...(actually found some hemp yarn that I might try...and MAY consider making this an open spine book)

Then I followed the steps of threading each signature until all signatures were sewn into the book...

I do plan to bind the book and cover the cardboard with some vinyl fabric that I found... even found some lacy vinyl fabric...this could be fun!!

THOUGH, one of the other EDM gals said that she uses her Moleskine notebook because it is boring looking & doesn't attract attention... mayyybe I'll bind the books after I'm done, although protecting the outter pages is a good idea...

Time for bed!

latest drawings & a handmade watercolor book in progress

Last Wednesday I did a few drawings, one was done at the homeschool co-op during story time:

I used the Fabriano 5" x 7" artist journal for the above picture. First I did the line drawing with a Rapidograph pen, which is filled with india ink made for that type of pen; then I used prismacolor watercolor pencils and Neocolor II water based crayons to put the color in & wet the color with a waterbrush... I wouldn't call this a watercolor picture per se: I guess you could say it is a line drawing with some color added for interest!

I was not happy about the way the water caused the paper to buckle, but it definitely is a nice book for ink drawings. It's very thick (lots & lots of paper), alternates between cream and tan paper, the description of the book says that it is Fabriano Ingres drawing paper (obviously not suited for watercolor).... I'm not sure if I'm going to do a whole lot with this sketchbook, but may buy some of the full sized ingres sheets to make one of my mixed paper books...

Here are two contour drawings I did of one of our cats:

I probably won't add color to these. You can see the buckling of the paper from the above storytime composition... this was done the night before I did the storytime comp...

I'll do a review of the different journals I got from Dick Blick Art Supplies some other time.

On Thursday when we went to the zoo. On the way to the zoo, I did a line drawing of Gary using my Rapidograph pen, and I did the drawing in my larger moleskine watercolor book:

Then I did one other drawing at the zoo in the smaller moleskine watercolor book:

Here is the reference photo:

I probably will add color to the last two drawings later on.

I think the waterbrushes that I got are pretty neat... the set I got was the Aqua Flow set... you can see the set here

Other people have sung the praises of the NIji waterbrush. I may try one of those someday, particularly the flat Niji waterbrush!

I also did some watercolor wash practice and gave this one to my son for his birthday:

I used one of the new cold pressed 140 lb watercolor papers for the above wash practice... I'm finding that I like strong color in my washes...

Handmade watercolor sketchbook

I used some of the watercolor papers that I have to make this book:

I got the instructions from the book on this website. I have the book (actually ordered the kit, which is pretty nice) and the instructions are clear.

I still have not decided what I'm going to use for the mull, probably muslin fabric. I'm not sure what I'll use for the binding either. I may see if I can find a cheap used hard cover book in good shape that I can use for the purpose!

More anon!

National Spinning & Weaving Week

I just found out about this through a note someone posted on the Spin-List (a Yahoogroups list) today... I think I'll pull out my Schacht spinning wheel today & see what is involved in putting the flyer back on... it's missing a piece, but not sure what... also may set up a new warp on my copper pipe loom... I already more or less have a design planned, just need to turn the drawing I started into a cartoon.

Maybe I'll incorporate some drawings of my spinning wheel or one of my small looms into one of the EDM challenges...will look over the list & see what's on it!

Bookbinding

Found someone who shared how to make her own art journal here and thought I would share a few bookbinding links:

http://www.suite101.com/lesson.cfm/18305/1780/1

http://www.mothteeth.com/bookmaking/

http://www.sff.net/people/Brook.West/bind/bindit.html

http://www.doe.state.in.us/olr/grantprojects/books/Coptic%20Book.htm target=

http://tobycraig.livejournal.com/29223.html

http://www.aboutbookbinding.com/binding/Making-a-Booklet.html

This site has a decent kit:

http://bookbindingfb.com/kit.html

There's several sites, but these have been useful or interesting to me!

My first journal was made using Stonehenge paper... I have not made the kit journal yet... it's nice blank paper, but I'd still like to find some lined paper that isn't too expensive...

Mail Happiness

The mailbox yielded 2 cool packages: one was a set of brushes, Robert Simmons Sapphire and Robert Simmons Expressions, 13 paintbrushes, and also a Van Gogh Water Colour Pocket box... I think this may be student grade paint, I'm not sure, but it'll be fun to play with...the little brush it comes with is cute: at first when I looked at it, I was like "where're the bristles???" and finally pulled the thing apart to reveal a nice liner looking brush... my question is how to put the thing back together without ruffling the hairs... carefully I guess?

Maybe I'll post some photos later!

Tomorrow I should be getting some stuff from Dick Blick, a bunch of papers, a couple of cool looking journals and other stuff... should make it a bit easier to go through the stuff in the Watercolor Greeting Cards book that I got last week... for now I'll try doing a bit with the Van Gogh watercolor set, but I lust for one of these: